Give Them An Inch And They’ll Want A Whole Pie

(I work for a pizzeria in a large city that sells pizza by the slice. When we put a new pizza under the heat lamps, we also put out a sign when it came out of the oven. If any slices have not sold after a certain amount of time, we switch the sign with one that says, “free,” and give them away instead of throwing them away. We have two slices of pepperoni for free and a few more choices that just came out of the oven. A customer walks in and sees the free sign.)

Customer: “Why does that sign say, ‘free’?”

Me: “That pizza was baked 45 minutes ago, so it is not as fresh as ones that just came out of the oven.”

Customer: “I’ll have that one.” *points to a slice with several types of meat*

Me: “That will be [price].”

Customer: “Why isn’t it free?”

Me: “It just came out of the oven five minutes ago; only the ones that have been sitting under the heat lamps for a long time are free.”

Customer: “I want that one for free.” *points to another fresh one*

Me: “Only those two slices of pepperoni are free; you have to pay for the rest.”

Customer: “Then I want both of those for free.”

(I end up giving him the pepperoni.)

Me: “Here you go.”

(I hand the customer their free pizza, they sit down, eat one and a half slices, and then bring the other half-eaten piece up to the counter.)

Customer: “This pizza was horrible. I want another slice for free.”

Me: “No.”

Customer: “It was all dried out. I want another for free.”

Me: “You ate most of it; it couldn’t have been that bad.”

Customer: “Fine, I will never spend any more money here again.”

Me: “So far, you haven’t spent any money here. Buy something or leave.”

(The customer then carried their plate to our front door, smeared the pizza all over the glass, and then threw the slice on the floor and stormed out. All that over free food.)