I did a dinner shop at a restaurant that I really enjoy eating at and was looking forward to the event.
So many things went wrong that the report took me 2x the normal reporting time and it was difficult to find positive things to put next to all the negative things that were observed. I had many numbers on a scale of 1-10 that were a 2. I even had one section that I had to knock it all the way down to a 1 rating. I never had to go below a 5 and never in multiple areas. This was in the heart of the tourist zone and employee burnout was observed all around. I think the servers eyes were glazed over from lack of tips and grumpy sun burned tourists that were walking around a theme park all day.
I was checking my inbox the next day every hour waiting for the editor to reply as I was worried that I was too harsh in my deductions even though I enumerated each in the narrative.
When the email came from the editor and I opened it, all she wanted was one of the many extra problem photos that I took as I forgot to attach one of a badly bent fork!
The ACL editor summed it up best:
@ wrote:
I don't think you were too harsh. You witnessed several problems and were just doing your job by reporting them. Our clients are looking for constructive criticism, and they certainly got that in your report!
Thanks for your great report. It was a pleasure to review.
If your working for a good company, you can report accurately when everything goes wrong. Sooner or later it will happen to you too.