Management 14th Edition by Leslie Rue,Lloyd Byars ,Nabil Ibrahim

Exercise 18

The Lines at Sam's
Sam Baker owns and manages a cafeteria on Main Street in Dawsonville. During his two years of operation, Sam has identified several problems he has been unable to solve. One is the line that always seems to develop at the checkout register during the rush hour. Another is customers' constant complaints that the size of the helpings and the size of the pie slices vary tremendously from customer to customer. A third problem is the frequency with which the cafeteria runs out of "choice" dishes. The final problem is that every Sunday at noon, when a large crowd arrives after church, Sam invariably runs short of seating space.
Sam had worked at other food establishments for the previous 15 years, and most of them experienced similar problems. In fact, these and other related problems have come to be expected and are therefore accepted practice for the industry. After all, Sam's former boss used to say, "You can't please everybody all the time." Sam is wondering if he should take the industry's position and just accept these problems as an inherent part of the business.
What other service-oriented industries can you think of that seem to take the same view toward their problems that Sam's industry does?