If you don’t already know, I work at a restaurant that’s food court styled, but we serve breakfast and I guess you would say, proper food. All served on paper plates, of course, but that actually has no importance in this story you’re about to read.
So, it’s the crack of dawn. I drag myself up at 4:30 AM and have to be at work by 6:00 AM. Then, of course, once I get to work, I have to, oh the horror, SMILE at all the customers even if they’re being rude. Good thing it’s a Sunday, and slower than usual, otherwise someone’s heart would have been ripped out and shoved down his throat. But let me continue.
After a few customers, we started noticing a strange smell. It took us a while to figure out, but eventually, I caught a glimpse of wispy smoke and realised someone was smoking. Did I mention that we’re inside? And there’s a law here which states that no one is allowed to smoke in a work place, so we don’t even have a “smoking area” (except for the patio) for people. So this old guy is smoking away, and half of us are choking on his second hand smoke. I can’t stand smoke, whenever I smell it, I get headaches. I don’t want to make a fuss. After all, the manager is standing with us and he’s not making any attempt to stop this guy.
Then, he comes up to the counter where we have the selve serve coffee and pours himself a small cup from the pot. My co-worker rings it up. He mumbles something about someone throwing away his coffee. He was really slurred and my co-worker had a hard time understanding him. But, he talked to another co-worker, and apparently, the story was: this guy paid for his coffee, put it down on a table, then got up to get cream and sugar and sat down at the wrong table where there was nothing on it. Then, the co-worker was bussing the tables and npticed the cup of coffee was unattended and had been for a while, so she dumped it. And that leads to the current situation where this guy poured himself another cup of coffee. Our manager let it slide because it was kind of our mistake. :rolleyes:
So, this guy goes back to his table. At the same time, his cigarette is hanging in his mouth while smoke is still flying everywhere. So, our manager, deciding it’s finally time to end this second hand smoke disaster goes up to the guy and politely asks him to put out his cigarette. He responds with a “But I’m a patron of this restaurant!!” As if he is allowed special treatment. Our manager tells him “Sorry, but this applies for everyone. It’s actually illegal to smoke inside a public building. If you continue, I would have to ask you to leave.”
He stand there for a second, his eyes glazing over, looking more buzzed than ever. Then he took the cigarette out of his mouth and my manager, satisfied, returned to the kitchen. After about maybe five seconds, he walked up to the coffee pots and poured himself another cup of coffee. This time, we had to charge him for it, because we had done nothing wrong. So, he pours himself the cup. Leaves it by the coffee pots, and turns around to the counter, plays with the empty cans left by other customers (shifting them around and flicking them), and finally heads towards the ordering part of the counter and tries to give us a five. We were all just standing in amazement as he was doing this because never have we seen anyone so buzzed come into our restaurant. And it was only 6:15 at the time. So, we direct him to the cash registers which are on the other side. He pays for the coffee and leaves. Without it. We were all like “Sir? Sir? Your coffee!”
He’s like “What coffee? I have it right here?” I look at the cup in his hands. I look back onto the counter where the one he paid for is sitting. I take a quick peek inside the cup in his hands. There’s a cigarette bud floating around in there. “Sir?” I said quietly. “That’s your coffee on the counter, isn’t it?” He said “I’m fine with this one.” And took a sip of it.
:eek:
Whatever. I thought. And I headed back to my position because we’ve wasted too much me on this guy already. But holy crap, was this guy buzzed.
We laughed at him for the next hour. Then, someone started their shift at 8:00 and we told her about the guy and laughed some more.
People… shakes head