They probably have no mechanism for doing so without docking some slack-jawed teen’s meager check.
A similar thing happened for me when I worked for a place whose name rhymes with Hay Kart. What a hellish place to work.
We were required to do a price check on every item when a customer claimed it was marked wrong. We had to call back to the department and get the initials of the person in that area if, indeed, the price was wrong. We had to do this every single time, even if we had just called and gotten approval for the same item two minutes ago, because “something may have changed” (though what that might be, we were never told.
It was apparently the policy of this place to advertise a sale price and neglect to change it in the computer. It’s pretty frequent, actually, among grocery stores and other chain stores. (There’ve been a couple “Dateline”-like specials about it.) Many customers will just shrug off a few extra cents. Not all of them though-- there are some who would rather die than surrender that nickle, and they will let you know it in short order. They are usually the ones who stare at you as if they caught you trying to steal from their purses
Well, this one time they had a special on a certain brand of soap. A friendly couple had a bar of it in the items they were purchasing, so I had to call for a price check.
It was also the policy of this store to understaff the floor, which meant that employees had to cover several areas. It was also drilled into us that You Never Walk Away From A Customer. I can imagine the poor employee back there, sweating bullets while I repeatedly called for a price check, stuck helping somebody find something they had no idea was located because they usually work in houseware, but today they’ve got them working health and beauty and pets.
The couple were very nice-- we chatted pleasantly while we waited, but eventually, even they started getting a little testy. Time dragged by. People stormed dramatically from my line, outraged by my incompetence. I called every thirty seconds, which, if you’re being glared at by twenty people, is a very long time. Did I mention it was also store policy to understaff the registers? Yeah-- we had a lot less lines open than we needed, and they were starting to pull people from the already understaffed floor to open new registers. It was at least five minutes, because I know that I called ten times. I counted, and this is not a situation that you easily forget. The natives were getting restless, and I was running out of lame small talk.
Finally, the manager marched over to my area, demanding to know why I was calling over the intercom so much. I explained that I couldn’t get anyone to call me back for my price check on a bar of Dove.
The manager looked at me like I was not only insane, but functionally retarded. “Just give it to them!” she exclaimed, stuffing the bar of soap into their bag. She apologized for the wait with many what-an-idiot looks in my direction.
I wanted to kick that bitch. Like I wouldn’t have been fired, possibly prosecuted, if I gave away merchandise. But life has been its own revenge. I saw her last week when I went in there, still working the same job, her expression even more sour than it used to be.
I don’t know if the stereotypes about shops in China are true, but they should become standard here. In only a few instances, of all the things we buy every day, do we ever need to really ask a question about an item other than the price. And even that is exceedingly rare. (This of course excludes things like cars and plasma TVs. I’m talking stuff we buy everyday.)
1.) Don’t fucking ask what’s on a sandwich at a fast food joint. See that big, color picture of it staring at you? If you can’t see the tomato, don’t waste my lunch minutes barging in to complain that you didn’t want it on your sandwich. I’ve made it a point to not slam my head in a sliding door and consequently I can see the 'mater. Get the fuck out of my way and deal with your stupididty on your own time. You’re dealing with a large, rushed, hungey man already in a less-than-pleasant mood at he prospect of dealing with your kind on my way back to the office. Keep it up and I’ll eat the fucking thing just so I have an excuse in court for plowing into your dumb-ass.
2.) (Repeated because I feel so strongly about it). Decide what the fuck you want before clogging the line. If you can’t go to a Burger King or McDonald’s without being overwhelmed by such exotic offerings as a “Big Mac” or “Whopper”, shoot yourself in the forehead with a very low-powered gun. And use soft bullets. Trust me. Based on your cranium, I’m sure you don’t need armor-peircing hollow points. Goldfish testicles should suffice.
3.) If you take your kids to the place, and there is even the hint that someone will enter the queue before you’re done, do this. (And, yes, I expect you to constantly scan the door for anyone coming in.) Keep the kids, and yourself, out of the line until you get done coaxing from the spoiled shit what he wants. I know he’s your precious angel and needs to be rewarded often for being the BESTEST EVAR11!!!1! SNOOKIE-MUMS!!!1!!!. Goddamnit, teach the shit a lesson in civilized life that he isn’t the center of any of our universes. Just yours. I feel bad for the kid that you’re raising him, but he’s a reflection of you in 20 years, so I feel a little hatred anyway. Sit the kids down, gather the orders, and get in line yourself. Are the kids paying? No. You are. Anyone other than you is a pain in the ass for everyone else. Don’t want to leave the kids alone at the table (8 feet away)? Bring a friend or go to a place that has a waitress. Or find something in a less shady area of town.
4.) One I hadn’t thought of till now. And this is the worst. This is cause for severe beatings of anyone that perpetuates this shit when I finally wrest control of the world. If you insist on trying to round up 6 hyper kids excited to finally be treated to a hot meal, while being too young to have any sense of public decorum (thanks to your dumb-ass daily example), DON’T ANNOY EVERY FUCKING SOUL IN THE PLACE CHASING THEM DOWN INDIVIDUALLY SO THEY CAN ORDER THEIR MEAL THEMSELVES!!! FUCK!!! Order it for them. They still get to eat it. You still get to pay for it. If they aren’t interested enough in standing still and would rather play with each other (as humans children do you twat), making them order their food like “Big People” do is an excersice in mental masturbation and validation for you and you alone to show how mature your heathens are. “Oh, Marge! They can order their own food and everything!” Let the 6 year-old earn the money for the food and you can brag. Otherwise, taking pride in a drooling human pointing to a menu item is just sad. (Maybe this applies to the coin-purse folk as well.)
Know what I’d love to see? What would get me into a fast food joint more often? The Soup Nazi[sup]TM[/sup]. From Seinfeld. Know what the fuck you want before you get to the order taker. Don’t get to the poor kid then decide to look at the menu. Deathly allergic to mayonnaise? Understand going in the place that the chicken sandwich comes with it. If your health is so important research the fucking fare before you leave the house. Call a friend. Consult your clergy. Then order extra.
Fuck it. I’ll cover the extra quarter.
Wow duffer, you seem to feel more strongly about this than I do. I wonder if you’re as forgiving of cashier mistakes.
Almost to a fault. Unless the cashier is a raving ass clown. I’ve worked retail and know what they put up with every day. I make it a point to be nice to them.
A hanging offense. Same goes for “big people” at ATMs and telephones.
I’ll agree completely that chasing down the little fuckers so you can find out what they want should be done BEFORE you’re ready to order. However, I think you’re off-base on the “kids ordering their own food” thing. It’s a fast food joint. Since it’s been established in other threads that fast food joints are the only places parents should take their young children to eat ( :rolleyes: ), that’s also the place where they’re going to learn to order their own food. I agree that there are entirely too many soccer-moms whose children are basically just an accessory which goes well with the couch and whose accomplishments are nothing but a reflection on THEM as an AWESOME PARENT. I wish on them at least one future trip to jail to bail out poor little Carson/Caitlin. They’re not who I’m talking about.
I’m really sorry your power-lunch is going to be cut 30 seconds short because my kid is learning to order his own food.
Fuck. I’m a big liar. I’m actually not sorry at all.
Last week, my husband dealt with a “little cutie” which answered the phone. He was calling a co-worker to inform him of an emergency in the prison at which they work.
“Little cutie”, the co-worker’s five-year-old daughter, answered the phone. I could hear my husband’s side of the conversation.
“Hi . . . may I speak to your daddy? Is he at home? I need to talk to your daddy. Okay, then, can I talk to your mommy? Is she home? Your daddy or your mommy-- can I talk to one of them? Okay, then. Can you take a message? Can you tell your daddy what I say? Tell him his boss called. I need to talk to him. Can you remember that? His boss. From work. You need to tell him to call me back, okay?”
Guess what? The co-worker never got the message.
Oh just knock it the fuck off, duffer. Someone with your anger problems shouldn’t even be eating fast food anyway, your arteries need a break.
Little kids belong at McDonalds. That’s where they have PlayLand, that magical enclosed habitrail system of diaper whiff and mysterious puddles. A reasonably safe environment where they can burn off energy during the winter months, without irritating people in shopping malls, movie theatres, or civilized restaurants.
No, I’m not going to leave my 2-yr-old twins to fend for themselves at a table - Lord alone knows what they might think up or where they might disappear to.
And no, I’m not going to stay home all winter just on the off chance that some grump might become even grumpier as a result of exposure to my darling (yes, they ARE cute) children.
If you want an efficient dining experience, stay away from restaurants with colorful characters painted on the windows. Try Arby’s.
fessie, in duffer’s defense, I don’t think he’s asking that parents not bring their children into McDonald’s - all he’s asking is that parents have their shit together enough to not make getting food inconvenient and a huge hassle for every other person in the restaurant. As a parent, I do know there’s a difference between teaching children how to order their own food versus having your (not your personally - I mean your in the sense of other people) head up your ass and making something that shouldn’t be a problem a huge pain in the ass for everyone else surrounding you because you and your progeny are the northern lights of your own night time sky! Show some consideration is all he’s asking.
I think.
At least that’s how I’m reading it.
But I could be wrong.
You know, honestly I’m pretty good at bringing my kids out at non-peak hours - because I don’t want them to be an annoyance (and it’s more fun for them when it’s not so chaotic). But from duffer’s post, it doesn’t sound like he gives them any right to exist whatsoever.
Plus, little kids are unpredictable. You can take them somewhere nine times and everything goes fine - then that tenth time, all hell breaks loose. We do our best to deal with it promptly and effectively, but from an outsider’s view it might appear that our children always behave badly (or do so for prolonged periods). And then five minutes later, they can be fine again.
How often does a person like duffer make a mental note of a child’s good behavior?
A reasonable reading of his post would suggest otherwise. It’s not that he wants to ban kids from McDonalds altogether, it’s that he doesn’t want his time wasted because Soccer Moomie thinks it’s so gosh-darn cute when little snookum-wookums wastes everyone’s time by hemming and hawing and shouting “Hot dog!”, and then throwing a fit because Moomie tells him that they don’t serve hot dogs.
Wow, run-on sentence.
I should comment on this as well.
Yes, kids are unpredictable. And they have very short attention spans.
If you ask little Billy what he wants to eat, most likely he is not going to say “Ma’am, I believe I shall have a cheeseburger, small fries, and a milk. Take it out of this twenty.” More likely he’s going to say “Ooh, shiny!” As little Billy’s mother, you might find this adorable. To a bunch of hungry patrons waiting in line, this rates somewhat lower on the “cute” scale, and higher on the “hurry up already” scale.
Slightly off-topic, but I love it when people brag about cheating on their taxes. And you say “you know, the IRS has an 800 number so that people who think you shouldn’t do that can turn you in anonymously.” The look of complete horror at the possibility that their bragging has just triggered an audit is amazing.
Letting your kids order and pay is something that is important to do. Teaches them all sorts of things about the world. But there is a time and place for it, and McDonald’s on a Tuesday at 12:10 is not the time or place. The same McDonalds at 2:00 - probably fine.
Depends on the age of the kid, too. A 12-year-old? Fine. A 4-year-old? There’s very little a kid that age is going get from the transaction.
When I worked at the video store, our basic MO was this: Customer walks in, asks for a video, we rent it. But sometimes people would call in to reserve something. This was a pain in the ass under normal circumstances, but we were happy to do it.
But it was often when we were extremely busy, and didn’t have time to breathe, much less answer the phone, that we would get this call:
“Arborway Video, may I help you?”
(Three-year-old answers) “Um… Um… Poopy head! Booger!” (Phone drops to floor, sound of child running away laughing.)
(Voice of adult in the background) “Billy, pick up the phone and tell the man what movies you want to watch. Billy, come back here. Billy. Billy! If I make you a peanut butter sandwich, will you tell the man what you want? You will? OK, let’s go into the kitchen. Billy, get back here! Billy!”
(Voice of adult on the phone) “Hold on.” (Phone drops to floor.)
Yeah, that’s just adorable. All the people waiting in line are just beaming in admiration of your little prodigy.
This is the coolest story I’ve read in a long time. That officer is so cool.
I’ve avoided working in fast food for this reason. I don’t have to experience the rude customer to know that would really ruin my day. Just a few weeks ago, I went to McDonald’s and ordered a Value Meal and a shake. I clarified that the shake was “in addition to,” not “instead of” the drink. But she misunderstood me and replaced the drink with the shake. I asked “Wasn’t I supposed to get a drink with this?” She told me I’d asked for it that way. I apologized for being unclear and offered to pay for a drink. She gave it to me for free.
If I ever go to a restaurant and see a sign that says “Rude customers will not be tolerated,” I will have a new favorite restaurant. I hate being behind those people, it makes me worried that I may accidentally get the drink the employee spat in. Plus they take forever.
There’s an executive biker bar (i.e. a bar with a motorcycler theme that appeals mainly to accountants, professors, lawyers, etc., who take out their Harleys on the weekend) in Little Five Points/Atlanta called The Vortex whose menu pretty much says this. It has a long list of rules that include things such as “If you order the food and it’s cooked properly and you just don’t like it after one bit, we’ll bring you something else- we will not refund your money or comp your meal” and “No, we will not ask the people smoking in the smoking section to put out their cigarettes that’s what it’s there for” and “We will not split your check six ways”, etc… Servers I’ve gone there with love it.
Also at Vortex (I’m paraphrasing): “If you’re finished and there’s a line to get in and you’re just nursing a Coke and reading a book, you will be asked to leave- trust us, you’ll appreciate this policy when you’re the one waiting for a guy nursing a coke and reading a book to leave” and “No, you cannot have a table that seats six when you’re alone so that you spread out your papers, trust us, you’ll appreciate this policy when…”.
Wow, that’s a lot of signs. Where do they put them all?