Really? I would be at least a little peeved if one of my customers did this to me. I mean, every once in a while I screw something up at the register, and if the customer says something about it I can usually fix it within seconds to everyone’s satisfaction. I usually hand out a free drink coupon, too, to make sure the customer knows I’m not trying to screw them over. (It’s almost literally impossible for me to benefit from ringing a customer up wrong; I’m not judged by my sales, I don’t get commission and it’s absolutely impossible to falsify a price at my register computer without getting caught and fired that same day. Most of my customers don’t know all that, though.)
Bringing the receipt to a manager where I work would only slow down the entire store, and possibly get me in trouble for a simple mistake I could’ve fixed easily if the customer had just told me about it. Of course, I don’t work at a grocery/convenience/liquor store, so MMV. Still, I would give the cashier the benefit of the doubt unless I smelled something fishy.
Anyway, I had a couple of customers like the OP mentioned, yesterday. These two ladies saunter up to the counter and get my attention to ask me some questions about the pastries. After I offered a number of facts and opinions, they shifted over to the register, looked the menu up and down and then asked me what drinks we have, as though the menu was in some strange alien language they couldn’t understand. We finally reach a mutual understanding that they want “Frappucinos”, and my coworker and I try to explain that we don’t serve Frappucinos, but we have a number of similar drinks (which are–gasp!–on the menu under the big, bolded words “BLENDED COFFEE”). Something like this:
Customer 1: Do you guys have Frappucinos?
Me: No, but the drinks under “Blended Coffee” on the menu [pointing at the drinks] are like Frappucinos.
C1: OK. So where are the Frappucinos?
Me: [Blank stare. I’m beginning to wonder if Ashton Kutcher is behind this and I’m getting “punk’d”.]
Helpful Coworker: Ma’am, those drinks [pointing to the relevant section of the menu again] are like Frappucinos.
C1: So, like, where are the Frappucinos? I want a Mocha Frappucino.
Me: Ma’am, we don’t have Frappucinos. But we can make a Chocolate _________ which is pretty much–
C1: OK, so like, the closest thing would be, like, an iced mocha, right?
HC: Er, no, the closest thing would be a Chocolate ________ like fetus is trying to say.
C1: OK, so the milkshake is the closest thing, right? But I don’t want white chocolate.
Me: Um, no, the closest thing would be a Chocolate _______, and the milkshake doesn’t want white chocolate. [I had already explained that to her, too.]
We seemed to cycle through that entire conversation about three times before she finally hammered the concept into her head. Then she decided she wanted iced coffee instead, no, wait, maybe an iced mocha, no, wait…which ones are the Frappucinos again?
While we’re washing, rinsing and repeating–keep in mind that some 15 whole minutes had passed, and we could’ve served the entire line at the nearby Starbucks in the time it took to bounce knowledge off of the brick wall in front of us–a customer comes in, obviously in a hurry, with a quick question about another product. I turn away from the kindergardener babble going on between the first two customers (both grown-ass women, BTW) to ask the new customer what he wants and one of the lolligaggers actually interrupts us to ask another inane question whose answer she won’t comprehend. I finally get her to shut her gaping maw so I can deal with the other customer (which ends up taking half a minute), then return my attention to the two nincompoops. After another spirited Q&A session about every single drink on the menu, I finally got them to order their drinks as a line started forming–and then Customer 2 stood in front of the register staring at the menu as if she were about to receive a Great Coffee Revelation from the Menu God, blocking the rapidly expanding line from making their orders.
All in all it took 40 minutes to complete that transaction.
And then there’s Super Important Call Guy–same day, BTW. Comes in and sits down at a table without buying anything, starts a cellphone conversation, and then saunters over to the counter to get his drink. But he doesn’t set down his phone or give any indication at all that he’s aware of my or my coworker’s existence, he just stands directly in front of the cash register blabbing away about his mundane existence. Finally, after a few minutes he makes eye contact with Helpful Coworker and points at the picture on the wall showing the drink he wants, as though telling a dog to “go fetch”. If he had pulled that shit on me, I would’ve pretended he didn’t exist until he acknowledged that I existed. But my coworker rang him up, passed the order down to me, I made the drink and put it in front of the customer, and in the entire process the guy did not say one word to me or my coworker, nor did he try to say “Hey, hang on a second, I’m at the coffee shop” to his little girlfriend on the phone, and BTW he didn’t tip either.
Looking back on it, I don’t know why I didn’t at least decaf him. Oh well, maybe next time.
Don’t even get me started on the women (I’m a feminist, but I shit you not, 95% of these people are women) who hand me cash and then, after I check the arithmetic and start exchanging money, they come out with “Oh wait! I have change.” and begin to rifle through their purse for the nickels and pennies they desperately need to get rid of so they can get a dollar bill back. As if there aren’t three banks and about a million other retail stores within half a block where they can perform this vital, life-saving procedure while there isn’t a line of people waiting to order their drinks.
To be fair, maybe they want to see what the exact total is before they swipe their card. The card should at least be in hand, though. Me, I don’t have much money sitting around in my bank account at any given time, so I have to be really careful with my debit card or else I’ll overdraw and fuck up all of my payments and bills. But I make sure my payment method is in hand, in sufficient quantity, so I can keep the line moving.
The one that kills me every time is Bill Door’s “act of Congress” bit. Slays me. Where have you been the last couple of years, Bill?
I have less contempt for these folks than the fucking high school kids who steal from my tip jar, AKA the “Make sure fetus has something to eat tonight and enough gas in his tank to make it to work tomorrow” fund. Because they apparently need the fucking money more than I do (they badly need to see the new fucking Pixar movie, apparently). If I ever catch one of these assholes red-handed, I will use whatever means are at my disposal to put them in the hospital, regardless of their age, gender or socioeconomic status. “Petty” doesn’t even begin to describe such thievery. There’s nothing lower than stealing from a near-minimum-wage worker, working his ass off to get through college and eat a meal every once in a while in the meantime.
No. I don’t. McDonald’s is completely unappealing to me most of the time; I only go there if I don’t have time to go anywhere else on my break and I only have a buck or two to spend on lunch. It’s been about a decade since I went to McDonald’s regularly; the concept of going there often enough to memorize the menu is almost enough to make me lose my lunch.
I believe it. But then, I’m one of those boyfriends who will throw the contents of my pockets into your purse so I don’t have to carry 'em around. (I do ask first, though.)