Most people don’t “think process”

There’s a pizza place close to where I live, run by people from Italy. I mean, they have the appropriate accent, body language, casualness, etc. When you call them up, they’ll answer the phone with, “Buonasera.” When you give them your order, they simply confirm it by stating the ETA, as in, “OK, 20 minutes.” That’s it. They never ask for or note down a name. I did notice that, and it had never caused any issues in my past experience with the restaurant.

With the current lockdown, they adjusted their setup to handing out takeaway pizza over a table that is blocking the restaurants main entrance. With warmer weather and the restaurant’s proximity to the park, people queue up to order and they wait around for their order to be ready.

Now, maybe you can guess the problem already: the only thing the folks inside can and do announce is which kind of pizza just got put in a cardboard box. Especially when it’s already a bit hectic – at pizza rush hour – it is also that more than one person or party has ordered a, let’s say, “prosciutto”, right? I mean, that’s to be expected. And in that case, it does lead to confusion and the waitress getting slightly stressed out.

I personally can’t help but immediately think of the process level. I want to step in and say: “Get the name with the order, earlier in the process, so that you can shout, ‘Prosciutto per Nico.’”
Then, no more confusion: “Il problema è risolto”.

Thing is, most people don’t “think process”, and I can’t help it.