If you don't like it, throw the toy away!

The BBQ Pit
1

To the asshat parent who insisted on ranting and raving at myself and my manager yesterday over a toy and all the other parents who complain about our lack of ‘selection’:

We are not McDonald’s. It says SONIC DRIVE IN right there…in six foot tall red neon letters right above your head. It says it on our menu right behind us in 13 inch tall white letters. It says so on our bags and cups and everything else we use just about. Even our shoddy plastic silverware says SONIC on it.

We are not McDonald’s, who provides toys for those children under age three. We have ONE type of toy (in various colors) and that’s really about it. Don’t throw a fit when we tell you we don’t have toddler toys. The toys change from month to month so we’re never really sure if it’ll be appropriate for your toddler but we’re pretty sure they’re safe for kids 7 and up. It says so right on the packaging most of the time.

It is not MY fault that we don’t provide toddler toys. Nor is it my manager’s or the store owner’s fault. I don’t know how they order toys but I’m sure it comes on a standard order form like everything else we have to requistion and I don’t think that ‘toddler toys’ are on the list.

Please, if you don’t like the toy, give it back to us or throw it away. I don’t care what you do with it, to be quite honest. And also, don’t pout and whine about your little princess being upset because we don’t give out gender-specific toys. We usually have ONE type of toy that’s pretty good for both boys and girls, though on occassion (like this month, for example) we have toys that are more skewed for one gender or the other. Like I said…if you don’t like the toy…give it back or throw it away or leave it on the tables and the cleaning crew will deal with it.

And PLEASE…please…PLEASE…don’t let your children who are too young to handle carrying a small cup have their own drink until you are at a table. I am really tired of having the cleaning crew give me the ‘eye’ because your kids dropped their soda or squished in the sides of the cup,causing the liquid to explode all over them, the counters, t he floors, and sometimes us.

Parents…does it say “jungle gym” on our counters? I thought not. Don’t let your kids climb up there. It just gets the counters dirty and then causes us to clean them more often which can be a pain sometimes. Also…don’t teach your kids to ignore someone when they are asking them to PLEASE get off the counters. I had a parent look at me yesterday and tell me her kids could climb wherever they damn well pleased and who was I to ask them to get down? I’m only doing it to keep our counters clean but also for their safety. The counters aren’t that wide and if your kid falls off, I don’t want to be held responible for that.

Also,for the woman who threw a fit yesterday over the price of her kids’ meals. We have specifically designed children’s meal that come with one main item (burger, hot dog,etc), fries/tots and a REGULAR drink or slushee that will have a SET price on it that’s not too bad ($2.80 for everything but the chicken strips.Chicken strips meal costs $3.24). Regular meaning Coke, Sprite, Rootbeer, etc. We can change the soda/slush to a small shake if you’d like but it costs extra, naturally. Yesterday, after I took her order, repeating EVERYTHING back exactly as she’d ordered it and told her the price, this lady nodded, said something affirmative and handed me her credit card. I ran the card and handed her the receipt with her order number. After getting her food and shakes, she proceeded to cuss out the manager on duty for ‘overcharging’ her for the kids meals. She said we should’ve charged her the normal price even though she’d gotten shakes instead of a regular dirnk. She told us that the other Sonic she goes to doesn’t charge her extra for shakes instead of drinks. I’m thinking “WTF?” and the mgr is just kind of nodding and trying to keep her from going totally ballistic. Finally, after yelling for five min or so she walks off,leaving her food behind which gets tossed in the trash because by this time her kids have been into it and have half-eaten everything and drank most of their shakes and the mother wouldn’t let them have the rest of it.
Sorry. I know this rant wanders all over the damn place but…it’s Memorial Day Weekend…when the whitetrash assmonkeys come out in force to remember the memorable dead by barbquing, fishing and getting drunk.

IDBB

2

People are ridiculous assholes. Sometimes that’s just all that can be said, really.

3

Did she get her money back? If so, that sounds like a scam. If she didn’t get her money back, then she is a grade-A moron.

4

You must not have been a child. Do you remember being too small to see what’s happening up on the counter above you? Did your mom ever lift you up to see what’s happening?

If not, too bad for you. I feel sorry for you. :frowning:

(This regards only the “filthy children soiling my pristine germ-free counter” part of the rant)

Note the verb “see” not “walk” or “pee” or “grab”, all of which were forbidden. "See? OK, back down"was the order of the day.

Anyway, I like Sonic :slight_smile:

5

Actually, in my case there was no fast-food restaurants of any kind in my hometown until I was well into grade school.

To IDBB, I feel for ya, (wo)man. I’m a veteran of McDonald’s, myself. I think a lot of us bear psychic scars from working with the general public. I try to ease the pain of replacements in those sorry positions by acknowledging their humanity. And even if I’m not always in the mood to make small talk and ask how their day is going, I am never rude.

I could never do your job now. Even though I’m big, bald, and mean-looking, there are always people who aren’t about to let anything stop them from running their mouths. And if some woman told me her kids could play wherever they pleased, and who was I to tell them differently, I’d probably respond with something like “I’m the person that has to clean those counters, you stupid bitch, and if you don’t like it, there’s the door. Don’t let it hit your cottage-cheese ass on your way out.”

6

I don’t mind if the parent lifts their kid up to see and then puts them back down. THIS particular mother was standing there taking forever to order and ignoring her kids while they climbed up on the counter and attempted to straddle the menu board. The kids in question were about 6 or 7 so they weren’t small. THey were old enough to know you don’t climb on the counters.

Rilch–I think the mgr only refunded the difference in price between what she’d paid and what a normal Wacky Pack kids meal would’ve cost. It wasn’t much…less than $5 I’m pretty sure.

Oh…
And to the asshat idiot moronic teenager who came up to our counter 20 minutes after we were already closed…
We are CLOSED. It is quite obvious that we are closed by A)lack of customers, B)We are attempting to clean up, stock, etc etc etc. and C) our lights are all off. We will NOT serve you because our registers are turned off and the drawers have been locked up in the safe by this point. Our soda machines are also turned off. We have been closed for some time. We do not stay open late just so that MAYBE one or two people can come by. We have lives and families and things we’d like to do other than stay open late when all of our food-court counterparts are CLOSED.
CLOSED!That means you probably shoud go home and stop pestering the likes of myself, my fellow crewmembers and the freaking mall security guards who are walking around asking people to please leave because it is close to 10 PM and the mall (except for Cheesecake Factory and the AMC, which have outside entrances)are CLOSED and have been for nearly an hour.
Geez people. Don’t you have families, lives, THINGS you’d rather do than hang out at the mall and pester people like myself? And for that matter…leave the other stores alone too. I was walking out past the Potter Barn Kids last night and some mother was pounding on their door, demanding to be let in her child had to have X item or she’d diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeee. I was thinking geeze lady. Come back tomorrow when the mall is actually open. Or at least don’t wait till the store’s been closed for nearly an hour to run and expect them to be open just for you.:rolleyes:

IDBB

7

No, when I used to work retail, we’d have to chase people out when we actually closed and usually it took fifteen minutes to get them to realize it’s closed (after they argued with us about how we didn’t close at this time) and get them to start heading towards the front door, but then they’d have to mosey through the store and look at everything. And then there’d be a parade of people coming to the door and wanting to be let in cause it was “only one thing” and “would only take a minute”, etc. etc.

8

You are wrong.

A. IDBB was not talking about children being held up byu their parents, she was talking about children climbing on the counter.
Read her post again.

There are two major issues here.

One is liability. As [IDBB, said, fast food counters are not meant as gymnastic equipment and there is a good chance the child could slip and fall, leaving the store and the employees open to a personal injury suit.

The other issue is sanitation. Fast food counters are meant for the sale of food and thus should be kept clear of the contamination that can be passed on by grubby little hands and the soles of little shoes.

9

gobear–exactly.
We have enough sanitation issues to worry about without that particular fun topic.

IDBB

10

OK, I’m probably gonna get yelled at for this, but here goes anyway:

Here are a couple of facts: (1) A certain percentage of the general public is made up of stupid folks; and (2) People can control how they react to things that happen to them.

I humbly submit that IDBB is being unreasonable by getting upset at people doing stupid things because that’s what people do. A certain percentage of Sonic customers are gonna do stupid shit day in and day out just because that’s the nature of people.

However, IDDB, you can choose how to react to this. You can (1) get all pissed off about it and rant and rave about it or (2) just accept that some people are stupid and move on with your life without causing yourself undue emotional trauma. (You should of course still tell people to get their kids off the counter, etc., but you needn’t fret over it after it occurs.)

Sure these people have done stupid things, but you don’t have to react to it by getting all pissed off. You can choose to not get pissed off if you want to.

Here’s an analogy: every once in a while our cat will decide that she really really wants to go outside. Our cat is an inside cat, so we don’t want her to go outside where she could get sick, run over, or eaten by one of the large dogs that live around here. So, there’s simply no way she’s going outside; that’s just a fact. So, what’s the real reason she gets upset when we won’t let her outside? The real reason for her getting upset is her desire to go outside. If she didn’t have that desire, she wouldn’t get upset.

Likewise, the real reason for you getting upset is your expectation that people shouldn’t be stupid. But it’s just a fact that a certain percentage of people are just retarded fuckwit stupid-asses. Unlike my cat, you have the ability to realize what the real thing is that’s making you mad (your unreasonable expectation) and change it; our cat has a harder time doing that (cat-brains are small).

If you don’t get upset, does this mean that what the stupid people are doing is OK? No, it’s still not OK, but you don’t have to get upset just because they are doing something that’s not OK.

Am I “blaming the victim” here by saying that it’s your fault that you are getting upset? That’s the way that some people (Hi Guin) will choose to look at it, but I don’t think about it in those terms. You, and nobody else, are in control of your emotions and your expectations.

Hope this doesn’t make you mad.

(Yes, I have been drinking just a leeetle bit, and it’s very late, that’s why I’m rambly).

11

IDBB,

My favorite retail-person phrase:

IF your children damage ANYthing, including themselves, YOU will be liable. IF they aren’t expected to behave like humans, get them out of here.

This is posted on our front counter. Some people get pissed. They leave. Boo frickin’ hoo.

When customers cease to bring your business a profit, they cease to be customers and become liabilities to be gotten rid of. Send their asses to Burger King. That’ll teach 'em.

12

That’s very nice for you, Mr. Spock, but most people can’t help having emotional reactions to being screamed at for five minutes. Chastising someone for having a normal human reaction to a hysterical verbal assault is not only useless, it’s downright arrogant. If anything, IDBB ought to be congratulated for not dangling these sorts of customers head-first over the deep fat frier. As someone who doesn’t particularly appreciate having my meal interupted by some self important bitch registering her displeasure at Volume 11 over some piddling little detail of her order, I wish more restaurants would take a harder line with such wastes of resources and escort them off of the premises quickly and (if at all possible) permanently.

13

“Mr. Spock” – hee hee hee hee. Perfect way to phrase it, Miller!

:slight_smile:

14

I may well have thrown a fit myself and yelled at this idiot. Yeah, children are cute and all, but they aren’t the cleanest of beings. I don’t want my food placed where your kid’s ass just was.

I mean…eeeeewwwweeee!

15

TaxGuy–I do not suffer fools gladly. Especially idiots who think they can do whatever they want because they are the customer and the customer is ALWAYS right.:rolleyes:

I am really good at keeping my temper in check at work, which is hard to do sometimes, esp when you have to put up with stupid people for 8-10 hrs every day.

This reminds me, sadly, of an incident when I worked for Target. I was working in Food Ave, their snack bar and we had a small microwave to warm up bagels, or whatever. We were NOT allowed (by Health Dept code no less) to put customer items that we didnt’ sell in our area in to the microwave. I had a customer one day come in and demand we put her glass jar of strained prunes (for her infant) into the microwave. When the girl at the counter (who was really just a cashier filling in for a sick employee that day) informed her politely that we weren’t allowed to do so, she threw a fit. The pool cashier looked stricken and about to faint from sheer terror, so I calmly walked over and explained the situation. THe woman continued to bitch and piss and moan about how we HAD to put her baby food in the microwave because her child couldn’t eat room-temperature food. Something about upsetting his delicate digestion she said I think. When I told her it wasn’t MY rule or even TARGET"S rule but Health Dept code, she got even more angry and told me she was going to throw baby food all over the floor and call the Health Dept on her cell phone. SHe said she would have them shut us down so fast for code violations it would make our heads spin. At this point, I reached over, grabbed the phone and called store security, who escorted her and her squalling child OUT of the store. I hope they told her never to return.

Then there was the time, also at Target, when a woman sat her child down on the counter (despite the signs warning you not to)and her kid’s diaper leaked onto the counter. Ick. I just had to say thank god we had bleach or else I’m sure things would’ve gotten gross really fast.

Why is it that parents (esp in more well-to-do areas like where I live/work) think that their kids shit gold and piss plutonium and can do no wrong? I just don’t understand it at all. Maybe it’s cuz I’m from a poor area and grew up dirt poor. Maybe if I had been born in a well to do family where kids are allowed to run wild and do whatever, I’d understand better.

IDBB

16

Sitting diapered children on a food counter is just disgusting, and I don’t see how people can do these things without that occuring to them. I dealt with the same kind of thing when I worked at Chick-Fil-A and it just grossed me out, even at 16 years old…I KNEW you should NOT put your child on the counter. What part of that were the 30 yr old moms not understanding?

When I had my own kids, I remembered my feelings and 16 and decided I was a smart child. My childrens’ behinds, feet, hands and mouths have never touched the counter in a restaurant or other store.

They also weren’t allowed to crawl around on the floor, which is it’s own seperate rant.

~J

17

Damn, I wish my kid would piss plutonium. It might help me with that pesky gopher problem.

:stuck_out_tongue:

Rigel

18

TaxGuy,

While I’m usually the first in line to bag on IDBB for her incessant whining, even I’m on her side in this one.

I really do think you’re asking too much, from anyone in customer service, really.

When you deal with idiots all day long, you’re going to have reactions, it’s human nature. Have you ever worked in customer service? Your post implies you haven’t.

When I worked in customer service, it was usually in well-to-do areas and I noticed that the parents in those areas are the worst. I think it has to do with egocentricness and a good dose of arrogance, as well. They’re special see, because they have money. So regular rules don’t apply to them, silly. :rolleyes:

19

That’s exactly what I mean, lezlers.

Just because you have money doesn’t mean you’re any more special than anybody else.;rolleyes:

Usually.

IDBB

20

My opinion about whether people can control their own emotions and reactions differs from your opinion on the matter. I don’t think that qualifies as me being arrogant.

Like I said, I don’t think that one should just sit there and take whatever stupid people do to them; I think one should handle the situation properly (IDBB’s story about the baby food lady in Target is a good example of handling a situation correctly) and then just not get upset about it. I’m not saying that customer service employees should just let the customer walk all over them.

Word to big bird; you and I are on the same page.

I don’t think I’m really asking anything, I’m just saying that people can control their own emotions and reactions, so if someone gets upset at a situation, they have themselves to blame for their emotional state.

My opinion about whether people can control their own emotions and reactions differs from your opinion on the matter.

I waited tables all through high school and college. And now I have to deal with corporate attorneys, some of whom combine their ignorance with a feeling of self-importance the likes of which I thought I’d never see in a real live human. So I think I know what the OP is talking about.

Please refrain from bashing the rich. If you continue to rich-bash (AKA: engage in wealthism), I will have to report your posts to a moderator.