Big, expensive, salad
Today I paid $7.37 for salad at lunch. That might not be much for you – but we have a “corporate subsidized” cafeteria. It’s rare to pay more than $5.00 per meal. Milk and ice-tea are free, and we get free fruit (2 pieces) on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Anyway – $7.37 – I was shocked. That’s a full $2 more than I’d ever paid before. Our salad bar is a build-your-own deal, and the cashier weighs the salad and charges customers accordingly.
When the cashier said the price, I blurted out “Wow, $7.37?” She replied, “Yes, the plates weigh more than the boxes.”
Fascinating – I’d never heard that using a glass plate versus the Styrofoam boxes take-away boxes would make a difference. It shouldn’t. Isn’t the scale calibrated to take into account the plate/box??? Maybe it was a bad scale.
In the end, it was very busy, and I couldn’t figure out a good way to challenge her – I probably should have asked her to re-weigh it on another scale – so I paid the price and moved along.
Later I did the math. At 30 cents an ounce, that works out to 24.5 ounces or 1 ½ pounds of salad – spinach, mixed greens, broccoli, cauliflower, carrot shavings, sliced ham, soy nuts, sunflower seeds, raisins, and olive oil. OK, maybe it was 1 ½ pounds – but still!
For the record it was a damn fine salad. Tomorrow I try another cashier.
Anyway – $7.37 – I was shocked. That’s a full $2 more than I’d ever paid before. Our salad bar is a build-your-own deal, and the cashier weighs the salad and charges customers accordingly.
When the cashier said the price, I blurted out “Wow, $7.37?” She replied, “Yes, the plates weigh more than the boxes.”
Fascinating – I’d never heard that using a glass plate versus the Styrofoam boxes take-away boxes would make a difference. It shouldn’t. Isn’t the scale calibrated to take into account the plate/box??? Maybe it was a bad scale.
In the end, it was very busy, and I couldn’t figure out a good way to challenge her – I probably should have asked her to re-weigh it on another scale – so I paid the price and moved along.
Later I did the math. At 30 cents an ounce, that works out to 24.5 ounces or 1 ½ pounds of salad – spinach, mixed greens, broccoli, cauliflower, carrot shavings, sliced ham, soy nuts, sunflower seeds, raisins, and olive oil. OK, maybe it was 1 ½ pounds – but still!
For the record it was a damn fine salad. Tomorrow I try another cashier.
Comments