He must not crap on the pot either; the back-up is becoming noticeable.
I think the trick is to give them what they ask for. In the case of the man who doesn’t drink from the pot, serve him a speciality coffee - he can’t taste it until after he pays.
My mum is in charge of the theatre wardrobe and people can come and hire outfits - but you sometimes need a bit of imagination, it’s not like a costume hireage place where you can ask for a Donald Duck outfit.
She gets so upset at peoples ignorance over clothing and dates. For example, one couple came to get ‘medieval’ gear for a party, so mum pulls out all the medieval costumes - which for the most part are fairly dull given their historical accuracy. The wife was very unhappy and said that she wanted to wear a dress with a big hoop petticoat and swurly skirts.
I told mum to just say: ‘yes of course madam, here is a lovely medieval hoop skirt’ as she pulls one of the rack from a much later era.
I don’t know if you know the classic British comedy ‘Open all hours’, but this is how Arkwright would handle it.
This doesn’t relate to my job - but definitely topical.
Yesterday, myself and my gf went for a day trip. On the way back, we stopped at a service station. Food was unusually good and free refills (yes I know but VERY unusual in the UK). Anyway, the guy sitting behind us calls the waitress over and begins telling her that his salad doesn’t look like the one in the picture on the menu. Now this girl, all of about 16 has ‘Trainee’ printed in large letters on her namebadge. She is also very shy.
I look at the gf - she looks at me. This guy is blatantly going for the ‘I’m unhappy give me a free meal’ approach. After sending her back to the kitchen to ask questions such as ‘do we have any other types of dressing?’ and ‘why is there no red lettuce in the salad when there is in the pic?’ she eventually says to him that the manager will let him have the meal for free. His reply: ‘it’s not your fault this place is so crap, but that will make up for it.’
So on the way out, I happened to look down at the book he was reading (yeah I know) and told my gf. We laughed and went to pay the girl at the counter.
Whilst paying gf says to her, very loudly, “that guy, the one giving you a hard time - he must be trying out lines from the book he’s reading on you. It’s called ‘How to make her think you’re her Dream Guy’. Is it working?”
Didn’t get a chance to see his reaction, but the waitress was killing herself as we left!!
Too many horrible retail stories to recount in my long experience. McDonalds, Arbys, Famous Footwear…the list goes on. Everywhere a percentage of paying customers are idiots. Over time I began to develop a thicker skin which must have showed. After dealing with people for so long they almost stopped being idiots directly to my face, I must have had some kind of “taking no shit” expression on my face. Now I do network administration…there are no customers giving me a hard time but the machines have eaten the rest of my sanity.