Juimiin had an unfortunate encounter at Tim Horton’s this morning on her way to a brat entertainment event.

It was nothing special in itself: just the purchase of a pint of milk for the brat in the drive-through lane. While expiry-dated a few days hence, the contents were already … er … expired. With a toddler as bitterly disappointed as you may imagine, she did not return to the store for the aggrevation of a refund. Instead, with her nerves fraying, she dropped by home for a milk tank top-up. This sort of thing probably happens all the time … in fact, did to me at a bagel shop near my work ex-office.

In any case, I couldn’t leave it quite at that. I found the franchise contact info:

731 Eastern Avenue, Toronto, ON M4M 3H6 Tel. : 416-466-3580 Category : Coffee Retail Directory : Toronto

I called, and waited for a manager to come on the line. The conversation went pretty close to this:

Hi, my name is …. and my wife bought a tub of milk in the drive-through a couple of hours ago.
And it was bad?
Yeah. You will want to check through your inventory to get rid of others like it.
Do you have the date stamp?
Yeah, August 9.
OK, thanks for the information, we’ll get rid of those. click

OK, any consumer relations specialists realizing what was missing from that?

Here’s a blunt hint: any appreciation by the manager of the situation from our point of view. We were out a buck or two, some time, and some peace of mind. These must not have risen to his level of consciousness — or at least he sure didn’t express any empathy, or apologize, or offer restititution. If this sort of thing is becoming common, watch out CA:THI stock holders.