God I wish that was true, that would be awesome.smallharmlesskitten post=18.70218.799808 said:
The Customer Is Always Wrong
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After spending this past summer working as kitchen staff in a restaurant, it's enough to make me make sure I only ever work in one as a server, and even that wouldn't be much better.
Little bit of backstory before I get to the dirt: I worked in a buffet-style restaurant that works a bit differently. Basically, the server seats you and gives you a ticket. You then come up, fill your bowl up with veggies/meats/noodles etc, give it to us, we weigh it and write down the price on your ticket, as well as the number we're marking your meal down for. After it's cooked (taking anywhere from 8 to 15 mins) we, that's right, not the servers, bring you your meals. Needlessly complicated I agree, but that's the owner's problem.
What pisses me off about that entire system is when I explain it to people as I'm filling out the ticket, only to have them totally forget everything I just told them as soon as I walk away. Nothing worse than having about 4-5 hot plates in my hands and on my arms while they decided to argue with me about which number they are because they decided to mix up the tickets into one big pile.
Anwyways, 2 stories stand out in my mind:
1) I'm the only guy out manning the grill during a quiet afternoon. These 3 teenage emo girls (so sue me, I'm not a fan of 'em) come in and are seated. They don't come get their food for about 20 minutes, which normally doesn't bother me, but these girls are not only talking at a volume loud enough for the entire restaurant to hear, but they have the most obnoxious laughs I've ever heard in my life.
Anyways, when they finally get their food and I'm weighing them up, the last meal looks like it doesn't have any meat. Anyone with a vegetarian meal is entitled to a 10% discount that we stamp on their ticket, but not everyone knows this so it's customary for us to ask. So, I ask her very nicely, "Is this a vegetarian meal?" The girl then gets an incredibly indignant tone in her voice, looks pissed off, and says "No, it's vegan. Can't you tell?" Like I'm supposed to know this instantly. Anyways, having given in my two weeks notice a week ago, my distaste manifests itself as words: "I don't give a crap about what 'non-conformist' decisions you've made kid, I need to know if there's meat in it or not." She goes back to the table in a huff, her friends apologize on her behalf to me, life is good.
2) Similar scenario: I'm the only one on grill during a quiet afternoon. 2 girls come up to the scale. First one makes the transaction no problem. Second girl puts her bowl up, and yet again, I notice there's no meat and I ask her if it's a vegetarian meal. The resulting conversation goes as follows:
Her: Give me back my ticket!
Me: I just need to know if it's vegetarian so I can give you the discount.
She then yanks the ticket out of my hand, grabs her bowl, walks around me into the grill area (which customers are strictly not allowed to be in for safety issues), slams the bowl down on the counter, and walks away. Sure enough, it was a vegetarian meal, and I felt a little better knowing she didn't get the discount.
Little bit of backstory before I get to the dirt: I worked in a buffet-style restaurant that works a bit differently. Basically, the server seats you and gives you a ticket. You then come up, fill your bowl up with veggies/meats/noodles etc, give it to us, we weigh it and write down the price on your ticket, as well as the number we're marking your meal down for. After it's cooked (taking anywhere from 8 to 15 mins) we, that's right, not the servers, bring you your meals. Needlessly complicated I agree, but that's the owner's problem.
What pisses me off about that entire system is when I explain it to people as I'm filling out the ticket, only to have them totally forget everything I just told them as soon as I walk away. Nothing worse than having about 4-5 hot plates in my hands and on my arms while they decided to argue with me about which number they are because they decided to mix up the tickets into one big pile.
Anwyways, 2 stories stand out in my mind:
1) I'm the only guy out manning the grill during a quiet afternoon. These 3 teenage emo girls (so sue me, I'm not a fan of 'em) come in and are seated. They don't come get their food for about 20 minutes, which normally doesn't bother me, but these girls are not only talking at a volume loud enough for the entire restaurant to hear, but they have the most obnoxious laughs I've ever heard in my life.
Anyways, when they finally get their food and I'm weighing them up, the last meal looks like it doesn't have any meat. Anyone with a vegetarian meal is entitled to a 10% discount that we stamp on their ticket, but not everyone knows this so it's customary for us to ask. So, I ask her very nicely, "Is this a vegetarian meal?" The girl then gets an incredibly indignant tone in her voice, looks pissed off, and says "No, it's vegan. Can't you tell?" Like I'm supposed to know this instantly. Anyways, having given in my two weeks notice a week ago, my distaste manifests itself as words: "I don't give a crap about what 'non-conformist' decisions you've made kid, I need to know if there's meat in it or not." She goes back to the table in a huff, her friends apologize on her behalf to me, life is good.
2) Similar scenario: I'm the only one on grill during a quiet afternoon. 2 girls come up to the scale. First one makes the transaction no problem. Second girl puts her bowl up, and yet again, I notice there's no meat and I ask her if it's a vegetarian meal. The resulting conversation goes as follows:
Her: Give me back my ticket!
Me: I just need to know if it's vegetarian so I can give you the discount.
She then yanks the ticket out of my hand, grabs her bowl, walks around me into the grill area (which customers are strictly not allowed to be in for safety issues), slams the bowl down on the counter, and walks away. Sure enough, it was a vegetarian meal, and I felt a little better knowing she didn't get the discount.
I work at Dominos pizza, and I've got one hell of a lot of stories to tell. I have a water quality report thingo that needs typing up though, so I'll limit it to one for now.
Now this happened quite a while ago. These four Muslim blokes came into the store, looking a bit miffed. I was the the only one free at the moment, so of course I asked if I could help them. One of them tosses his pizza onto the counter, and demands a refund. I opened the pizza, and it was a beautifully made vegetarian pizza. The damn thing was almost perfect. So of course, I ask what the problem is. The guy just glares at me, and then literally shouts at me "THIS FOOD IS UNCLEAN IT HAS BEEN TOUCHED BY PORK!" or words to that affect.
Now, I take another look at the pizza, and I don't see anything. So of course I say "What pork?"
Now the guy points to the pizza, saying something about how stupid and blind I was. I looked closely to where he was pointing, and there was this tiny piece of bacon there. One tiny piece of bacon, not even a centimeter across. Now this guy shouts at me again, demanding a free pizza to replace it.
Nu-uh, not gonna happen.
Now, religious beliefs are one thing, but the whole point of the store was to make money. If there had been a substantial amount of bacon on that pizza, then we'd have remade it. But we were not going to do it for one tiny little piece of bacon. I said words to this affect, and all four of them started shouting at me, swearing and cussing and threatening me. I was starting to get rather worried because these dudes were getting real aggressive, but at that point that manager turned up to back me up.
Now, the guys started saying how stupid I was and insulting me for not giving them a new pizza. Except the thing that they didn't realise was that not only did the manager not put up with any shit, he was also my big brother. So he tore into these dudes, basically telling them to get out and that they were not welcome in his store any more, and that they had to leave immediately. The guys looked like they were about to jump the counter, until a few of the other dudes came to the counter to help, including my second brother who was also working at the store at the time. Now that stopped them from leaving jumping the counter, but they still refused to leave. So basically, my eldest brother, the manager, told them that he was getting the cops and went off to call them.
Now, this is were the muslim blokes act real dumb. Even though my brother had clearly called the cops, these guys at first refused to leave, then went outside and threatened drivers leaving the store, as well as threatening to smash up the cars in the parking lot. To the credit of the police, they turned up pretty damn fast. It took some 10-15 minutes for them to show up, and by that time me, my brothers, and a couple of the big brawny drivers were out in the parking lot basically stopping these dudes from getting violent. Now, the cop car pulled up, and out got the biggest damn cop I have ever seen in my life.
This dude was freaking huge. He must have been nearly 7 feet, and he was built like a brick shithouse. His arms were about as thick around as my thighs. This huge monolith of a cop levered himself out of the cruiser, took a few steps toward the four guys, points towards the exit to the car park and just bellowed at the top of his lungs "RIGHT! YOU LOT! CLEAR OUT RIGHT NOW!"
What followed was one of the funniest things I've seen. To a man, each of those dudes went pale, and they all bolted to their crappy little hatchback. I have never seen four people get into a car quicker than those guys. They tore off, and of course got pulled over and charged for speeding and dangerous driving. To this day that huge cop still gets a discount, because he's always the one the comes and helps us out with problem customers.
Maybe I'll post other, shorter tales of horrible customers another time.
Now this happened quite a while ago. These four Muslim blokes came into the store, looking a bit miffed. I was the the only one free at the moment, so of course I asked if I could help them. One of them tosses his pizza onto the counter, and demands a refund. I opened the pizza, and it was a beautifully made vegetarian pizza. The damn thing was almost perfect. So of course, I ask what the problem is. The guy just glares at me, and then literally shouts at me "THIS FOOD IS UNCLEAN IT HAS BEEN TOUCHED BY PORK!" or words to that affect.
Now, I take another look at the pizza, and I don't see anything. So of course I say "What pork?"
Now the guy points to the pizza, saying something about how stupid and blind I was. I looked closely to where he was pointing, and there was this tiny piece of bacon there. One tiny piece of bacon, not even a centimeter across. Now this guy shouts at me again, demanding a free pizza to replace it.
Nu-uh, not gonna happen.
Now, religious beliefs are one thing, but the whole point of the store was to make money. If there had been a substantial amount of bacon on that pizza, then we'd have remade it. But we were not going to do it for one tiny little piece of bacon. I said words to this affect, and all four of them started shouting at me, swearing and cussing and threatening me. I was starting to get rather worried because these dudes were getting real aggressive, but at that point that manager turned up to back me up.
Now, the guys started saying how stupid I was and insulting me for not giving them a new pizza. Except the thing that they didn't realise was that not only did the manager not put up with any shit, he was also my big brother. So he tore into these dudes, basically telling them to get out and that they were not welcome in his store any more, and that they had to leave immediately. The guys looked like they were about to jump the counter, until a few of the other dudes came to the counter to help, including my second brother who was also working at the store at the time. Now that stopped them from leaving jumping the counter, but they still refused to leave. So basically, my eldest brother, the manager, told them that he was getting the cops and went off to call them.
Now, this is were the muslim blokes act real dumb. Even though my brother had clearly called the cops, these guys at first refused to leave, then went outside and threatened drivers leaving the store, as well as threatening to smash up the cars in the parking lot. To the credit of the police, they turned up pretty damn fast. It took some 10-15 minutes for them to show up, and by that time me, my brothers, and a couple of the big brawny drivers were out in the parking lot basically stopping these dudes from getting violent. Now, the cop car pulled up, and out got the biggest damn cop I have ever seen in my life.
This dude was freaking huge. He must have been nearly 7 feet, and he was built like a brick shithouse. His arms were about as thick around as my thighs. This huge monolith of a cop levered himself out of the cruiser, took a few steps toward the four guys, points towards the exit to the car park and just bellowed at the top of his lungs "RIGHT! YOU LOT! CLEAR OUT RIGHT NOW!"
What followed was one of the funniest things I've seen. To a man, each of those dudes went pale, and they all bolted to their crappy little hatchback. I have never seen four people get into a car quicker than those guys. They tore off, and of course got pulled over and charged for speeding and dangerous driving. To this day that huge cop still gets a discount, because he's always the one the comes and helps us out with problem customers.
Maybe I'll post other, shorter tales of horrible customers another time.
OK, so they got bad, but I'm not sure refusing to remake the pizza was the right choice... I had a Jewish roommate for some time, and the religious pork laws are incredibly strict. He wouldn't have eaten the pizza either, nor would any of his family. It would have been one thing if the pizza had come in half eaten, and they wanted free food, but they came in with a full pizza asking for one that wouldn't be an affront to their religion. The size of the piece has nothing to do with it, in their religion, it would have been sinful to eat the pizza if it was slathered in pork fat, or if bacon dust had settled on top.
(Sorry to play Devil's advocate...what they did after that was pretty shitty, but their asking for a new pizza was completely reasonable.)
(Sorry to play Devil's advocate...what they did after that was pretty shitty, but their asking for a new pizza was completely reasonable.)
Never.Xhumed post=18.70218.799580 said:
I was 18/19 when I started it, and I was just happy to have a job while attending college making something like $8 an hour back in 1989. The thought of extorting money from people (especially when the cops were in there daily for their own film processing) never crossed my mind. I guess I was just stoked and surprised at the time how many nudies I actually saw.
I'd also like to think it just wasn't in my nature anyway to blackmail anyone. Even back then, I used to think about Karma....
Yeah, if it was my choice, then I'd have given it to them. But the thing is, that at that time the store was a coporate one, and we had to save absolutely every dollar we could. At that point the store was so close to being shut down that we couldn't afford any loss. There's two main reasons why he didn't just remake the pizza anyways:clarinetJWD post=18.70218.800710 said:
1) Remaking it would not totally guarantee that there was no miniscule piece of bacon on there. All our toppings are in cooled, open-topped containers. As you make, toppings get flicked around, and there's no way to ensure that there's no meat in the other toppings. And even if there's absolutely no pork on the pizza, there's still the cutter. We change the cutblades every half hour, and toppings can get transferred through. It can be avoided by changing to a clean one before said pizza comes out. But when you've got 3 ovens each pushing out 3 pizzas, with about 10 seconds to get them all cut before they fall out of the oven, it can be easy to lose track and forget to switch cutblades.
2) This is the big one: We'd have been happy to have gone to all the trouble of making sure they got an utterly perfect pizza, except for how rude and aggressive they were acting. With our old manager, you could be angry and shout if you wanted to. But insulting the staff was a big no-no. It's understanble that you'd be angry if your pizza was messed up. But the second you cross that line, you are no longer welcome in the store.
You wouldn't believe this but I actually have heard stories from the janitors at our Subway (it's inside the campus) saying that they have found that stuff, and I actually believe them since I've literally walked into bathrooms to find piss and shit all over the floor, in the urinals, on the wall, in the sinks, even in the mirror. (I have to wonder if there are scat/watersports orgies going on in there) I know one of our janitors who visits us is not only an Air Force veteran (who may be old enough to have been in Vietnam or Korea, I don't think it's an appropriate subject) but is RETIRED and is just working around here cause he wants to. He doesn't have to deal with this - he should be with his grandchildren!COR 2000 post=18.70218.798956 said:
Seriously guys, you're all 18 years or older - you were trained not to do this when you were eighteen MONTHS old. And not only do we have a retired man on the janitorial staff, but we also have a few students who have to clean up after whatever rituals you're having in the bathroom.
One extremely rainy day, while working at Best Buy, we had this teenage guy come in. He was pretty obviously stealing stuff, but it wasn't on camera, and my managers might have been lazy. Several of us are watching this kid walk out of the store with stolen merchandise (we didn't really care), but after walking to his car in the pouring rain, he realized he locked his keys inside. Moron had to walk back into our store with the stolen stuff to use our phone.
Jump ahead two years. I'm working at Jack-In-The-Box, and I'm miserable. The job started out kind of fun, but went downhill in a hurry. One night, I'm completely stressed out and exhausted because we were getting slammed, and it was just me and my manager. I hear the bell that someone pulled up in the drive-through.
Me:"Welcome to Jack-In-The-Box, may I take your order?"
...Silence...
I repeat myself twice, and still silence remains. Finally, I hear him speak in his extremely slow, stoned out of his mind voice, "I don't have enough money." I'm already frustrated from the night, and he's been wasting a few minutes sitting in the drive-through not responding. So I say, "OK, so get out of the drive-through." He flips shit. "Hey! You know what! Fuck you man!" Extremely frustrated, I reply, "Fuck you, too." His madness escalates. He starts screaming all this tough shit at me like "Come out here and say that!" and "You know who the fuck I am?" He eventually pulls around to the window and starts banging on it. Dude's in his boxers, going crazy, and my manager finally threatens to call the cops. He left after the threat, but not before counter-threatening to come back and kill me. I quit a few days after that.
Not my experience, but a marvelous story nonetheless: My cousin, Matt, worked at a small grocery store that just opened up just outside of Chicago. Their big pull was that they delivered all their groceries to people. Their policy was, for obvious reasons, that all drivers were supposed to do was set the bags on the floor in the kitchen and have the customer sign the receipt. Matt gets to one house and rings the doorbell. The whoriest old lady opens the door. The woman was of completely unknown age, but she was covered in make-up like she was looking to turn some tricks. She's holding a cig and blowing the smoke in my cousin's face. She asks him to come inside to the kitchen. The woman starts to order Matt to help her put the groceries away. There was even a turkey, still in its Styrofoam tray and plastic wrap, she tells him to put straight into the oven, ignoring the obvious hazards. After he finishes, already freaked out, Matt asks her to sign the receipt. She points to a poorly lit hallway and says, "My husband'll sign for it." Matt thought he was going to get killed at this point. The hallway she pointed to had two doors on the left and two on the right. Matt looks in the first door on the right...Nothing...He looks in first door on the left...Nothing...He gets to the second door on the right, and there is a full sized manikin sitting upright in a chair with a person's face printed out on a piece of paper and glued to its head. Utterly horrified, thinking she believes this doll to be her husband, and that he was about to get axe-murdered, he turns around. The second door on the left had the actual husband, sitting at his desk pretending to do work to avoid his wife. He angrily signed the paper and grumbled obscenities at Matt. My cousin bolted the hell out of there like there was no tomorrow.
Jump ahead two years. I'm working at Jack-In-The-Box, and I'm miserable. The job started out kind of fun, but went downhill in a hurry. One night, I'm completely stressed out and exhausted because we were getting slammed, and it was just me and my manager. I hear the bell that someone pulled up in the drive-through.
Me:"Welcome to Jack-In-The-Box, may I take your order?"
...Silence...
I repeat myself twice, and still silence remains. Finally, I hear him speak in his extremely slow, stoned out of his mind voice, "I don't have enough money." I'm already frustrated from the night, and he's been wasting a few minutes sitting in the drive-through not responding. So I say, "OK, so get out of the drive-through." He flips shit. "Hey! You know what! Fuck you man!" Extremely frustrated, I reply, "Fuck you, too." His madness escalates. He starts screaming all this tough shit at me like "Come out here and say that!" and "You know who the fuck I am?" He eventually pulls around to the window and starts banging on it. Dude's in his boxers, going crazy, and my manager finally threatens to call the cops. He left after the threat, but not before counter-threatening to come back and kill me. I quit a few days after that.
Not my experience, but a marvelous story nonetheless: My cousin, Matt, worked at a small grocery store that just opened up just outside of Chicago. Their big pull was that they delivered all their groceries to people. Their policy was, for obvious reasons, that all drivers were supposed to do was set the bags on the floor in the kitchen and have the customer sign the receipt. Matt gets to one house and rings the doorbell. The whoriest old lady opens the door. The woman was of completely unknown age, but she was covered in make-up like she was looking to turn some tricks. She's holding a cig and blowing the smoke in my cousin's face. She asks him to come inside to the kitchen. The woman starts to order Matt to help her put the groceries away. There was even a turkey, still in its Styrofoam tray and plastic wrap, she tells him to put straight into the oven, ignoring the obvious hazards. After he finishes, already freaked out, Matt asks her to sign the receipt. She points to a poorly lit hallway and says, "My husband'll sign for it." Matt thought he was going to get killed at this point. The hallway she pointed to had two doors on the left and two on the right. Matt looks in the first door on the right...Nothing...He looks in first door on the left...Nothing...He gets to the second door on the right, and there is a full sized manikin sitting upright in a chair with a person's face printed out on a piece of paper and glued to its head. Utterly horrified, thinking she believes this doll to be her husband, and that he was about to get axe-murdered, he turns around. The second door on the left had the actual husband, sitting at his desk pretending to do work to avoid his wife. He angrily signed the paper and grumbled obscenities at Matt. My cousin bolted the hell out of there like there was no tomorrow.
Yeah, he was understandably angry, but he did seem too angry. People need to learn that if you're nice to someone, they will be a lot more likely to try and please them.Parattchi post=18.70218.803213 said:
WOW, this thread's still going?!?! I was posting here back in the early stages lol. Guess there's a LOT instances out there of terrible customers.
Go for it, this thread is great and a lot of people (probably) would like it to keep going.King Hippo post=18.70218.804097 said:
Oh my god. That is just so awesome. You sir, have made my day! I am in debt to you!smallharmlesskitten post=18.70218.799808 said: