(2-for-1 deal, short and sweet, working at an all-day grill)

Customer: Excuse me? What’s a grilled-cheese sandwich.

Me: (trying to remain in server mode) It’s a sandwich. With cheese…. which is grilled. (unable to keep up the server routine) Seriously dude. It’s the most descriptive name a food has ever been given.

(Story the Second)

Customer: Are these hashbrowns?

Me: Yes…?

Customer: They look like potatoes!

Me: …. sometimes things look like what they’re made out of?

(Apparently he’d never seen a hashbrown that wasn’t a like a patty from McDonalds)

(I am working customer service at a smaller grocery store. A middle-aged man approaches the desk and slams his receipt on the counter. Note that till number two has always printed the receipts somewhat lighter in colour than the rest of the tills.)

Customer: “I have been to till two for the past two weeks straight, and the ink is always too light on the receipt! I need my receipts for business and they always fade in less than a week!”

Me: “All right, I can pass that message along to my manager.”

Customer: “No, I already asked someone, and it’s been two weeks and nothing is done! Your manager makes millions of dollars a month; he can afford to come down here and fix it himself! Like, b****, get your a** down here and fix it!”

Me: “…”

Customer: *continues yelling and complaining*

Me: “I will pass it on to my manager.”

Customer: “I expect it to be fixed when I come back.” *crumples receipt and stuffs it in his pocket*

(No wonder his receipts fade. Also, he could have just gone to another till…)

(I am the night audit supervisor on a quiet night at a four-and-a-half star hotel when I get a call from one of the guests, a pilot with the British Royal Air Force.)

Me: “Good evening, front desk. How may I help you?”

Pilot: “Yeah, I want this girl out of my room.”

Me: “I’m sorry, sir? Did someone get into your room?”

Pilot: “She’s in the bathroom; I want her out.”

Me: “Is this woman a guest of yours?”

Pilot: “Well… Yeah, but she won’t come out!”

Me: *rolling my eyes, guessing what type of “woman” is in his bathroom* “Okay, sir, I can ask security to come by and help you to convince her to come out.”

Pilot: “Yeah, okay… but what about my money?”

(I hesitate, as my first instinct is that the guest is asking us to refund his room for the inconvenience, but he cuts me off before I can say a word.)

Pilot: “She’s got my money.”

Me: “The woman in the bathroom, sir?

Pilot: “Yeah, I want my money back.”

(I am smirking silently to myself for having confirmation of the type of “woman” who is in his bathroom. I have a bit of a discussion, back and forth, with the guest, explaining that while security might help convince the woman to come out of the bathroom and leave, he cannot force her to return the money. The pilot then decides to call the police and hangs up. I shake my head to myself, fully knowing what the cops will do. After a while, two police officers get to the hotel and I escort them to the pilot’s room. The female officer walks in very slowly, comes around the corner from the entrance, and sees the woman — who has come out of the bathroom in the meantime — in the corner of the room. She smiles, points to the woman and joyfully shouts out:)

Policewoman: “CINDY!”

(The pilot’s jaw must have been going at Mach-3 as it dropped to the floor from realizing that the cops, of course, would not force a prostitute to return money she got in an illegal transaction with a mark.)

(I’ve worked in hotels for over two decades now and this is my favorite response to give out, to those guests who for whatever reason get to the point when they blurt out a line to the effect of:)

Irate Guest: “…this is unacceptable! I have a high-price lawyer, you know! And I will sue you, your boss, and your hotel!”

Me: *killing them with kindness* “Please do, sir! [Hotel Chain] has three entire floors of a high rise building in Washington, filled with lawyers who have very little to do but wait for a case to fall on their desk. I’m sure yours will start a real feeding frenzy amongst those piranhas!”

(I am waiting for my tea latte to be done when a rude man comes, orders, and then takes other people’s drinks, one being mine.)

Man: “Miss! You put the wrong name down. My name isn’t Moorgreat.”

(Yeah, he pronounced my name wrong.)

Barista: “Sir, that’s probably because you grabbed the wro—”

Man: “No, I did not grab the wrong one! You just spelled my name wrong! I want your manager! This is third time you have made a mistake!”

(I have now gotten next to him and grabbed my drink from his hand.)

Me: “It’s pronounced ‘Mar-Greet.’ This is my drink. Yours are over there, getting cold.”

(The man was speechless and looked around to the glaring people, and then he took his drinks and left. Everyone got their right drinks and I bought a muffin for the barista.)