An older retired guy I knew was mowing a field with his tractor and brush-hog last summer when he fell and was brush-hogged. Not a pleasant way to go.
Back when I did that sort of work, I tried to be quick, but the main priority is making it a good experience for customers (as much as possible at least). Shoving folks out the door is counterproductive.
That means being patient, but if being patient with one customer means inconveniencing another customer, I’d apologize to the next customer for the delay.
Those are just really basic customer service skills that anyone in a service position should be taught. And that’s what I usually see as a customer even today.
Okay, this is it; I’m just gonna have to stop going to McDonald’s anywhere.
So I go to a different McDonald’s, further up the road from the one I banned myself from. I order just a burger, without cheese, and a drink. The young woman at the counter seemed pretty together when she was taking my order, but of course the sandwich she brought had cheese on it. Well, I’ve come to terms with that. Not wanting cheese on your burger is wrong and un-American*, and people just can’t fathom that that’s a correct order; I get it. But she had already turned away when I opened the sandwich. “No, no! This is not what I ordered!”
:::walking away:::
“Miss! This is not what I ordered!”
:::still walking away; I get up and follow:::
“MISS! This is not what I ordered!”
:::still walking away, crosses the counter and disappears into grill area:::
Me, at the counter, “MISS! Can you hear me?!”
Other employee: “Can I help you?”
“My burger has cheese when I didn’t ask for cheese. No, you don’t have to make a new one, I can pull the slices off, but…Serious question: Is your co-worker hearing-impaired? [I mean, she might be; I’m not gonna unleash the power of Joan Crawford if she legit has a disability] Wait, there she is…Miss! MISS! CAN YOU HEAR ME?!”
Other employee: “This lady wants to talk to you.”
“Did you not hear me say my order was wrong? Repeatedly say it?”
“No.”
“How could you not?”
“I’unno.”
Okay, I didn’t say “Then there’s something wrong with you.” I didn’t call her what that woman in downtown Pittsburgh called me when I shortchanged her. I didn’t make a comment about her extremely large buttocks. I did say, to the apparently unchallenged co-worker, “Look, I’ve worked at McDonald’s. And at Wendy’s. You never finish a transaction without getting some kind of okay sign from the guest.” I never really thought about that before, but it’s true: I always made sure the order was okay, even if it was more for my own sake, not wanting to remake an order later. But WTF? How can anyone, absent a disability, not respond to someone SHOUTING, even if she thinks it’s not aimed at her? And there were only three other people in the dining area, so it’s not like she could barely hear me over crowd noise.
So I did the rest of my errands, got home, still not over it, so I called the store. “Are any of your employees hearing impaired?..High-functioning autistic, maybe?” I’m still trying to give some benefit of the doubt (bad breakup, death in the family). Anyway, the manager I spoke to finally said the magic words: “I’m sorry that happened.” And that she and the other manager would “do some coaching”. Also, I reiterated the thing about getting an okay sign from the guest. And that I appreciated the “I’m sorry,” since it was the first time I’d heard it from anyone at that store.
Gah. It’s probably a matter of hiring whoever they can get, and not training them in customer service. But hot-lan, I would love to see that kid face down a post-Steelers crowd.
*And another thing that’s baffling me. When people do want cheese on their burger, they usually want it melted. I should not have been able to pull the cold cheese slices off. Even if I’d wanted it with cheese, it still would have been wrong. Shitty training, it’s gotta be. I’m still resisting saying “Millennials, right?”
ETA: And, uh, what Atamasama said.
The last time I chased somebody down, calling them and being ignored, turned out they had earbuds in.
She wasn’t wearing the drive-through headset, though, at least not that I could see. But even if she had been, it should have been, “I’m sorry, she’s/I’m getting drive-through orders on this thing. Sorry about that; how can I/my co-worker help you?”
I know she’s a person. But so am I.
Well, yeah, absolutely! I was just trying to come up with an explanation other than, “This lady was an utter butthole”. Given the prevalence of buttholes, I should break that habit.
I think there are pretty good odds they aren’t being taught CS skills, just how to run the register and make change. Or if they are mentioned to them, they aren’t made a priority.
That being said, 95+% of the kids (I’m old, anyone under 25 or so) that I have taking orders/checking me out are fine.
Today, I pit the human immune system and people who let their cats out. My mother is a cat lover. A very pregnant, very beautiful cat has been visiting her doorstep every morning. The cat is very friendly, though covered in fleas. My mom is pretty sure she know where this cat belongs but, still, is very tempted to take her inside.
Rant the 1st - Don’t let your cats outside. Outside is where they get hit by cars or poisoned or, if you haven’t gotten them fixed, pregnant. Don’t do that.
Rant the 2nd - My mother is very allergic to cats. On an earlier visit, she did give the cat a little scratch and then, later, before washing her hands, she touched her eye briefly and it swelled shut. We had cats growing up and my mother loved them. It is not fair that she can’t have them anymore because her immune system thinks there’s something evil about cats.
(I am also allergic to cats. I will not be taking this cat home either but I will day-dream about it, about a time when I could have a cuddly feline rest on my lap and purr and be cute)
I am the same way. I had a cat that I loved as a kid but every time I snuggled with her, my eyes would swell shut.
We currently have a dog, but it is a hypoallergenic one, and I haven’t had a bad reaction to our dog since she shed her puppy fur and got her adult coat. (I was badly allergic for a while when we just got her, it was making me horribly sick.)
I have a friend who lets her pets run free out her back door. She lives in a wooded area whereclots of things live that kill small pets includingca neighbor who doesntblike stray animals an his property. She is always devastated when her pets dont come home but wont listen that pets shouldnt roam free.
I’m currently living in university accommodation- I’m a mature student (pushing 40, which makes me a Millennial, for those still unaccountably using that to refer to people in their late teens/early 20s, but I digress…).
It’s not too bad, it’s a house, not halls, and it’s quiet. We have a cleaning service as part of the deal; they clean the common areas every week day (a bit excessive here, we’re all pretty tidy), and bedrooms once a week, on Fridays though you can turn that down if you’re in, or leave a note.
The normal cleaner is lovely, and most of them are decent enough, but there’s one or two…
Last Friday, I had an odd experience with one of them.
I was avoiding my housemates, due to my officemate testing positive for covid the day before (I’ve not got it as it turns out). My bedroom is downstairs, and opens right next to the front door and kitchen, so I was waiting for everyone to be done in the kitchen, as I have to walk through there to get to the bathroom (yeah, it’s an odd layout),so it was about 9.15, and I hadn’t showered yet. Just after I heard the last housemate head out, I heard the front door open, and an unfamiliar female voice. I figured it was a cleaner coming in early (they’re all women here), and I had some emails to catch up on, so figured I’d stay on the laptop and wait a bit longer.
Then I heard an unfamiliar male voice talking to her; odd, this is an all-female house, but maybe one of the maintenance guys needed to come in to check something- normally they give us notice, but it’s happened before that one’s just dropped by to check or fix something.
About 30 minutes later, there still just seems to be sounds of chatting, no vacuum or anything else, so I peek out the door. Yes it is a cleaner, but she’s standing outside on the doorstep- with the front door wide open- chatting to some random guy. I’ve never seen either of them before, and he doesn’t appear to be staff or student- no uniform or ID badge- just some random friend of hers. A little peeved that I’ve apparently been waiting half an hour for her to chat to a friend who appears to have no right at all to be on the property, I shut the front door, firmly, and go to the bathroom, because this is getting silly and it’s now getting late.
A minute later, I’m on the toilet pre-shower, when I hear her come in the house again, spray something in the kitchen, then immediately knock on my bedroom door (the only one downstairs, so I can tell it’s mine). This is unexpected- everyone else does the communal areas first, so I yell that I don’t need my room cleaned today thanks. I really don’t want to come out in a dressing gown then have to wait for someone to finish vacuuming my room.
Cleaner: “Mumble?? Mumblemumble”
Me: “Please don’t go in my room, I’m just about to have a shower”
Her : “Mumblemumble”
Me: “I can’t hear you”
Her; “Mumble”
*knocks on door again*
Me: "I can’t hear you. Can you just wait until I’m not literally on the toilet please?!
Finish up, get out, and she’s standing there looking angry, knocking on my bedroom door.
Me: “I don’t need my room cleaned today”
Her: (sounding angry) “Well? What room is yours then?”
Me: “…the one you’re knocking on?”
Her: “Well how am I supposed to know that??” *glares at me*
*knocks on the next door*
Me: “That’s not a bedroom, that’s the living room, you don’t need to knock”
Her (sounding really angry): “Well I’ve never been in here before, how am I supposed to know?”
I didn’t really think anything more of it, and went to have a shower. I did notice when I left the house later that nothing had been cleaned- the kitchen floor was not swept, let alone mopped, but whatever, that’s not the first time.
Then I found out today that apparently she reported me to the university welfare team as a mental health risk, because I was ‘yelling and swearing at her and slammed a door in her face’. 
Oookayyy…
What breed? I have all kinds of allergies, and I’m thinking about getting a hypoallergenic dog. I didn’t know puppy fur was a problem. 
A Havanese.
Our dog Addy is hilarious. She’s a little clown. She recently turned 2 years old (my wife got her as a quarantine dog) and she still acts like a puppy. She always wants to either eat, sleep, play, or snuggle. She loves to play. She also does crazy stuff like not just chase her tail, but catch it, and pull on it, and flip herself over. She also pounces on things like a cat, and when playing she rears on her hind legs and bats her front paws around.
Her favorite thing in the world is people. She loves being around people and hates being alone. She loves to lay with her head on my leg or foot. Or she lays near my wife’s head. She’s technically my wife’s dog, but always wants to be around me too. I think she sees my wife as her mom, and me as her best friend, the way she acts around us.
Here is a picture of her.
Oh my goodness! Squeeeee…
Another great thing about Addy, if I hold up my hand and say “High five, Addy!” she will rear up and bat at my hand with her paws. I didn’t even have to teach her that, she just guessed what I meant the first time I tried.
She won’t do that with anyone else, either, just me.
Enough of cute puppies in the Pit! Pour yourself a drink, sit back, and hark to the saga of kaylasdad99 and his feeble attempt to negotiate a path through the banana peel factory that is 2022.
It started off pretty nice, what with my love affair with Joan, family friend of 30 years, godmother to my daughter, and my pathway back to life following the death of kaylasmom right before the pandemic. I asked her to marry me last summer, as soon as we could get by financially without her SSDI benefits from her own widowhood twenty years ago, and she said yes.
It wasn’t until February that we learned that wasn’t going to be an issue, so we started making plans. One of them was to get a marriage license online. Turns out we couldn’t get one without going to the courthouse, and when that came up, we decided to just get married on the same visit (March 4).
Then came May 10. I was at work when I got the text from her caregiver that she had died. Which is bad enough, but since her house was in her revocable trust, I had to be out of it by the end of June.
I scrambled to find myself an apartment locally, but I’m priced out of the market. I asked my oldest brother to rent me a room in his house, but he’s too used to living alone in the house he’s owned since 1977. I asked the Postal Service to reassign me, and they said “Okay, be in Portland Oregon on July 16.”
That’ll work. My sister and BIL have raised six kids there and they’ll put me up until I can rent an apartment with one of their sons. Oldest brother is willing to put up with me for two weeks, so I packed a few things and moved into his guest room with the king-sized waterbed (probably also vintage ‘77) last Thursday.
Sunday night, I got up to pee, and the side rail came off. Evidently you’re not supposed to use the rail to lever yourself out of a waterbed (although I did it all the time in the 80s and 90s). I told Big Brother about it, and he hit the roof. Told me to find some other place to stay.
I spent most of this morning looking on Airbnb for a room I could rent without breaking the bank. Found one, too, in Placentia, quite close to where I work. It’s a shared bedroom, but who can beat $23/night? I made the reservation request.
I was already at work when the text came that I was accepted. But the address I was given is in Orange, not Placentia. (???) I took an early (and long) lunch break and drove six miles to the address. Instead of my expected host Maria, I was greeted by my host Bob. (???) The room has bunk beds, like in the picture, but THREE sets, about two feet apart. And of course all of the bottom bunks are taken. There are a few middle-aged-to-old men shuffling about, and I start to wonder if this is a halfway house. Or maybe it’s an available spot for folks who can’t qualify for residence in a single-room-occupancy motel. I don’t even know how I’d go about finding out.
I was kinda resigned to just staying there, but I got a text from Airbnb. They (their robot, that is) asked me if my check in with Maria in Placentia went okay. So Airbnb still thinks Bob in Orange is Maria in Placentia, do they? I called customer service to see what they thought about that. The CSR was kind enough to give me the Placentia address, which really is about a mile and a half from where I work, so I clocked out early and drove there, hoping that Maria hadn’t given up on me.
The Placentia address turned out to be a warehouse of some sort, locked up tighter than a drum. I called my daughter, and she advised me to check right back out and go to a real hotel, and in the morning demand that Airbnb refund my money and reimburse me for the hotel.
I’m not going to do that, but I AM going to try to get this straightened out in the morning.
Wish me luck.
What the hell kind of hospital serves whole, hard-as-a-rock Granny Smith apples to elderly patients with dental issues, without proper knives for cutting? And the apples still had labels on them, obviously not even washed.
Just got a call from an unknown number. I sometimes answer them.
This time it was a young woman upset about the call I had just made to her. I had made no such call, but she apparently redialed and got me. I assume it was a very rude call (she mentioned she was 22 (that’s a lot better than if she were under 18)). Told her it wasn’t me, but before I could explain number spoofing to her she told me to not lie, to fuck off and then hung up.
Not upset with her, I’m upset that apparently some number spoofing asshole is out there using my phone number to harass people.
I’m getting calls, at work, that are silent and last for ten seconds. I know the time because our phones have a counter on the screen. According to google, these are robocalls to verify that my number is active and answered by a human. Screw those guys.
Number spoofing generally just spoofs a random number, often one that identifies a number as being one in geographical proximity to the ones they are calling. So, there is always that tiny chance your number will be the one.
Your scenario happened to me too, except in my case it was my work number. Someone called me and asked why I had called them. I assured them I hadn’t, my number was a Washington State government phone and I had no need to call anyone outside of government since those are the only people I ever talk to on my phone. I suggested it was a phone spammer who was spoofing numbers and it just happened to use my number. He didn’t believe me at all and got upset that I wouldn’t tell him the truth.
People who get upset about something (like a robo-dialer) want a way to vent their anger. They can’t reach the actual person who called them, but they get you on the phone and get their chance to vent. I’m sure they feel a whole hell of a lot better afterward, like they got justice, even though in reality all they did was call some random innocent person and harass them.
Basically, they are no better than the people that they are angry about.
People is dumb.