No. No, you haven't "always done it this way."

The BBQ Pit
1

Just one of THOSE things that drives me bananas sometimes, but it happened twice today and I wish to vent my spleen.

“We’ve always done that/done it that way.” When they most certainly have not. My examples from this week:

I’m not a big fan of IHOP, but it’s close and occasionally it fits the bill. Because I don’t eat meat, my choices are somewhat limited, so when I find vegetarian entrees I like, I tend to stick to them, and I have always liked the Garden Crepes: crepes filled with scrambled eggs, spinach and mushrooms, topped with hollandaise and chopped tomatoes. Because they are enormous, I always order half an order, and there’s a server there who has seen me order it often enough that she knows this. Today I had a different server, but she took my half-order and assured me it was not a problem. When I tasted my lunch, I was surprised to find a fairly strong, smoky-tasting sauce inside. I’m guessing chipotle or something similar, but it was quite unpleasant to me, and I called my server over to ask to have one made without the sauce. She returned my meal to the kitchen, but came back with the same plate and set it down in front of me with an apologetic, “I asked the cook, he said we always made them that way.” I did not lose my temper - she was just the messenger, after all - but I asked her to have it remade without the sauce, and to please tell the cook that he was wrong, because I had ordered that item many times and enjoyed it, and I certainly would not have enjoyed it if it had had that sauce in it previously, because it tasted rather like someone had stubbed out a cigarette inside my eggs. In the end, they remade my meal, and my “regular” server stopped by to say hi. I asked her, “Out of curiosity, do you remember what I usually order?” She did, and also confirmed that I’d never sent it back before.

Then later this afternoon I went to the thrift store and purchased a few things. This is the same thrift store I have frequented - at least twice a month - for the NINETEEN YEARS I have lived in the area. I paid for my purchases with my debit card, as I usually do, but this time I was asked for my drivers’ license. I dug around in my wallet and handed it over, and the cashier glanced at both sides of it and handed it back to me. I have no clue what information she managed to glean from that, but whatever. But, since I’d never been asked for ID before, I asked why she needed my license. She shrugged and said, “Oh, we’ve always required a photo ID for debits.” I said, “No, you haven’t. I’ve never been asked before and I use my debit card here a lot.” She shrugged again, and said, “Well, I’ve been working here for three years and we have ALWAYS needed photo ID for debits.”

Look, I understand that things change, and frankly, I figure there’s usually a good reason for whatever changes TPTB deem necessary. But don’t tell me “we’ve always done it that way” 9especially with that bored, what-do-YOU-know attitude) when I know absolutely that you bloody well HAVE NOT. What the heck?? What’s wrong with “I don’t know” or “I can ask” or “I’m sorry”?

(And yes, before anyone asks, this actually is my biggest Life Complaint at the moment, and I know I have it good and I should stop being a whiner. Besides THAT, what do you all think? Is it just me?)

2

I’m with you. It’s the kind of thing that, for some reason, gets under your skin, but if you complain about it, you look like a giant jackass. I think it has something to do with being told you’re wrong when you know you’re not. Something compels you to want to set the record straight even though the only possible result is that you look like an anal retentive jerk. Infuriating.

3

Can’t explain the restaurant thing, but this above caught my eye, since I’ve been that in-the-middle guy who has to suddenly start doing things differently. There’s a difference between “we’ve always required” something and “we’ve always done it that way.” I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some in-store rule that has always been required but was routinely ignored by employees, until a crackdown of some sort occurs that causes the requirement to finally start being enforced.

ID for bank cards is precisely one of those rules that was always required at one job, but was only selectively enforced by cashiers until a new management team began a crackdown on compliance. The “we’ve always required this” explanation we invariably gave wasn’t meant to denigrate a customer’s prior experience, but was meant to reassure the customer that they weren’t being singled out as suspicious. “We always have required this” meant “don’t worry, we don’t think you’re a thief, but we gotta do this because we’re being watched by management.”

But, yeah, the restaurant thing sucks. I have that problem at Denny’s ordering items listed in the day menu at night. “We’ve never had that item.” Uhh, yeah, you do, and it’s on the daytime menu, and those items can be ordered at any time of day, but whatever…

4

Oh. I’ve no doubt that in some instances, it’s a tightening of the reins, but you know what? Say so. “Yeah, sorry, we didn’t always enforce it, but the boss came down on us.”

Yet another example:

I have had the same bank account for about twelve years, into which I have deposited checks made out to me personally, and to my business name. The last time I tried to deposit a check make out to my business name (for $43 - not that it matters, but the small figure increased my irritation), I was informed that I needed to have a business account, to deposit a check made out to my business.

“I do?” I asked. “I’ve been depositing checks made out to my business name into this account for like eight years.”

“Oh no. We have NEVER done that.”

OK, so maybe that is a policy and you’re the FIRST TELLER IN EIGHT YEARS to catch it, but if “we” have NEVER done that, where did all the money in my account come from? Because I’ve done anywhere from five to twelve shows in a year for eight years, so there’ve been at least FORTY deposits that have contained checks made out to my business name.

Turns out, a business checking account costs more than a personal one. it doesn’t offer any features the personal one doesn’t have (except that I can deposit a check made out to me personally into THAT one. Go figure.)

5

Another explanation is it has been required, but you’ve found the one cashier who actually follows the rules and everyone else ignores it.

6

I always think of it as the “royal we” in action when I hear the phrase “We never do that”.

7

This the answer to most request ID with credit card scenarios. It also depends on how well known you are to the cashier(s).

8

I will assure you than when I worked for McDonald’s one summer and got people ordering pizza, I was always careful to say that they had not had pizza as long as I had worked there and not that that they had never had pizza.

9

This happened to me the other day, told to me by a waiter who is relatively new to an establishment I’ve been frequenting for several years. I told him, “No, actually, it has not always been this way. I’ve been coming here for a lot longer than you’ve been an employee, and you’re simply wrong.”

He was enough of a jackass that I don’t see myself ever going back.

10

Similar banking story – my mom is blind, and uses a signature stamp to endorse checks. I take her checks to the bank for her on a monthly basis; I’m a signatory on her account for reasons of convenience. I always do the exact same thing. She gets a $X check every month, and I deposit $X-100 and get $100 in cash for her, all in singles, which she then uses to pay for her MetroAccess trips (a subsidized door-to-door transport service for the disabled).

Last month, a teller says, “Oh no – we can’t accept a signature stamp unless the person is actually here.”

“I have done this exact transaction ever month for the past two years.”

Now, at this point, if she said something like, “Oh, I’m sorry, but it’s a new rule,” or even “I’m sorry, but whoever let you do that wasn’t following the rule,” then I’d understand, sorta. But no… she says:

“No, we’ve never permitted that.”

Really? I imagined the past two years, did I?

She was implacable. I ended up dropping the check in an envelope in the overnight deposit wheel and taking $100 in cash out. Shockingly, the stamped endorsement proved no barrier to whoever handled the deposits in the overnight bin, since the deposit showed up on this month’s statement just fine.

It’s the display of petty authority that gets me.

11

When I worked as a cashier, I would get people trying to skirt the rules all the time, stuff like showing IDs for cigarettes or trying to buy beer before noon on sundays (blue law in NYS), with the excuse, “but I’ve done it here before!”. That’s really, really easy to say, even if you haven’t, in hopes of convincing the worker to do something new or bend the rules for you. Sometimes this motivation was utterly transparent, and I’d have to tell them, “well, maybe others did it that way, but when I’m responsible for the store, I follow the policy to the letter. Please come back with ID/in a half hour and I’ll be happy to help you!” There’s really no reason to argue with people, nor should you have to make up some long-standing de facto rule to justify your following procedure- I agree with the OP that this is infuriating.

12

To quote the famous Dr. Gregory House, people lie. And yeah, being told something that I absolutely know is false bugs me, too. If they are just recently enforcing something that’s always been a rule, just say it that way, don’t tell me I don’t know what I’ve been doing for the last 10 years. Is it a power thing, do you figure? That employees with very little power in their jobs are trying to get a little back from their customers?

And McDonald’s did have pizza for a short while.

ETA: I mean the employees lie, not the customers. Although the customers frequently lie, too. But I don’t mean that the people in this thread are lying.

13

They probably put the wrong sauce in the wrong receptacle or something. This reminds me of the time I got some kind of Jalapeno Cheese spread on my burger at Jack in the Box when it was supposed to be their “Secret Sauce.” When I brought it to their attention, the Asst. Manager on duty insisted that it was Secret Sauce, arguing there was no way it could be anything else, that the cook was applying the proper sauces to the proper burgers as she watched, and so on and so on.

I forget how the conversation went exactly (I recall it involved me asking her please to taste a bit of the sauce from the uneaten side of the burger :stuck_out_tongue: ) but eventually she did go back and take a close look, and then a taste, of what was coming out of their “secret sauce” “gun”.

The look on her face was, I confess, priceless.

-FrL-

14

Had you dealt with that cashier before? I’m guessing the requirement has always been in place, but that almost no one actually follows it.

-FrL-

15

Allow me to comlain about customers pulling this on the other side of the counter.

At the library I work at, we’ve charged $0.50 per hold for the last five to six years (I can’t even remember anymore, it’s been so long). Once a month, without fail, someone will balk at the fee, claiming ridiculous things like

“You must be new, I come in all the time and no one charges me” (I’ve worked there almost 11 years)
“I get holds every week and you’ve never charged me before” (sure mister)
“I already paid” (the system doesn’t allow us to take pre-paid hold fees)

Come on people, it’s fifty cents going to the public library for a service you knew full well about. Why do you have to be such jackasses?

16

<beating head against brick wall> Whenever I pay a library fee, I always make sure to make a donation of at least $5 more. I figure that it’s way cheaper than going to a bookstore, even a used bookstore. (You know you have it bad when you shop the $1 shelves, and spend over $60.)

17

Exactly! Because if counter staff say this, the customer will still demand the manager and the person behind the counter will have just admitted to breaking the rules.

“You mean teller number three has been willfully ignoring Bank of Imperialism standard requirements for two years and her initials on the compliance audit reports meant nothing…?” Cue pink-slip for customer satisfaction. And the customer STILL will have to show ID.

Also, when stores do get burned, whose to say it is left to counter staff to think up the [del]lie[/del] line to give customers? Could it possibly be that what to say was included in the policy change handed down and that while you are giving it to the kid behind the counter but good, the slimy manager responsible is sitting in a backroom smirking and playing Warcraft online?

Sure, counter staff can lie to try to regain power. Just as managers can order counter staff to lie to get jollies over creating conflicts and making peons suffer.

18

I’ve been buying things at a local store for years using the same credit card and without presenting an ID. A few weeks ago they started asking for my driver’s license. I let it pass a few times, but eventually asked the clerk why they had started checking my ID after so many years. She said it was because the back of my credit card was blank. Apparently, after all the years of pulling it out of my wallet the signature which had been there was pretty much wiped away. So I signed it again (it expires in a month anyway) and now they just check my signature when I pay. Not sure what that says about security…

19

My wife and I have shared a library card for about 4 years now. I lost mine and instead of paying the replacement fee we just started sharing. Either one of us could have it on any given day, but I have the number memorized so I just give that to them if I don’t have it on me. A few weeks ago I had a lady tell me that not only could I not give the number without showing the card, I couldn’t use my own wife’s card! She was rather rude about so I got frustrated and asked when this policy began.

“Oh, it’s ALWAYS been that way!”

I know exactly what you mean here. If I’m 99.5% sure I’m right I can let it slide right off my back. If I’m 100% sure I’m right it bugs the living shit out of me.

20

Oh no doubt, which is one reason* why I generally stop at “Oh really? Hunh.” rather than screaming for a manager. Depending on the situation, I’ll grudgingly and probably sarcastically (but QUIETLY!) comply with whatever it is we have ALWAYS done (the ID with debit card thing), ask to have whatever it is done “special” “this time” (my lunch), or take my business elsewhere (the bank.) There’s no point in making someone else’s job harder.
*The other reason is, well, this IS rather petty stuff and most of the time I can’t be bothered to argue.