Sometimes the real drama is in the lobby

I never went to business school , but I know something about customer satisfaction. Most of us do, of course. Every time we buy something, whether a product or a service, we’re all put in the position of consumer critic. But what my wife and I went through today was something special.

See, we go to a lot of movies. And sometimes we see two or three in a row. Which means that we sometimes buy something from the concession stand. Today, while watching “Twisted” and “Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights” back to back, we got a good lesson in how NOT to treat a customer.

Here’s what happened. My wife buys a medium drink , we go into “Twisted” and enjoy — “enjoy” being a relative term — the movie. Then we come out. Hungry, we go back to the concession stand to buy something to eat. So my wife goes up and asks for a refill. She figures that the refill would be free. The counter girl, not sure what to do, consults with her manager, who says … no. No free refill.

So my wife asks why not, and the manager says that free refills go only with LARGE drinks . So, my wife says, I wasn’t told that. I thought, she says, it went with all drinks. I’m sorry, says the manager, my employee should have told you. But she didn’t, says my wife. Then, she says, How about this? I’ll pay the difference between the medium drink and the large. That comes to about $1.25. No, says the manager. The free refill goes only with a LARGE drink. But that’s unreasonable, says my wife. We’re here all afternoon and we plan to buy other things. No, says, the manager.

So we leave. We walk to food court of the adjacent mall and buy lunch. We talk it over and figure out that if we were still at the theater we would have bought: a hot dog (for, say, $3), a medium popcorn ($4.25), and the $1.25 that we had offered to pay. The total: $8.50. That’s exactly how much the theater was out just because a manager wouldn’t bend a rule and give a customer a break.

That’s so clueless that even if the manager were to read this she likely wouldn’t think that she’d done anything stupid. As I said, I didn’t go to business school. But even I understand that much.