Cutting That Explanation In Half

The grocery store I work at still does its own fresh-cut meat — not butchered down from the cow, but breaking down the primal cuts into roasts, steaks, etc. I work in the meat department for my first three years at the store, not a job many women do, so I get the occasional customer who assumes I don’t actually work back there and asks for “an actual butcher”.

An older male customer approaches me while I’m checking the fresh-cut case to see if we need anything.

Customer: “Excuse me. Can you tell me if you sell bottom round steaks, but not cut in half?”

Me: “We don’t cut our bottom round steaks in half, so what we have here is the size available. I can see if there’s some in back cut from a larger round, but they’re all pretty much the same size.”

Customer: “No, that’s not right. These are cut in half! Let me talk to someone who knows better!”

I walk him around the corner and grab my coworker.

Me: “This guy has a question for you.”

He repeats his question.

Coworker: “Nope. Those aren’t cut in half.”

Customer: “Well, when I bought them from [Other Store], they were bigger! These must be cut in half!”

My coworker goes into the cooler and grabs the whole primal cut that we cut that particular steak from.

Coworker: “This is the size of round they send us. See this gristle here? You want a steak with that huge chunk of gristle in it?”

Customer: “Well… no.”

Coworker: “Once we cut off that gristle, we have this much left. You want a steak half that wide?”

Customer: “Well… no.”

Coworker: “Well, if I cut it in half, that’s how big they’ll be.”

Customer: “Oh.”

Coworker: “So, do the ones out in the case look good?”

Customer: “…yeah.”

He walks back out to grab the steaks I originally pointed out to him. My coworker turns to me and asks:

Coworker: “When will people start believing you when you answer their questions?”

Me: *Shrug* “When I grow a beard, I guess.”