They take it out on you because they know you can’t complain. They know “the customer is always right” is king.
You might have to literally write a letter if you want to shield them. The few times I’ve tried to complain through a corporate website, the location of the complaint was mandatory, and I have a feeling their metrics might ding a particular store even if you are complaining about corporate policy. I have only actually submitted a complaint to a corporate website once and that was when I was sure that it was not something that other stores in the chain did.
In my youth I worked in fast food.
If I was on fries, The managers were quite insistent that we measure out 8 ounces of potato wedges on a little scale next to the fry bin. I’d get yelled at if I haphazardly filled the little fry boat with too many fries.
Sometimes people would get pissy with me ( a 16 year old kid) about not getting enough fries. And I would politely explain that was the proper portion. And they would get even pissier.
If they asked to speak to the manager…the same guy who would yell at me for over filling, he would come over and apologize to the customer for my poor customer service and give the guy like 16 oz of fries.
I’ve never had an issue with that. Without it, you get every person that turned 21 today all the way up to the person that turned 21 twenty years ago that still looks young, throwing a fucking fit when you ask for their ID. This way they card everyone. No judgement calls. Less chance for a cashier to guess wrong and the store to get hit with some really expensive fines. Customers arguing about why they shouldn’t have to show an ID doesn’t change anything. No ID, no booze.
There was a bar I used to go to that did the same thing. Didn’t matter if you were 25 or 75, you were getting carded. It saved them some liability when the police would show up suspecting under aged people drinking. The cops would check all the IDs, tell the bar manager that a few people don’t have an ID and the bar manager can explain that every.single.person was carded on the way in. If someone doesn’t have an ID, they’re either not giving it to you or they got rid of it when you walked in.
It just what people do. When you’re in line at a store and you get up to the register and something is wrong, even if you know it’s not the cashier’s fault, at that moment, the cashier is the ‘face of the business’ to you. It’s wrong, I’ve had to go deal with irate customers for yelling at my cashiers over something that has nothing to do with them, but I understand why it happens. OTOH, when someone goes out of their way to do it, that’s different. It’s one thing to do it impulsively, it’s all together different when it’s premeditated.
Years ago, I got a call from a customer that was clearly already angry. She asked to speak to the cashier. For just this reason, we don’t allow random customers to talk to cashiers on the phone. I asked if there was something I could help her with and I remember her saying “I demand to know why she [the cashier] declined my credit card”. It took a few minutes but I finally got her to understand that the cashier doesn’t have any part in that decision and that she has to call the number on the card since it’s them that give us the approved/declined message.
See, now that’s wrong. The manager should be backing you up, otherwise customers quickly learn that if they yell at you, they’ll get free fries. Furthermore, it makes you look like an asshole that shorted them on fries for the hell of it.
I am convinced that during my years of working fast food, I waited on a couple of people who came into the restaurant with no intention of eating. They just needed someone to abuse.
Thanks for apologizing but I’m going to point out two things:
With everyone wearing masks it is a LOT harder to judge a person’s age just by looking at them.
Who and when to ID policies are often imposed from higher than “manager” level.
^ Yeah, that. That’s a dick move on the manager’s part.
You get that in retail, too.
Fun thing about being a manager, you’re kinda stuck in the same place. You get yelled at by customers, and you get yelled at by your bosses.
When I was a fast food manager, if someone complained about portioning like that, then I would give them the next size up, and tell them that next time, that is the size that they want to order.
They get something free that costs me virtually nothing, they have nothing to complain about, and the problem is solved. One of the specific “mantras” that were used for this situation is, “Just give them the pickle.” There is not profit to be had in arguing with a customer. Sometimes you have to argue with people who have come into your establishment that are making unreasonable demands, but they are not customers.
It’s a managers job to “manage”, and to make big decisions like giving someone an extra $0.05 in fries.
So yeah, the portion is 8oz, then you should portion at 8oz. If a manager finds that it is necessary to change that for a particular customer, that is their call.
Now of course, as an employee, I’ve called out managers for having poor priorities, and if he was actually yelling at you for portioning wrong, then that is both hostile and counterproductive. I once had a manager pull all the cooks to the back to rant about fry portioning. He rhetorically demanded to know how much it was costing us. I, having been in charge of procurement and ordering at several restaurants, did not take it rhetorically, and gave him the answer, as well as how this meeting was costing about an order of magnitude more in labor. (He also go on fry cooks if they had 10 oz fries instead of 8, but the prep guys that could do no wrong would usually portion 12 or so ounces of crab legs for the 8oz portion.)
Anyway, to answer the OP, people shit on service workers because they can. Sometimes it is because they are having a bad day, and snap at someone that they see as having a lower social hierarchy, and sometimes it is because people want to shit on someone, and these are people that are made readily available for their abuse.
Just last night I went through a Mickey D drive through and ordered a #2 combo (1/4 pounder), large, two hamburgers, and two apple pies. When I got home I found in the bag the two burgers, large fries, one apple pie, and of course there was the large coke that was handed out separately.
Checking the receipt I found that I’d been charged the retail price for the coke and fries which is why the money shelled out wasn’t enough less to raise suspicions. The receipt had the store phone number on it so I called the store and let them know in no uncertain terms what had transpired and so I would never be using their location again. There is another actually one a bit closer to the house but it is not in the direction I’m usually coming from.
I will admit that I was kind of heated, but I didn’t swear.
Yes that’s true, but the bullies better watch out, especially the ones that whip out a camera to post how obnoxious they are. More than one ranter has lost their job if the video goes viral and they say something controversial.
I love when that happens.
I find it to be far more useful to explain what went wrong and give them a chance to fix it.
Otherwise, you are just going to be going from one place to another.
People make mistakes, it happens. I went through fast food the other days, specifically said, “No Mayonnaise”, and low and behold, my sandwich was covered in nastiness.
I pointed this out, asked them politely to make it again, I got my food, no one was upset.
I’ll call and complain to get a credit if I feel that I did not get the value I paid for.
I can’t think of a reason why I would call someone to tell them that I would never be back. That seems to be a complete waste of time. The only thing that would be accomplished is that I would hurt someone that I didn’t have to.
What always amuses me in those situations is when the person comes in, and you know they’re looking for a fight, when you ‘fix’ the problem in seconds. Think about the guy that comes in, nostrils flaring, face read, and as soon as he says “I come here every day, and the last two days, they gave me a small instead of a large and I know they’re doing on purpose…”, you cut him off and say 'sorry sir, I’m sure it was a mistake, you can see how busy we are, here’s an extra large fry and when you stop in tomorrow, ask for me and I’ll get you a free meal". Meanwhile the guy, who really wanted a fight, didn’t get his fight and now he doesn’t know what to do with all that extra energy. I always find that kinda funny. This person is sitting there, probably solved, leaving with a bunch of free stuff and they’re still absolutely fuming.
Best way I’ve found to fix that one is to say “What would you like me to do, how can I fix this”. Either they realize that they’ve backed you into a corner and they’re not even sure what they want from you or they say something that even they know is unreasonable.
Case in point: I had a delivery to an office where someone was giving a presentation. I fucked up, I forgot to grab one of their items as I left. The person giving the presentation called, I said I’d run it over. She told me I can’t do that because it would interrupt her presentation. I apologized and told her I’d refund the money. She told me that wasn’t good enough because she needs the food. This went back and forth (I need the food/you can’t bring the food) for long enough that I told her that I’m only 5 minutes away and she’d been arguing with me for well over 5 minutes at that point, I could have been there by now.
Between that and some other similar issues, we choose to stop working with her. But it’s a good example of ‘what do you want me to do’. She told me that I can’t bring the food and she also told me she needs the food. She left me no options.
I can deal with yelling, but I’ll hang up on people for swearing. After the first time I’ll usually say something like ‘sir, if you swear at me again, I’m going to hang up. I can fix the problem, but it’s just a rotten orange, you don’t need to swear at me about it’. And I do hang up after they swear at me again.
Haven’t had that happen in my store yet. I always assume if I got into an altercation and someone in the store started recording it, I’d stop talking and walk away.
That’s what I like. I’ll have customers sheepishly come up to me about something that happened. I’ll always tell them that I’d much rather they told me about a bad experience than to sit at home stewing about it. In some cases, it’s even just been a misunderstanding and whatever they thought was a problem actually wasn’t (ie they thought they were over charged, but they just misread the receipt).
Yeah, that can be really annoying.
Our local Rite Aid sells beer, cheaper than the local supermarket. Sometimes I’ll pick up a 12-pack there.
They always require ID. And once, when my driver’s license had recently expired, they refused to accept it, and wouldn’t sell me the beer. That struck me as kind of stupid. I can’t drive with it, sure, but it still says how old I am.
I also don’t like that they scan it. I don’t doubt for a minute that they’re storing the information – it’s kind of a back-door loyalty card.
That said, I don’t give the cashier a hard time. It’s a stupid policy, but she or he didn’t create it.
On the other hand, my local liquor store never checks my ID. I can buy booze there to my heart’s content. I’ve never been asked to show ID. Come to think of it, I haven’t been asked for ID in a liquor store, any liquor store, for decades. Or in a bar, for that matter.
For context, I’m 60, and pretty sure I look every minute of it.
I’m 100% not defending that policy. However, I believe the reasoning is that when someone gets a new ID they can give their old one away, to a minor. Not accepting expired ones means when a minor is using their friend’s old ID, it’ll only work until the expiration date. After that, even if they’re 21, that can’t give it away.
Of course, even that really only matters if everyone does it. I don’t think most places look at the date. I know I don’t (for checking them). If for no other reason, there’s so many different versions of ID’s, it takes me long enough just to find the birth date on it, I’m not looking for an expiration date too.
Here’s the penalty if I get caught selling you beer if your ID is expired. Note that the key thing here is your ID is expired, not whether or not the information shown is still accurate:
- I lose that job forever and ever and will never work for my current employer ever again.
- Up to $1000 fine
- Up to 180 days in jail
So… whether or not you think it stupid, or annoying, or whatever if your ID is not current I will not sell you beer because it’s not worth my job, my money, and my loss of freedom. Be as pissed off as you like about it, but don’t complain to me, complain to the people who make these laws.
Yes, our machines scan your license (although we’ve stopped scanning in this age of covid because we’re trying to avoid touching things). ALL that we cashiers can see is just whether or not your age falls into the legal range for whatever you’re attempting to purchase. I’ve look at the raw computer data coming from the registers a few times when helping with investigations and really, that is all that our machines are pulling from the bar code. At our store. Really, my employer is NOT saving any information beyond whether or not it was legal for you to purchase the alcohol (or fireworks or ammunition or BB gun or R-rated movie or dry ice or whatever else you’re buying that has an age limit).
Of course, there may be stores out there storing everything in that bar code, but not all of them do so.
To dovetail a bit on broomsticks post:
California Alcoholic beverage control did a sting in my town targeting food and grocery delivery services. Instacart deactivated 30ish drivers in a couple of days that we know of that all handed over alcohol in violation of various aspects of alcohol delivery. They probably would have got 2x-3x as many if not for one of the people who got busted posted about it on the local instacart shopper group when he was cited and released.
Yeah, I get it. Lighten up. I’m not trying to take your freedom away. You’ll see in my post that I said “That said, I don’t give the cashier a hard time. It’s a stupid policy, but she or he didn’t create it.”
And it’s not a “law,” at least not here in New York. It’s a store policy. Cashiers at liquor stores can sell me anything without checking ID. So can the cashier at my local supermarket. It’s just Rite Aid (and maybe Duane Reade, can’t remember). I think it’s a dumb policy.
Whatever. Doesn’t matter in the scheme of things. I still go to that drugstore, because it’s conveniently located and open 24 hours.
OK. I live in Indiana.
On particularly memorable years some doofus down in Indianapolis decided to make checking everyone’s ID every time a legal requirement. It was hell for three months until that got changed so we don’t have to ask anyone who looks over 40. Although we certainly have a right to require it as a store policy. And still no expired IDs.
Suffice to say here in the land of Hoosiers the rules are different and much stricter than where you come from.
I have no interest in helping them fix their business and I certainly had no interest in making a three mile round trip when it’s 110 outside to get a McDonald’s hamburger, even if it was offered for free.
Most franchises, McDonalds in particular, are fungible locations. Giving up one location means little because there’s another nearby. It might be run by the same franchisee but hopefully, the manager there is more on the ball.