Pitting Mr. Green Bean

The BBQ Pit
1

After work today, I decided to indulge in some instant gratification and go across the parking lot to Panda express for dinner. It had been the end of a long day (for me), and all I wanted was to put some food in my body, drive home, and read the Straight Dop until I was too drowsy to read.

All of this was derailed by Mr. Green Bean. This is the name I give to the lanky fortyish guy in front of me in line. Seems Mr. Green Bean wants chicken with Green Beans. Unfortunately, while there was still some there, there were no green beans present. Gasp! Can’t have chicken wtih green beans without the…green beans! Okay, perfectly normal, they do run out sometimes. However, it takes them mere minutes to make more. Usually if you are eating there they just complete the rest of your order and give you some fresh stuff to your table as soon as it is done. But Mr. Green Bean was totally irrational and rude about the whole thing-

Mr. GB: “Gee, looks like you’re out of Green Beans. That’s kind of a problem, isn’t it, lady?”

Anna (the poor drone who was working that day): I’m sorry, sir, I’ll have some more made right now.

Mr. GB: Yeah, well that means I don’t get it now, huh? That means it will take TIME to make?

Anna: It will be ready in three minutes

Mr GB: What, do you think I have all day? Isn’t there something you can do about this?

Anna: I’ll ring up the rest of your order, you can go ahead and start eating, and I will give you your dish as soon as it is ready.

Now by my logic, the longer this guy bitches about the god damn green beans, the LONGER it will take to make, and the longer it will take to get to my turn. So upon her last suggestion, I start nodding enthusiastically. But Mr. GB will have none of it. He wants it now, and just drags things out and getting more and more hostile, all the while this poor girl is getting increasingly frightened and starting to shake :frowning: I am absolutely starving. I’m trying to find a civil thing to say to the guy without having him blow up at me or get more irate at the girl. There is only one other guy working there (a cook) and the girl had intended to assist him in making another order of chicken and green beans (so that they would get done faster). The cook is working quickly and cussing loudly in Spanish.

I’m kinda standing behind Mr. Green Bean and gesturing towards the girl, while kind of mouthing "orange chicken and white rice. She understood what I meant and while the guy was yelling started making my order (since the other guy wouldn’t pay until his green beans showed up). In the interest of saving time, she had my order all ready to go while the guy was still barking at her.

When the guy found out what happened he flipped out and started yelling at me about cutting in line. I told him, very calmly, “Look, in less time it takes for you to get those Green Beans, I can be done and out of your way.” The guy started screaming to speak with the manager, who just so happned to be out of the store for a moment for some reason or another. It got so heated I thought the guy was going to go postal or something.

In the end, the guy left, just as his Green beans were ready. I had checked my watch and it was about 3 minutes. I sat down to eat quietly. The poor girl was shaking like a leaf. The manager came back, and she immediately went to him, and started bawling in chinese, she was absolutely hysterical. I feel really sorry for her, she was trying to help the guy as best as she could, but it was like he was itching for a fight, all over a bunch of friggin green beans :mad:

2

Just added to clairfy-

This pitting is in no way directed at Green Bean a poster on Straight Dope, or her husband (assuming she has one).

Sorry for any potential confusion :smack:

3

Don’t do this to me.

Mr. Green Bean on Captain Kangaroo was my idol when I was a youngun.

4

My bad.

Mr Green Jeans.

Age fades your memories you know.

And boy am I old.

5

First thing I thought of when I saw this thread was “is he talking about Green Bean’s husband? Is he a poster here? Funny, I’ve never seen him…”

Heh.

Oh, and the guy was a total ass. Why don’t people realize that the time spent bitching about something taking time is a bit…counter productive?

Screams of Napolean Complex (yeah I know I probably misspelled the name). The guy probably gets shit on all day at work and decided to feel like a big man again he had to shit on someone else. I had a few of those when I worked in food service. I’d always just feel sorry for them, their lives had to be pretty damn shitty to make such a big honkin’ deal out of something so trivial.

Doesn’t make the dude any less of an asshole though.

6

You know, given the day of the week (Tuesday) and the time (8 PM) ANYBODY eating there is probably back from a long day of work, tired, etc. The interesting thing is people who can sustain a shred of patience and sanity.

I’ll admit, I was being impatient, but mostly because this guy was making it take LONGER for me to eat. However, I tried to accomplish my goal (of eating) in the quietest way possible. And frankly, ‘Anna’ didn’t have any control over the green bean supply at the time.

The guy reminded me of what a hungry 5 year old would say if you made him dinner and held out on the tater tots. “where’s the tater tots? I’m not eating until I get tater tots! What do you mean they’re cooking in the oven, I WANT THEM NOW!”

I’m almost tempted to bring a mat with me so that when situations like this happen, I can very blatantly unroll the mat in front of said loudmouth. When they ask me what the fuck I am doing, I can calmly reply, “Oh, I just didn’t want you to hurt yourself when you throw yourself on the ground in a temper tantrum and start pounding your arms and legs on the floor” :wink:

7

No need for a mat. Pull out a paper and pen, and VERY LOUDLY and DISTINCTLY dictate a note to yourself while you write: “Stop in market, pick up popsicles for three-year-old son.” Should this succeed in getting Mr. Green Bean’s attention, look up at him, smile, and say, “Thanks for reminding me, dude.”

8

I understand Mr. Green Bean. I’m not proud of that, but I do understand… there are times when I want to just blow up at people too.

But there is a rational part of my mind that realizes that lashing out like that will not help and, in fact, usually delays things and only serves to bring down everyone around me. Sometimes it’s best to just suck up a minor inconvenience and get on with it.

Why doesn’t every adult have that small amount of self-control?

You shoulda smacked him on the nose with a rolled up newspaper, and yelled NO! (this has not worked, so far, with our new kitty… I’m curious to see if it would work on a full-grown human…)

9

I keep running into people like that Green Bean asshole more and more. I keep vowing to myself the next time I hear someone like that and I"m in line, I’ll gripe at 'em, “what’s your fucking problem? There’s nothing they can do about it, or are you deaf you stupid piece of shit fucker? You’re making a goddamned ass out of yourself, now get out of the fucking way so everyone else here can get some goddamned business going on!”

Has any of you ever taken up for a clerk or someone like that before?

10

Inc’

I hope panda-girl-drone didn’t get in trouble over this. Did the manager seem sympathetic, or did he even understand what went on?

11

Yep. Coincidentally, in a Chinese restaurant. The family and I were at one of our regular haunts when the rudest family of assholes I’ve ever seen came in from the motel across the parking lot. They made fun of the staff’s accents and English, intentionally dropped food on the floor, and were just overall obnoxious. Not just the adults, either - every one of them, Papa Asshole, Momma Asshole, and three little Asshole kids from an older teen to about 7 or 8 years old.

The management and staff of the restaurant was being as polite and nice as hell to them, trying not to cause a scene, but the waitress assigned to their table was really taking it hard, and she was nearly in tears.

Then Papa Asshole yells out to the waitress, “Hey Missy, get some more goddamn Diet Coke over here chop chop!” and I’d had enough. I got up and went over to their table, got right in Papa’s face, and said, real menacingly and quiet-like, “How embarrassed are you going to be when I beat the shit out of you right in front of your wife and kids? Because if you all don’t shut the fuck up right fucking now and start showing some manners, that’s what’s gonna happen. Eat your food, pay your bill, and get the fuck out before there’s real trouble.”

I went back to our table and sat down. The Asshole Family didn’t make another peep for the ten minutes they stayed before paying their bill and leaving. And the restaurant owner comped us our dinners. :slight_smile:

12

You know the “Anna’s” of the world just aren’t getting paid enough to put up with that kind of shit.

13

If half of what you posted is true Uvula, you’re my hero.

(I make the remark about truth because I’d like to hope people that rude and obnoxious don’t really exist and that you’re embellishing although the cynical part of me knows every word is probably true…)

14

In fairness to Mr. Green Bean, it could be that he has a melancholy temperament. If so, then he obviously cannot have his chicken without his green beans — they must be served together. I wish people would keep in mind that in shouldering burdens for the whole world, Melancholies deserve some appreciation and and a bit of slack in the rope. Why can’t you just wait 3 minutes for the poor man to have his balance restored?

15

I wonder if Mr. Green Bean frequents the ice cream stand near here.

We were standing in line behind a teenage boy and girl. The boy was handed an ice cream cone, and it began to drip pretty much right away. It was a really hot day. So he starts yelling for help, very politely, “Ma’am, ma’am, could you give me a cup or something?”

The woman gives him a cup for the ice cream. He upends the cone in the cup, looks at it, then throws it away. Girl and boy walk away.

We place our order, which will take some time because it involves deep fried cauliflower. Some short, sweaty guy muscles past us. He leans his elbows on the counter and half thrusts his head through the window. Then he starts yelling at the woman who obviously has no idea at all what he’s talking about.

“You sell that ice cream to Billy?”

“Who?”

“You sell that ice cream to Billy?”

“I guess I did.”

“What are you gonna do about it?”

“What?”

“What are you gonna do about it?”

“I don’t know what…”

“What are you gonna do about it?”

“I don’t have any idea…”

“What are you gonna do about it?”

“What was it?”

“It was 90 cents. It was 90 cents. What are you gonna do about it?”

“Do you want a refund?”

“It’s 90 cents.”

“Here.”

He snatches the 90 cents, and when she starts to say some standard conciliatory thing, he starts screaming that he doesn’t want to hear it he doesn’t want to hear it. He stomps off to his truck and peels out, spraying all of us with gravel.

The woman has a funny expression on her face and I step up to get my cauliflower. “Golly,” I said. And the whole crowd burst out laughing.

16

Your local ice cream stand serves fried cauliflower? Is this a new trend in ice cream flavours?

17

Some drunk asshole was in front of me at our local La Bamba (college town burrito place) giving the cooks hell and ordering in a mock spanish tone. When I came up to order, I said “I wonder if this drunk asshole will piss himself first, or puke on his friends?” in spanish and loud enough for the cooks to hear. I continued with my order in spanish as well. As the guy was taking my money and the cooks were making our food, they were nearly in tears laughing. He gave me back all my money except for a dollar ( the meal was over $6) and a cup for a drink I hadn’t ordered. He said “Muchas gracias amigo.” The asshole was completely oblivious, but he did wonder why the guy giving him his food was giggling.

18

I don’t care what his temperment is/was. He has no right to be that big of an asshole.

Just what the hell is the matter with you, Lib?

19

I think I’m in love.

20

I strongly suspect that this is, more or less, what Mr. Green Bean was after. He wanted a discount on his chicken with green beans. As it became increasingly obvious he wasn’t going to get it, he got more and more nuts.

My insane boss, among his other charming qualities, has a habit of trying to get discounts or refunds whenever there’s even the slightest service glitch. Had to wait awhile for his food? He tries to talk management into a discount. He expected me, when it was still my job to do mailings and publicity, to actually talk the USPS into a refund for their delivering our bulk-mailed newsletter late, and thought that I should be able to indignantly insist on some kind of extra service or favor when a local calendar editor didn’t print our event information. No, I’m not kidding.

Now, he doesn’t throw tantrums, nor is he as rude as Mr. Ice Cream, but as soon as I read Mr. Green Bean becoming indignant at the thought of having to wait three minutes for his beans, that’s what came to mind. He wasn’t just stressing at the end of the day, or impatient with having to wait–he was angling for a discount.

I console myself with the thought that such people make their own hells, and cart them around with themselves every minute of their miserable existences.