Smile and say cheese! But wait, not at a Pizza Hut

So among other things, us writers like to blog about our experiences in the hopes of passing on some great wisdom to the reader. Let me take you back to a time, only some few days ago, when my dad and I stepped into a Pizza Hut. Everyone was really nice and the atmosphere of the dining area was exceptionally well done. We went in to pick up our order that was called in ahead of time.

Here's where it gets fun though. While there, I noticed a sign for a customer survey that didn't make sense. It said that if you completed a survey, you entered into a chance to win either an iPod or $1000 cash. At first inspection, this seemed really silly because who wouldn't want the cash (even if they wanted an MP3 player) because they'd have plenty of money to get that and have extra cash in hand. So I did what any modern person of my age did: I took a photo of it and uploaded it to Twitter for my friends to see. Obviously, I didn't take the photo to make a big deal at all, and in fact hadn't yet verbally acknowledged it. I wasn't trying to be sneaky about it, but even my dad didn't realize I had taken the photo.

As we waited, I come to find out that the cashier who cashed us out did in fact see me take the photo and immediately ran off to get her manager. The manager then in fact called her district manager. She then storms out of the kitchen and approaches me to ask if I took a photo. I explained that yes I did, and when asked of what, pointed to the sign. I told her it didn't make any sense to me and finding humor in it, sent it to my friends. She promptly told me to delete the picture off my phone. Now I could have been a smart ass at this point, and was seriously considering it, but I politely told her I wasn't going to do that. She continued to insist I did. The conversation was turning into a parking lot, so I ended it with a simple, "It doesn't really matter, anyways, as I've already published it on the internet."

This is where it gets great. She immediately stops talking with me, calls the District Manager back again, and without even a "Hello" promptly informed him in a frantic voice that it was already uploaded to the world. I couldn't help but smile at how amazing technology is, never realizing the culmination of power in my phone would one day work together to really upset this manager. Sensing defeat but not yet ready to give up, she asks me again what would possess me to take the photo. I tell her I though someone would be crazy for taking the iPod when cash would both pay for a new one and leave some extra pocket change. I then took the offensive and asked her to show me where on the outside of the building it was posted that photos were not allowed in here. Oddly enough, she couldn't provide an answer ;) For the record, it didn't say anything.

Now we come to the point of the story when I must confess my dad is awesome. He's 50/50 about incidents like this. One thing he might yell at me for what I was doing, and something that seems to be the exact incident causes him to go after the other people instead. This whole time he had been uncharacteristically quiet and I began to worry that his watching me patiently meant I (even at 24) was about to get told off for being stupid. Then he slowly turned to the manager and gave the following speech:

"My boy used to play in soccer. His team had good days and it had bad days. But afterwards, we'd come to a Pizza Hut and let the team work off the excitement. As a parent, I would take his picture with the team. [dramatic pause] Should I delete those photos too?"

She agreed that no, he wouldn't have to delete those, and realized the check-mate in the discussion when it came to my photo. Now it's time to move in for the kill... really drive this point home. He continues,

"You see, I'm actually quite embarrassed. You're telling me my son and I did something wrong in your store, but you never allowed us the chance to know what unique rules you had. So what other policies do you have that I should know as a customer so I don't find myself in this situation again?"

I love my dad. It's that calm sarcasm that makes someone feel really silly when they put the situation into proper context that makes him great. She wouldn't ever say that I could keep it on my phone, but at this point she also realized it was time to stop asking me to delete it. Realizing this was done, we asked for the corporate phone number. Instead, she gave us the District Manager's cell. I admire her persistence in not fully meeting our requests.

We called Mr. Olsen on our way to the house where he in fact clarified that he was afraid a photo taken would "sensationalize" their product / image and thus the reason for no photos. When posed with the soccer boy contradiction, he didn't have an answer though. Once more, my dad was allowed to keep those precious photos of my youth. To be fair, he did also clarify that the iPod was won in a drawing once a day, and the $1000 cash was a once a week survey prize. At least that makes sense.

It's funny because in my tweet of this incident, I never once mentioned the company name Pizza Hut. After this all happened, I knew a blog post with their information was needed. My hope is that this post is sensational! So what did we learn from all of this? Apparently, you can't take a picture inside of a Pizza Hut. This is an answer I would have never known the question to. I wonder what other "policies" they have that they do not inform their guests of. Pizza Hut.