Food service...you know where this is going

The BBQ Pit
1

Anyone else in food service? I know this has been pitted before but dammit, if you have not worked behind a counter or waiting tables you should NOT be able to walk into a fucking restaurant/coffee shop with a fucking chip on your shoulder and expect the server to give a damn about your “needs”.

I work at a Star-shmucks type place which doubles as a school store in my college. All I have to deal with ALL NIGHT LONG are whiny, anorexic girls, dressed like hookers who want their sugar-free, vanilla, decaf chai tea latte with soy milk, and if you DARE tell them that they should have fucking come in BEFORE midnight (when we close), they look at you like you’re the bad guy. And, holy shit, if we run out of skim milk, HEADS WILL ROLL. Let me make this perfectly clear: I have no control over what we stock other than telling my manager that we’re out of something. DON’T get your $50 panties in a bunch just because I tell you, “I’m sorry, but we’re out of skim…I can make it with %2 milk if you want?” I am NOT trying to make you fat, ok? Nothing would give me greater pleasure than seeing you waste away on nothing but caffeine and cigarettes, but if we don’t have skim, I can’t fucking help it.

And another thing: when you KNOW that we close at midnight, do not come in at 11:59pm expecting to get served if there is a line. You wouldn’t even think of doing that at a restaurant (or maybe you would, you Gucci-worshiping bitches), and you shouldn’t do it here. Yes, I know you have a big, important paper to write and desperately need caffeine because your methamphetamine dealer didn’t make bail. I have homework to do too. That’s why I’m trying to get out of work on time, you bottom-feeding frat boy and/or sorority slut. Don’t walk into the fucking store when it is obvious we are closing. Or one of these days I’m going to ram that bottle of diet Sprite into your nose after shaking it vigourously.

And now I’m spent. Other food-service brethren want to vent on this thread? What makes YOU want to give customers a good, hard slap upside the head at work?

2

Well, those who haven’t worked in food service have no way of knowing what kind of job it is.

Anyway, what always pissed me off the most was people who talked down to me because, as a guy working at a pizza place, I was obviously some sort of retarded chimp incapable of normal human interaction.

-Johnny B., who has waited tables and manned counters, and vows never to do either ever again.

3

[Customer is always right type]
Oh no, if you close at MIDNIGHT, you close at MIDNIGHT! NOT 11:59, and you’re the worst worker that ever lived!
[/Customer is always right type]

Okay, now that’s out of the way.

4

Customer “whats bigger a whole or a half?”
me “…”
Customer “do you have plain white milk?”
me “…”
costomer "what comes with that (insert special of the day that clearly lists everything it comes with)
me “…”
yeah management hated me, customers who werent brain dead loved me, and my coworkers thought I was nuts.

customer “I want my money back this is to hot to eat” (spicy hot mind you)
me “well miss what did you think the HABANERRO HOT SAUCE was going to do to your food when you poured it on like ketchup?”

I worked at a place in a mall, it was real food but still served in a fast food environment. in some ways really cool, in others bleh, customers suck.
“show me someone with a deep seated hatred of all mankind and I will show you a person who works in retail”

5

Coulda been worse.

When I worked pizza back in college, I used to dread working Saturday nights.

Because at least one Saturday out of the month, you could pretty much guarantee that this one particular manager would show up about fifteen minutes after closing, drunk off her butt, with her boyfriend of the hour, and insist that we switch the oven back on, get all the stuff back out, and make her a &%$# pizza. To order.

It did not matter that doing so pretty much put our closing back a good hour or so. She was drunk, and she was management, and by ghod, she was going to have a pizza if it harelipped the Pope.

It felt really good, quitting that job.

6

Actually, I thought the OP was going to be bitching AT food service workers, not commiserating with them. But I loved it anyway.

7

never worked food service, but I worked at a pet store.

Once, a customer was leaving the store 10 minutes after close. I unlocked the door to let him out and suddenly the door was pulled open and someone says, “No, you’re not closing yet” and walks in.

Stupid manager says, “it’s ok”. The guy then spends the next 45 minutes poking around the store. Granted, he bought an expensive piece of coral but since I wasn’t paid by the sale and never got overtime, I didn’t get much benefit.

We had posted store hours for a reason.

8

I’ve worked food service and other retail, and if someone came in at 11:59, they STILL came in before closing. IMHO you should serve them (especially if you are still being paid for however long you stay–if you’re not, then all bets are off). As for supplies being out, I’ve said it JUST ran out and sorry about that. They can bitch all they like. No skin off of my nose.

In the case of the guy holding the door open while letting someone out, well, I’ve had that happen too. What we did was inform the person that we were closed. He could get what he wanted, but he had to be out of there as the manager had a prior appointment he had to be at. Customer grabbed their stuff, paid and left.

9

I’m reminded of the goddamned little old ladies that would start hanging out in front of our store an hour before it opened, peering in the windows. And then, when their 10-minutes-ahead-of-any-real-fucking-time watches showed it was opening time, they’d start tapping on the glass and knocking and hollering and violently tugging on the doors.

10

When I was working at DQ, one night we had some people come in a few minutes before closing. They then proceeded to eat a leisurely meal (of ice cream – how the hell can you stretch an ice cream over half an hour? Especially DQ ice cream?) until it was half-past eleven. (They had a little child with them. WTF?) We were basically closing the store around them, trying to give them the hint; finally, when it was impossible to do any further work around them, the manager told me to ask them to leave. They were offended!

11

A: The longer you work in customer service the more bitter and hatefull you come to be towards the entire human race. The rude, demanding, idiots just overwhelm all the really decent folks.

B: The economic reality of this America makes it very likely that you will work in customer service at some point in your life.

which leads to:

C: The vast Majority of people in this country hating people in general.

We are Doomed.

12

Today we had some Princessy little fag ask for “sweet mustard”, which technically doesn’t exist, so we asked him to clarify. He just repeated “sweet mustard”, oblivious to any synonyms the item might have, and got angry when we put honey mustard on his sandwich. We had to make him a whole other one. Turns out he wanted plain old French’s mustard.

Maroon.

13

???

http://www.pinetel.com/~half/clients/hcmustard/

14

I laughed, but somewhat true, NotBob. I found myself hating people back then, but now that I don’t have a job that makes me work with customers I feel much more calm. :smiley:

As for that “fag” remark, please make sure that you discern between the two Lolas when y’all come in here to hang her. :smiley:

15

Worst worker that ever lived, eh? That’s hitting me where it hurts. jaded chuckle

Anyway, I should have clarified…this is in a college building, so the doors to this place **never ** close. It’s a bar setting surrounded by a lounge area, with students coming in and out all of the time. If they see that they are not going to get to the head of the line by midnight, and yet proceed to get in the line ANYWAY, this is when I have a major urge to slap them and tell them that it’s just…fucking…rude. Yes, if they are at the head of the line at 11:59pm, of course I’m going to serve them…albeit with bile coursing through my veins. Fuck, I’m usually the sap who serves people at five minutes past midnight, especially if they’re a good customer who politely asks and doesn’t abuse my generally charming nature. It’s the people who do this over and over again that make me understand why the non-student workers HATE students.

And the thing that irks me the most is that I’m a DAMN good employee. Even though this is just a crap job that’s getting my textbooks paid for, I take pride in what I bring to it. I’m raging on this board only because I would never bitch at the customers, even when they’re rude and obnoxious shits. There are GREAT customers too…but if I talked about them here, this wouldn’t be the Pit, now would it?

16

I think you need to get past the idea that closing at 12:00 means you’re walking home at 12:01. Closing times are listed for the customer, not the staff, if a customer shows up before closing time, they should be served, even if there is a bit of a line. If they show up at 12:01, you should feel free to tell them you’re closed. Like a grocery store line, at midnight, you should tell the last guy on line that he’s the LAST and nobody else will get served.

There is a level of reasonableness here of course, people shouldn’t be hanging out at the DQ, forcing the staff to hang out with them. If they are hanging out, you should do what matt did and just close the store right around them, then kick their asses out when it’s time to go home.

17

I hear you. And you know, after ten years of waiting tables and bartending, I always try to be as polite and understanding as possible with the folks behind the counter. And you know what? I get good service. And I get extras–I get little things free sometimes. If I pull up to the drive-through coffee place and I’ve just missed closing, I usually get told it’s no problem (when it is a problem, I smile and say thank you anyway and I come back tomorrow). I almost never have a problem with service. Being nice pays off–you’re happy, I’m happy, and the world is sunshine and puppies and kittens.

These folks who bitch and moan and complain and demand that the world center around them will never be happy. Sure, sometimes a manager will let them shop for an hour past closing. Sure, they piss you off, and keep you late eating ice cream all night. But they’ll never find their regular order hot and ready to go as soon as they get to the counter because you made it for them when you saw them coming. They’ll never find an extra order of onion rings in their bag, or occasionally be comped the couple cents extra when they order a shake with their combo meal. They’ll never be warned by the swamped hotel desk staff that the first couple of rooms are finally cleaned and available a little earlier than they thought, so get up to the desk now.

Worst of all, they’ll never see anything but fake smiles when they go into a store, and all their lives they’ll bitch about service, and what ever happened to “the customer is always right?” and don’t these bastards want their business? When getting good service is so often a simple, easy thing.

They’re living in their own, self-made hell.

18

I remember my junior year in high school I worked for Pizza Inn. One Friday night it was myself, another waitress and the cook working. (The other two people didn’t show up). Right after the football game we got hit with about 60 people that wanted to dine in. I swear it was hard to keep up.

It didn’t take to many braincells to figure out there were only three of us trying to serve 60 people. Most of the groups were rowdy but understood the delay. I remember a family of three that came in and sat down after the masses. It was perhaps 5 minutes before I could get over to take their order, because of having to serve drinks to the other tables and taking orders. When I finally got to the threesome, the lady was so damn rude and hateful to me, she made me cry. I was shaking so badly from being chewed out. When I brought their drinks to the table I sat a soda in front of the kid, put an ice in front of her spouse, which made the tray off balance and I ended up dumping the ladies iced tea in her lap. I brought her a towel to wipe up the spill, with a zillion appologies. When their pizza came out I had the other waitress deliver it.

I didn’t mean to dump the iced tea on her, but in a way perhaps I did. She was abusive. I really felt sorry for her husband because I am sure she embarrassed the hell out of him with her outburst.

19

My sister used to work at Wendy’s back in the mid-1980s. Her situation was the opposite (the customers were cool about it, but the manager was a dickhead in her case). I remember when she complained about an incident that happened one night. She was closing and one of her jobs was to break down the salad bar (which Wendy’s doesn’t have anymore). A group of people had been lingering over their meal for 45 minutes past closing time. Apparently, one of the Ten Commandments of the Wendy’s operations guide was Thou shalt not breaketh down the salad bar until all customers hath departeth from the premises, regardless of how long after closing time it is. She had a “by the book” manager who followed every policy and procedure to the letter. My sister got tired of waiting for this group to leave as all her other work was done. She finally decided, “hell with it”, and she approached the group of people who apparently had nothing else to do that night. She politely asked them if any of them would be going to the salad. They politely told her no, that she could go ahead and break it down. Her anal retentive manager observed this exchange and proceeded to give her a major ass-reaming. “You NEVER ask a customer that!” he barked at her, followed by his chapter-and-verse quoting of the policies in the guidebook, or something to that effect anyway.

It seems you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

20

Arggh!!! This kind of attitude INFURIATES me! Just because you’re going to spend money in a store doesn’t mean you fucking own the employees!

“No, you’re not closing yet”? Fuck you, buddy. You don’t get to dictate what hours the store is open. Take your over inflated ego and walk it right the fuck back through that door, if it’ll FIT.

What’s even worse is the pussy management who lets them get away with it. That’s the only reason they’d even attempt to pull this kind of asshole move, if they’d gotten away with it before. And there’s no "just this once about it, either. You give 'em an inch and they’ll sure as hell grab for the foot.

I was once a manager of a retail store in a mall during the Christmas rush (shudder). This mother and daughter team made a purchase and left right at closing. No problem, I let them out and locked the door behind them. About 10 minutes later I hear a tap on the glass door, it’s the mother and daughter from hell. I open it a crack and they tell me they want to exchange whatever it was they bought. I decided to be nice and let them in to do the exchange since I hadn’t yet shut down the register. They then proceeded to take about 20 minutes to browse a grand total of 5 alternate types of product. They finally chose what they wanted for the exchage, I did the transaction, and they left. This whole thing took about 40 minutes. I started closing the register down and what do I hear?

The sinister “tap tap tap” of the mother/daughter team from hell at the window again. I mouth “we’re closed” and turn back to close out the register.

TAP TAP TAP. They’re not giving up. I walk up to the door, unlock it and open it a crack, to tell them we closed a good 45 minutes ago.

“But you let us in before!!!”

“Yes” I told them, “But I’ve already closed the register down, and we officially closed 45 minutes ago, my sales associate and I would like to go home at some point tonight. I let you in before to be nice, now I’m going to have to ask you to come back tommorow, during our regular business hours.”

“But it’s your JOB!!”

I was absolutely dumbfounded. Apparently, they thought my sales associate and I slept on cots in the back of the store.

“Um, yes, it is my job, during normal business hours. This may come as a shock to you, but both my sales associate and I have families and lives outside of this store that we’d like to get home to. We can’t do that until we close the store.”

The looks on their faces were priceless. It appeared they genuinely had no idea retail workers were actual i]people* that had lives outside of their stores.

That was a sad day for the retail world. :frowning: