A Slow And Ready Response

(It’s an extremely busy Saturday, as usual, and even though we have all four tills open, there’s a massive queue. Everything goes smoothly however, until a family of five enters the line. The father starts immediately to complain about absolutely everything. I try to be extra nice to smooth things over.)

Customer: *uses a lot of profanities* “How slow are you people?!”

Me: “I’m sorry, Saturdays are really busy days for us. What would you like to order?”

(The kids want our most popular meal, which comes from our hamburger kitchen, and the wait for the burgers is minimal. The parents want kebabs from our other, significantly smaller kitchen, which is backed up for at least 15 minutes.)

Customer: “So, for how long do I have to wait until I get my darn food?!”

Me: “The hamburgers will take only a couple of minutes, but unfortunately the kebabs will take a while. If you’re in a hurry today, I recommend that you change our order to only hamburgers.”

Customer: “This is ridiculous! You’re so f****** slow! We are really in a hurry. We need to be at the cinema in the city center in half an hour! You need to be faster than this!”

(I’ve done my best to be polite, but now I lose my composure.)

Me: “Sir, you saw how long our line was when you entered our facility. You had to know that the service would be a tad slower today and frankly, it is not my problem that you are late for your movie, especially since you insist on having kebabs, even though the line is really long and you’ll have to wait. Maybe you shouldn’t have come here at all, if you were so keen on making it to the movies!”

(The face of the customer was priceless and the rest of the transaction was made in silence. I was chagrined by my outburst and told my manager what I did, in case the family wanted to give feedback, so that he would know that I was the culprit. The manager just shrugged and said that things like that happen, and as long as I don’t do it again I wouldn’t get more than a verbal warning!)