Soup-erior Customer Behavior

I’m working the Tuesday lunch shift at a small Chinese place. We get lots of professionals and retirees. An older guy in a suit comes in. He looks well-kept and is very nice when ordering.

He keeps his order simple and says thank you when I bring him his food. You just know something about when a customer is really genuinely kind. 

He gets soup that comes with the lunch special and his entree. I’m bussing tables around him, and he just kind of waves at me nicely, and he tells me:

Customer: “I found a small metal wire in my soup.”

He shows me. I tell the person above me. It’s from one of those metal scrubby sponges that they clean the soup basins with.

I apologize profusely.

Customer: *Super chill.* “I’m fine. I’m just telling you, just in case you wanna look so that future customers don’t get that in their soup.”

He’s not upset at all.

We try to comp his meal, but he insists on paying. He still got a discount.

He left ten dollars on a twelve-dollar ticket after all that.

I would have been upset, in a calm way, if I had been in his situation. But literally, probably the nicest customer I’ve had.