Doesn’t Feel Hard-Pressed About The Press

I work at a winery. One pretty neat thing about our location is that we have a wine press from 1723. It was given by the owners of the company, a wealthy Austrian family, to the president when he joined the business. It is very tall, easily over three metres, and made of wood that is so old it has become petrified, meaning it feels like stone. It is, however, still very fragile, being almost 300 years old.

We have a wide variety of people come through, including families with young children, since we are in a tourist area and do also sell things that aren’t wine.

On this particular day, we aren’t very busy and the only people currently in the building are a family of four. The kids are young but old enough to know better. The father is paying for his items: some T-shirts for the kids as well as some wine. As I am about to hand him the card reader, I look up to see his two children climbing on the wine press.

Me: “Okay, your total is—”

I cut off my sentence when I see the kids climbing on the press, directly in my line of sight from my till.

Me: “Sorry, could you please tell your children to get off the wine press?”

He turns and looks at his kids before turning back to me.

Customer: “Why?”

Me: *With disbelief* “Because it’s a wine press and not a jungle gym?”

Customer: “So?”

Me: “It’s 300 years old!”

At this, and possibly the look on my face since I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, he reluctantly told his kids to get down. I finished with his order and he paid and went into the yard where we also sell food.

My manager had been on her way to tell the customer the same thing herself, and neither of us could believe his attitude. We had another issue with that family a little later involving them trying to grill their outside food on our BBQs, something we don’t allow as it’s a health violation. For the record, we do also have a jungle gym outside for kids to play on.