willclarke.net

(part 2 in a series)

A few days ago I was eating at Waffle House when I discovered an interesting claim. According to my receipt, there are over 3.5 million ways to enjoy Waffle House Hash Browns.

That seemed high. According to menu, there are only nine options for hash browns - scattered, smothered, covered, chunked, diced, topped, capped, peppered, and country - and three sizes, regular, double, and triple. I did my best to recall Probability and Statistics, the last college math course I took at Georgia Tech, and came to the conclusion that there should be 9! * 3. I entered that into Google on my iPhone, and got my result: 1,088,640.

I want to make a quick side note here: Google is a great calculator. I use it all the time, yet I’ve found that almost nobody knows this amazing feature. You can enter any mathematical statement into Google and it will evaluate it. It’s also great for all types of unit conversion, from “12 miles per hour in meters per second” to “1337 megabytes in bits” and even currency conversion based on current exchange rates.

But I digress. Based on my calculations, which I later discovered to be wrong (damn you Tech!), Waffle House was 2,411,360 hash brown possibilities shy of their claim. After consulting with my waitress, who claimed she didn’t know about any other off-menu options, I resolved to call Waffle House customer service the next day.

What follows is a video playlist of my interaction with Waffle House. Be prepared for nerdiness.

Also, as promised on the video, here’s the spreadsheet they sent me:

How Many Ways

It’s not a big deal, but why do cashiers insist on placing paper bills in your hand first, followed by coins? Think about how many times this leads to change sliding off the bills and causing a frantic change-chasing exercise. Even when you don’t drop coins, you typically slide the bills out from under the coins first to put them away in your wallet (since it is already open, because you just got bills out to pay them).

Wrong … Right

It’s not a big deal. I know. But why do it this way? There is no good reason! FUCKING PUT THE CHANGE ON THE BOTTOM!

This has bothered me for a long time. Sometimes as soon as I get the dollar bills from the cashier, I quickly take my hand away, or use my other hand to pull the bills out of the original receiving hand, forcing the cashier to place the coins in my bare palm. It’s my hope that by seeing how much better it is to place the coins into a customer’s hand - how it prevents slippage and droppage - the cashier will learn about proper change distribution. Sometimes it even leads to a conversation about the best money exchange protocol, and I leave in my wake an enlightened cashier. You see, I’m leading by example. I’m out there making life easier for you in small ways every day. You’re welcome America.