I Like Tim Horton's But...

I love Tim Horton's. Not for the donuts or the coffee (I consume neither), but for their sandwiches. They are tasty, reasonably-priced, and won't kill you as readily as food from McCrap or Burger Thing. What I DON'T like about Tim Horton's is the fact that their employees seldom ever get my order right. Part of the problem is that they hire employees who don't speak English all that well and therefore have a hard time understanding me. At the same time, most of these employees get by well enough. The REAL problem is with their point-of-sale (POS) system.

Their POS system is set up in such a way that you have to tell them all your sandwich add-ons at the time of purchase. So, if I want no bacon, no sauce, and cheddar cheese on my sandwich, I have to tell them up-front. I'm okay with telling them to add cheese up-front, since you're usually charged extra for that anyway. But what about the other stuff? They should take a cue from Harvey's and Licks' and ask you what you want on your sandwich while they're making it for you. Sandwiches are made on the spot anyway, so it's really no biggie.

In addition to having to tell them what you want on your sandwich up front, as soon as they ask you if you want a combo and you say "Yes", you are royally-screwed. If you want to add your cheese and no sauce AFTER you say "Yes" to the combo, good luck. The system makes it nearly-impossible to go back and change that part of your order, so employees end up having to either tell the sandwich-maker to add/remove things from the order themselves, or they have to start your order all over again.

Now, assuming that they entered your order in correctly, the sandwich maker also has a hard-time. The system is set up such that if you say you want two turkey sandwiches, the first one with cheese, no bacon, and no sauce, and the 2nd one with cheese, honey-mustard sauce, and bacon, their stupid monitor reads something like:

2 sandwiches
2 with cheese
1 with honey-mustard sauce
1 with no bacon

It's a total guessing game on the sandwich maker's part, and most of the time, unless you are standing right in front of them while they are making your sandwich, there is no guarantee that they will get it right.

Believe me, it took me years to perfect ordering my sandwich at Tim Horton's to MINIMIZE the screw-up on their end.

Tim Horton's, if you're reading this, fix your bloody system.