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JongnoGuru
Joined: 25 May 2004
Location: peeing on your doorstep
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 Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2005 5:36 am Post subject: The Guru Stole Andrew's Donuts! |
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[Didn't want to hijack Andrew's "Lotteria/Dunkin Donuts point cards" thread]
If the Dunkin Donuts in Andrew's thread weren't (as I gather) in Busan, I might be willing to trot over there in person and make direct inquiries. Perhaps other Davers in that area might pay them a visit. If only to verify things.
If it's a case of one branch not cooperating while others do, then it would seem rather easily remedied with a few phone calls. If it's a nationwide policy, not as easy, but potentially more fun for those of us who get off on firing random, image-defiling spitballs at big corporations. The Guru wants to know.
The Guru wasn't going to drag this old donut out of mothballs. But since I can no longer read the other thread without thinking about this...
Hey, Mr. Donut Man!
Many years ago I was staying at a very down-market flop--- er, inn.... in Japan, sharing a room with first one and then two other penniless travellers. Myself and an emaciated lodger named Martin would rent an old rusty bicycle -- just one -- from the owner of the establishment, and we'd ride two-up every morning to the nearby Mr. Donut outlet. Martin would be sitting on the seat, and I'd have to perch myself on the pedals the whole way, as there wasn't room for both of us to sit.
We'd get there and sidle up to the counter alongside the usual butt-crack-of-dawn customers -- liquor-breathed Japanese businessmen who looked like they'd slept in their suits, and punch-perm punked-out yakuza molls. Skinny Martin and the Guru would then place our standing order: ONE coffee roll, ONE jelly-filled something (the highlight of Martin's morning being to pick which flavour of jelly), and TWO cups of (free) hot water. We'd bring our own off-brand teabags for this purpose. Sometimes we'd splurge and order a 2nd TWO cups of (free) hot water.
With that sumptuous repast behind us, we'd climb back on the rusty, creaky, hard-as-*beep*-to-pedal-with-two-passengers bicycle and wobble back to our palatial digs. There we'd all plan our days, which typically consisted of washing clothes, showering, checking to see if anyone's parents or employers had by chance wired any money, and helping this one Iranian kid who was trying to learn English with the help of stack of coverless Peanuts comic books. ('Hey Guru, what does "psychiatrist" mean?' 'Merhdad, so help me, when I get some money, the first thing I'm doing is buying you a damn English-Persian dictionary!'  'No, Farsi.' 'Okay, a damn English-Fartsy dictionary!')
Oh yes, our "home entertainment centre" -- now that system was the talk of the town!  It consisted of my 4-yr-old Sony Walkman and a crappy pair of mini-speakers that Merhdad had rummaged from someone's garbage one day, along with a mini colour TV that someone at the inn had swiped from him. I never saw it, but everyone said it had a really clear picture-- much better than the old relic the innkeeper provided.
And our musical library -- man, talk about extensive! I think we had a grand total of three cassette tapes -- my Smiths home-pirated compilation, a Neil Young tape we found at the inn, and Martin's once-funny, subsequently-torturous "It's a Thai Smurf Christmas!" (Not sure of the actual title, but that's what it became known as.)
Well, I guess even the Japanese have their limits of patience and graciousness. And I guess we had finally tested them, with our whopping two-donut orders, our endless requests for cups of (free) hot water, and our all-around moochiness. The staff started to behave ever so slightly less gracious than usual in taking our orders, and on a few occasions gave us a not-quite-a-full cup of (free) hot water for our smuggled-in teabags.
Well, by jingo, that did it! Why, the nerve of those cheeky little *beep*!! Enough, we had all decided one fine day sitting on our furnitureless floor, bored out of our brains, and whining about heartless parents and employers, was enough!!! 
I had a small portable electric typewriter with me (who didn't in those days?) upon which I hammered out our verbose, flowery, epic-length paean to the god Mr. Donut (addressed to his Tokyo headquarters) over which we sprinkled, like the finest confectioner's sugar, elliptical hints that the customer service levels at the (can't remember the location now) Branch might not be up the usual high Mr. Donut standards the world has come to expect.
Oh, how I wish I'd made a copy of that thing -- we spent hours crafting it, and it went through countless revisions. I remember we closed with our all our names and signatures, and a revoltingly cheesy "P.S.: Keep those coffee rolls coming!  " We posted the silly thing to Mr. Donut HQ in Tokyo, and by the next day had forgotten all about it.
The next weekend, I was kicking around the room, Merhdad was probably giggling about Charley Brown's kite-flying mishaps for the 400th time, and Martin was off taking a shower. Then came a knock-knock-knock on the door -- It's the innkeeper... a bit early for cleaning the rooms... No -- there's a group of people behind her. Damn, she's talking and I'm barely understanding -- Martin's the Japanese speaker among us...
I decide to hold them off... gads, what a mob! about 10 of them... youngish guys & girls... And I send Merhdad to fetch Martin . Crap!... Martin's only taken a small towel with him and refuses to come back to the room with all these strangers (including some very tasty young gals) standing out in the hallway.
I'm getting upset, not being able to understand... Martin's being a pill, shouting questions & answers down the hall, and these young Japanese strangers are looking all around our humble abode ('So, this is how the barbarians live...hmmm....'). And just then I'm starting to recognize some of these bright shiny faces -- didn't place them out of uniform... It's the freakin' morning staff from freakin' MR. DONUTS!!!! 
They're all dressed down in their weekend "play clothes" and bookbags. I'm thinking, 'Damn, did our letter get them all fired, and now they've come to kick our barbarian arses for it???  ' The innkeeper's going on and on, and I'm shouting now at Martin to get the *beep* back here and start making with interpretation, pronto!
Suddenly Martin comes charging down the hallway, clutching a damn small hand-towel with both hands, flies past the crowd, into the room, BAM!, slams the door. Grabs a dressing gown, and back out into the hallway we go. The shift manager comes up and reads a prepared speech (long apology, Martin says), they do a big group "sorry bow", and then they pull out two HUGE boxes of donuts!!!
At this point, we're apologising our arses off, feeling really bad about that damn letter, never expecting it would be taken seriously, or understood, or even read! And it was awful that the whole staff were ordered -- on their day off!! -- to come track us down and apologise. AAKKKK!!  
We were so surprised and weren't feeling good about it. We set the boxes over in a corner and then spent the next hour trying to convince ourselves that we deserved to eat them. 'We ... we deserve it, don't we? Sure we do... I mean... don't we?' They lasted us a week, but oh man, we gorged... GORGED ourselves.
Last edited by JongnoGuru on Thu Apr 28, 2005 8:45 am; edited 1 time in total |
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eamo
Joined: 08 Mar 2003
Location: Shepherd's Bush, 1964.
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| Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2005 7:35 am Post subject: |
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| Good one JG. |
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Plume D'ella Plumeria
Joined: 10 Jan 2005
Location: The Lost Horizon
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| Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2005 7:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Too funny. And did you ever buy the Fartsy dictionary for Merhdad?? |
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weatherman
Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2005 7:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Wonder if it could happen in Korea? |
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Zyzyfer
Joined: 29 Jan 2003
Location: who, what, where, when, why, how?
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| Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2005 8:29 pm Post subject: |
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| Those poor employees! You bastards! |
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hellofaniceguy
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Location: On your computer screen!
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| Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2005 8:47 pm Post subject: |
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The heck with DD..it's Krispy Kream all the way!
Besides...I have to maintain my physique! Round..... is...... a..... shape! |
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captain kirk
Joined: 29 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2005 5:59 am Post subject: |
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Friggin' hilarious post. It reminds me of being lost and twenty, or is it found and too close to the truth/essence to be able to make sense of it to anyone under thirty, and therefore invalid, and so feeling lost. Huh. Good thing I'm old and not lost anymore, maybe.
But, man, those Japanese and they're professional conduct are just out of line! Handing dogs like you free donuts. That's like having an albatross around your neck...and all for being misguided and literate lost in a sargasso sea of whose country is this, anyway? It was your duty to enjoy the donuts, and grow up because of them? Huh! |
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Dispatched
Joined: 08 May 2004
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| Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2005 6:17 am Post subject: |
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Excellent story!
Great move (and funny as hell) writing to headoffice to voice your displeasure at the level of service!
Had I have been one of the workers I would have been rather pissed that I'd lost part of my weekend to a couple of bludgers, each donut would have been carefully licked (and of course caressed on various parts of my body) just to show my displeasure!  |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2005 4:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Oh my god! Great story. What was it like to be an expat/esl type before the Internet? |
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JongnoGuru
Joined: 25 May 2004
Location: peeing on your doorstep
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| Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2005 7:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Zyzyfer wrote: |
| Those poor employees! You bastards! |
Did I mention that one of the two boxes -- at least a dozen donuts each, baby! -- was stuffed with nothing but coffee rolls!! Our very favourite! mm-MM! those went down a treat!
We had no idea who they were. Thought they must be looking for somebody else and had the wrong address. If anyone had just said "Mr. Donut" right off, then I'd've known. But without that, and without their Mr. Donut hats and uniforms on (and some must have been kitchen or delivery crew, because there were some utterly unfamiliar faces) this was a nondescript group of Japanese suddenly showing up at our room. And then there was the several days' lag between writing our letter and their visit. We'd no clue.
While none of them looked obviously bitter or annoyed about it, I'm sure they'd all rather have been elsewhere on their day off. Actually, some seemed quite curious and interested in our lowly digs... they were all wide-eyed and checking the place out. What they saw were clothes hanging everywhere, one entire wall was papered floor to ceiling (by a previous guest) with naughty manga pages and phonebooth hooker ads, and I had some "modern consumerist sculptures" hanging from the ceiling. Martin, sort of a proto-Mithridates in that he was always learning two new foreign languages at once, had piles and piles of books and papers scattered on the floor. And sitting off in one corner is this Iranian kid with a towering stack of Peanuts books beside him.
I'm sure that our initial puzzlement was surpassed by the curiousity and amusement of our unexpected Japanese guests. And I have to think the sight of skinny Martin and his border-line streaking incident must have made the annoyance worth their while. I wonder if any of them even remember the episode... seems unlikely that would be the first or last time they've ever been called to participate in such things, whether for Mr. Donut or any other employer.
| Dispatched wrote: |
| ...Had I have been one of the workers I would have been rather pissed that I'd lost part of my weekend |
Me too. It certainly was never our intention to drag anyone out -- let alone the entire morning crew on their day off -- to deliver us a formal apology in person. We thought there was a very small chance of getting a typical corporate form letter in response, apologising about nothing in particular (being a corporate form letter). But honestly, we just didn't expect anything to be done at all.
To us, it was a seemingly harmless diversion that had little to do with the likely impact, and everything to do with taking our minds off our sorry selves and relatively grim surroundings for a few hours. We figured the matter was all but dead from the moment we posted our letter. We'd had our bit of schoolboy silliness, and that was it. Back to griping about money that was supposed to arrive but hadn't, talking about girls and food we couldn't afford, and listening to Merdad struggle through another compilation of Peanuts comic strips.
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| each donut would have been carefully licked (and of course caressed on various parts of my body) just to show my displeasure! |
Had you been one of the two girls at the Mr. Donut counter -- the taller one -- I don't think any of us would have complained too much about that.
| mindmetoo wrote: |
| What was it like to be an expat/esl type before the Internet? |
Serious, are you? Okay, think of life revolving around hotels and post offices. And fax machines and post offices. And fax machines located in post offices. And 'international telephones' in post offices. And avoiding having to place international calls from hotels.
Think lightweight portable typewriters and little bottles of correction fluid that constantly dry out, and correction fluid-begrimed fingers.
Think more business travellers than tourists flying around this region. (Absolutely true of Koreans.)
Think almost no Mainland Chinese visible outside of Mainland China.
Think thick billowy clouds of cigarette smoke during the entire flight, except from (or was it to?) the U.S.
Think of an impossibly advanced Japan that seemingly had generations of time to kick back and enjoy life before Korea or China came anywhere close to catching up. (Japan never did slack off, though the others have made tremendous progress nonetheless.)
What was it like to be an ESL type then, before the Internet...
I would think that Japan was the big market in the region then, while Korea and elsewhere were essentially bit-players but growing fast, no? I'm just guessing from personal impressions and unscientific observations. But I will say, like many Westerners visiting Korea then, I would more commonly be asked if I were a missionary than an English teacher.
Korea was, to my mind, more "normal foreign country-ish" in those years. The ex-pat community here was certainly much smaller than today, but (excluding the US military) also more diverse and... balanced? The mix here would probably be not so different than what you'd find in any smallish Western country, like Chile or Portugal or Spain or Denmark, or in an Asian country like Malaysia. (still, just guessing)
You wouldn't see all that many foreigners riding public transit then, but if you did, you wouldn't automatically assume they were a teacher. We'd go out to the clubs, hotel discos, student hangouts, GI bars -- all over the city -- and there wasn't a single place that ever felt like "English Teacher Party Central". Not a one. Considering there were hundreds if not thousands of English teachers in Korea even back then, I'm sure there were lots of them out and about. We just didn't know which ones they were. |
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