Why the FUCK do we have to sing?!

The BBQ Pit
41

Yuck, in my younger days, I had to work at a few places where you had to sing a birthday song to customers. I got really good at seeing the situation develop ahead of time and hiding til it was over. Not because I’m shy, I’m not a rock star, but I have a pretty decent singing voice, but because the lyrics and the whole thing was just SO dorky.

And even more problematic, it only served to put us behind during rush times and annoy other customers. So I’d hide “in plain sight” and then quickly go back to my duties.

42

Truly, my boss is nice and the rest of the staff is awesome, but there have been people who literally dropped in a dollar in the tip jar and RAN out of the store before we could sing.

One woman today gave me back her change (like a dollar fifty) and told me not to put it in the tip jar, and not to sing.

Honestly, the singing isnt too bad. Trust me, this job is a hell of a lot better than some of the others I tried to get (sexual harassment IN THE INTERVIEW, bosses being total jerks and insulting everything I have done, forgetting about me waiting for my interview for almost two hours). At work we created little skits and dances for a few songs, and when we start singing others join in.

We have horrid voices though. Out of all of them, I think mine is the best, and that really isnt saying much. Anyways, these are a few of the lyrics to the songs that i can remember at the moment (I helped close tonight).

“here at coldstone we sing songs
do da, do da
mixing ice cream all day long
oh de do da day.”

“I’m all alone but I’l still sing,
Thank you for buying cold stone icecream!”

“we got a dollar, we got a dollar,
I hope you like our little song
and if you tip us another dollar
we’ll keep singing all night long,
mix mix mix!”

Very cheesy, very boring, basic lyrics, sung to the tune of cheesy, boring songs.

And yes, I did know what I was getting into. I had to sing in my “audtition”. I have no problem singing for tips, but when I am clearing maybe three dollars a night after 6-8hrs of work, and singing about every 10 mins or so, its just SLIGHTLY discouraging.

And yes, we have had friends/family of staff members come in with rolls of pennies who then make us go through every song in the book penny by penny. Good way to make us really screw up and skimp on your overpriced ice cream.

43

Also, we can not escape from the singing. If we dont sing, we dont keep our jobs. At the least, if we dont sing, we dont get any tips that night. If the problem persists, then we dont keep the job. So there is no seeing the situation arise and hiding till its over.

Also, I dont know about other coldstones, but do they have to ask you stuff like “do you LOVE it?!” Coldstone is very… cheezy. That is truly the only word I can think of at the moment to describe them. Also, if your cake looks like crap, think about it. You are at Coldstone. 17 yr old high school students are making it! We decorate, we create, and thats why it never looks like it should in the pics!

Also, when you call in to have a cake custom made, dont call in ten minutes before closing the night before. It takes a good 6 hours or so to make it! We can not have it made at noon the next day! Give us at least three days warning, and if you push it to two, tip the cake ladies. You have just ruined their schedules and made them VERY bitchy.

And minimum wage, bitchy, sleep deprived cake ladies can really make your cake look like crap.

44

Taking this in a bit of a different direction, I have to say that, while it would be nice if the employer told you about the crappy wages up front, it is really the employee’s responsibility to find out what the compensation will be prior to accepting the job. “But nobody told me I’d be paid crap” isn’t really an acceptable excuse for taking a crappy-paying job and then getting angry about it. You wouldn’t sell your car to someone without deciding before you hand over the keys how much you want for it, would you? Work is the same thing—money for services rendered.

Get the offer. Find out the terms of the offer. Negotiate. Accept or decline. This is the general order of things whether you’re talking about a job scooping ice cream and singing for tips, or a CEO position.

45

I haven’t yet been to a Coldstone and now don’t want to go.

I am embarassed for employees that have to wear stupid hats or uniforms–I will die if someone effing sings to me for a tip!

What kind of a power trip is this for corporate headquarters? Do they realize that they employ humans that deserve some dignity when working for shit wages?

This pisses me off–and I will insist on NO singing, if I ever make it into one of these.

46

I’m surprised they can find enough kids to staff the place, what with the singing and cheeriness. When I was a teenager I worked for KFC for about 2 years, at $3.35/hr with no tips. We regularly burned and cut ourselves. Lifted 90 lb tubs of coleslaw. Came home full of chicken grease stench, shoes ruined, skin slimy. And we couldn’t find enough decent employees. Of course, KFC cut a deal with the government to give jobs to “unhirables” for a sweet write-off. About a third of those people were good workers. The rest were an impediment - one threatened to slap a customer.

It was still a fantastic experience for me, I learned volumes about myself and about the world. With my family background, nothing could’ve been better. But I had the good fortune to have an excellent manager, that made all the difference.

One thing to consider is you might be better served by finding a job that’s more of an apprenticeship or internship. It’s not too early to take a hard look at your interests and start finding ways of pursuing them. I wish I’d thought to do that. The shitjobs I had after the first one really taught me nothing further. Don’t get caught in a cycle of one minimum wage job after another if there’s something else you’d rather do - really pursue it, if there’s something you want.

47

What if a customer specifically asks you not to sing when they tip you? Because if I knew that tipping would result in a cheesy song there’s no way I’d do it. I mean, I’m trying to do something nice, but if the result of my nice act is making an employee do something that will embarrass them and embarrass me for them then why should we both go through that? I bet Coldstone employees get fewer tips than workers at other similar tip scheme places (like Starbucks), because a lot of people are really put off by stuff like this.

Then again, I hate those tip jars and never use them. Companies should not make non-serving employees beg for money.

48

Yeah, the owner of the Baja is a contemporary of the owner of A La Carte Entertainment - the company that I worked for. I swear these two guys and the other restaurant bigwig in Chicago (Rich Melman, Lettuce Entertain You) get together routinely and think up new ways to humiliate their employees.

49

I have two words about the OP: In Sane. Sing? For tips? How could they possibly be more annoying?

Um, no, apparently they don’t.

Once, waywayback in my short career as a cook, I worked for one of those “Neighborhood Bar and Grill” chains. You know, one of those with cutsey name, where the waitrons all wear polo shirts and are instructed to smile all the time. This particular chain had a name that combined fruit and insects, which in retrospect sounds like a really bad idea, but anyway:

Our store was a corporate training store, where they’d send managers-in-training to learn the ropes, so we got to see all of the “innovations” before they went out to other operations. I wasn’t on the management track (no farkin’ way–I was gonna be a Nobel Prize winning physicist! :dubious: ) but I did just about everything else that could be done, including wait and barback when necessary. It seemed to be corporate policy to mete out as much crap as possible. They’d do things like overschedule a shift and then send people home when they didn’t need them, or call you up two hours before and tell you that they’d changed schedule and you were required to come in. They’d also have all-hands meetings on Sunday morning, which you were required to show up for but not be paid (even though you were expected to help set-up for the brunch shift). Because it was a training center and relatively close to the Mothership (corporate HQ) we had to sing the company song after close, though my impression in talking with other former and current inmates in this corporate gulag is that this is not common at other facilities.

And, frankly, this was a pretty good job in comparison to some I’ve held. I’m not even going to start in on the Lamar Hunt amusement park or Wal-Mart operations I worked at. But I’d rather dig latrines than work at one of these places again.

So, no, the REMFs at the Corporate Mothership have no interest in the dignity of their peon workers. I don’t think it’s so much of a headtrip for them–they’re too far removed to seriously get pleasure from that–but when some marketing schlep comes in and claims that singing/dancing/wearing obnoxiously clashing striped shirts will enhance sales and the XVP of Marketing agrees, they all jump on board like Titanic passengers onto a lifeboat. The real nastiness comes from the restaurant managers who insist on blind adherence to this kind of nonsense.

Yet another reason to despise and avoid fast-food chains, as if I needed more.

Stranger

50

When i was a bartender and waiter back in Australia, we had a name for stuff like this. It was called “a violation of state and federal law.”

Seriously, that shit is fucked up. If we were called in for a shift, we had to be paid for at least three hours, whether or not the place was overstaffed. And if we were required to come into work for any reason (a shift, a staff meeting, etc.), we had to be paid.

There was no rule against calling you up at the last minute and asking you to work, but if i didn’t want to be called in i knew not to answer the phone at certain times of day.

51

I won’t go to Cold Stone, well mostly because it is insanely unreasonably and almost absurdly expensive to the point that I think it mainly exists to create cognitive dissnonce, and secondly because they make their employees act like trained monkeys for crap wages.

But people get off on watching other people act like trained monkeys. It gives them power to have that kind of control over another person, and to know that they have the power to buy another person’s dignity. The people that run Cold Stone know this, and it is part of their business plan.

52

I have a hard time believing that anyone finds the singing endearing. This would keep me away from Cold Stone, and if I did find myself there, I sure as hell wouldn’t tip them.

More than anything, it goes against my view of tipping, which is that it should be as discreet as possible. I never tip while someone is looking–I wait until the waiter leaves my table or the bartender turns away. And yeah, I have a problem with the tip jars for counter service; every time I see one, it makes me want to put a jar at the checkout desk of my clinic.

I live down the street from Moe’s Southwest Grill, a counter-service burrito shop where I’ll stop in occasionally for a quesadilla and some of their excellent green salsa. The only annoying thing about them is the requirement for everyone to yell “WELCOME TO MOE’S!” at everyone who walks in the door. I do my best to sneak in so they won’t do that.

53

Chucktown?

54

Someone should print this thread and send it to Coldstone’s corporate management.

55

Well, you could work at Marble Slab Creamery. We have those AND Coldstone here.

I hate the singing. Taking pop/folk songs and replacing Coldstone for things like Flintstones is not cool.

I tip when your back is turned.

I always thought they only hired high school drama club-kids. :wink:

There has to be somewhere else hiring. I myself loved the Taco Bell guacomole gun fights when I was a teen.

56

They have a coldstone near my work. Bastards get our members all wired up on sugar, and the kids carry their half-melted chocolate abortions everywhere, getting melted ice cream on the computers, on the carpet, etc.

I don’t know if I can have that much sympathy for the folks that work there, though- if they’re willing to put up with it, then obviously they don’t have a huge problem with the whole thing. This isn’t any more demeaning than some guy on the street playing tunes for tips, in my opinion.

If they really hated their job that much, they can come work with us. They don’t have to sing for tips, because we don’t even get tipped. Of course, we have similar staffing problems as many of those places do (due to low pay, high stress work) though the upside to our job is the experience is useful for anyone pursuing an educational career.

57

I also hate the fact that they use styrofoam containters. A plastic spoon scraping against styrofoam is not the most horrible sound in the world, but it’s right up there.

58

I agree with this, especially when the business in question is a lunch counter that charges about 20% more per item than normal because they have a captive clientele. It’s already expensive, and we’re being asked to tip, too?

59

Interesting timing – last week a co-worker recommended I try Coldstone (I had expressed admiration for Maggie Moo’s) and I did this weekend. I was very impressed with the ice cream, and I didn’t think the singing was demeaning at all.

I have worked for tips – never SUNG for tips, I grant you, because I would have starved in short order – but in the course of working for tips I have adopted manners that I might not otherwise have displayed. I did so… because I wanted to make good tips. I didn’t view this as an assault on my dignity at all. I viewed it as WORKING FOR TIPS.

I enjoyed the singing, I’d go again for the ice cream, and I’d tip, even though I am loathe to tip in similar circumstances elsewhere. I tip servers who bring food to my table; I do not, generally, tip servers who serve me food at a counter. However, I had no problem tipping the Coldstone singers, because they were singing - not because they were making my food. And I tipped $5 on a $9.50 tab.

60

When I first read this I thought it said "wait and bareback and thought to myself, “Now THERE’S someone who knows how to take one for the team!”