Strawberry Fields For Never
My two sisters and I are on our way home and decide to stop at a coffee shop near our house and walk the rest of the way home. We placed a mobile order ahead of time, got off at the stop beside the store, and went inside to the pick-up area. We ordered a vanilla shake, black coffee, and an iced mocha with no sugar.
There were three employees behind the counter. By the looks of it, one of these employees was new, as another employee was instructing him how to use their POS system. Since this coffee shop location is near our house, the employees who work there recognize us; the employee training the new guy included. She tells him something in a different language and points to both a receipt and the POS system. The new guy, however, wanders off to where we were standing.
New Guy: “Can I help you?”
Older Sister: “We placed a mobile order.” *Shows her phone, which had our order.*
New Guy: “You’ll need to pay for it.”
Older Sister: “Uh, we did. It’s an online order; we paid online.”
The new guy looks at us; at this point, the employee training him manages to get his attention again and presumably tells him that we did place a mobile order and to verify with us what we wanted. Considering their POS system doesn’t convey that customers who order black coffees actually do want black coffee, this is understandable. [Employee] heads into the back, where the drive-thru window is.
New Guy: “Can you guys tell me what you want?”
Me: “Okay, so we want a black coffee, a vanilla shake, and—”
New Guy: “—We don’t have strawberry.”
Me: “I didn’t say that. I said vanilla.”
New Guy: “And we don’t have strawberry.”
Me: “I don’t want strawberry. I want vanilla.”
New Guy: “And we’re out of strawberry.”
Me: “Yes. I know. But I want vanilla.”
New Guy: “And there’s no more strawberry.”
Me: “I SAID VANILLA!”
New Guy: “No strawberry.”
Me: “VANILLA!”
New Guy: “No strawberry.
During all of this, I was assuming that this was a language barrier of sorts…until Employee re-emerged from the back and began speaking in a different language to New Guy. This is from what I could tell from that conversation:
Employee: *Points at the receipt she pointed at earlier.* “Look right here! It says vanilla!”
New Guy: “Yeah, we don’t have strawberry, I know!
Employee: “They don’t want that! They want vanilla!”
New Guy: “But we’re out of strawberry!”
Employee: “Make their orders! And put vanilla in their shake!” *Heads back to the drive-thru window.*
The New Guy heads to the prep station, makes our drinks, and hands it to us. Exasperated, we head home. When we got home, we realized that the New Guy made our drinks wrong-instead of a vanilla shake, he made a frozen lemonade with vanilla syrup. He threw in a ton of sugar in both the black coffee and iced mocha and even threw in cream in the black coffee as well.
We ended up complaining to the coffee shop customer service, who gave us a gift card for our troubles. During the next week or so, New Guy would still be at the coffee shop, albeit only manning the cash register. Afterwards, I never saw him again.
According to [Employee] when I saw her one day when it was empty, apparently New Guy messed up one too many orders and misunderstood many others, so he was let go.
