TCBY - Frozen Yogurt, Frozen Service

Perhaps frozen is too harsh as last night was my only experience with TCBY in the 21st century. I recall as a kid of the 80's that TCBY was ultra popular then and growing up in the hot, humid environment of Florida, it was almost expected that I'd visit TCBY once (or more likely, twice, a week).

Last night I found one and was surprised they were even around anymore. (I hadn't seen one in probably 10 years and only then, they were still down in the tropical Florida climate.) I'm not going to say the service was completely bad, as I found out that TCBY's service model in the 21st century is "self-serve." That includes the yogurt, which comes out of devices that look like the ones that churn out that cheap soft serve stuff you might find at some Chinese restaurants (or Jason's Deli) and the toppings, which shockingly are not really covered or temperature condition controlled. That's not a service issue, but kind of a health issue, but since this is not a health blog I won't go into it.

Anyways, I know what you are thinking: Jonathan, is your self-servicing of frozen yogurt so bad that you are now calling yourself out on your own blog? Nope, my skills are up to par with the exception of some yogurt making it over the edge of my cup. My wife's skills were up to par too.

Now what happened that relates to the purpose of this blog is that I paid for our cups and we sat down, not far from the register. (The girl behind the counter was very friendly and we were friendly to her, so we thought all was cool, while we ate our tasty treat.) Soon, I heard her comment to a co-worker "this is going to be a slow tip night." I must have spun around like a person about to be attacked from behind and surveyed the counter for any tip jar. I saw one and had not noticed it before. It probably was there, but I was so intently concentrating on buying the yogurt, which not only did my wife and I procur from the machines ourselves, then add our own toppings ourselves and then were told to weigh it ourselves on a scale, that I just didn't notice it. Trust me, I worked for tips eons ago and am always conscious of that in a service industry. But in my defense, what exactly was I tipping for?  The literally 30 second scan of my credit card?  No exaggeration, it was that quick? I mean she was paid probably minimum wage which is normal but she wasn't a server in a restaurant or a coffee diva or dude who actually served me my coffee. It's obviously expected in a coffee house and I am more than happy to do so, but at TCBY where I did all the work? She wasn't necessarily rude about it and even pleasantly said goodbye, but it remained with me, making me feel guilty for not tipping someone who frankly did no real service other than her job, which was a 30 second job at that.