Customer: “I’d like to order a caramel frappuccino, on the rocks.”
Me: “I’m sorry?”
Customer: “A frappuccino, on the rocks. Unblended. You have that, right?”
Me: “I think the closest equivalent would probably be a caramel-flavored iced latte.”
Customer: “Oh, okay! I’ll take one of those, then! I didn’t realize they had a different name.”
(I am taking orders and serving soup when a customer and his wife approach me.)
Customer: “Excuse me, do you still serve the children’s soup?”
Me: “We do, yes.”
Customer: “Don’t you think that’s cruel?”
Me: *I clock on that he’s having a laugh with me* “Not at all. All our children are free range and organic.”
(I am the manager of a small coffee shop. A friend of mine recommends his sister, a regular customer, to fill an open position. I agree to give her an interview. Later…)
Friend: “So, how’d it go? Do you think you’ll hire [Sister]?”
Me: “Probably not. There’s been a lot of interest, so she’s competing against experienced baristas and servers.”
Friend: “C’mon, please give her a chance. She loves coffee, and loves this place. And everyone needs to start somewhere, right?”
Me: “I know, I know. Also, she misspelled ‘cappuccino’ and ‘espresso’ in her cover letter. The letter she wrote by hand while sitting in the shop, in plain view of the menu board. That’s just careless.”
Friend: “Okay, I see that. But—“
Me: “And the final reason I’m not going to hire her is because during the interview, she picked her nose, looked at it, and ate it, while she was in the middle of answering a question.”
Friend: “Oh. Yeah, good call.”
(We have a customer who comes in almost every day and steals our bottles of honey. He will order a hot tea from our kiosks and use a whole bottle of honey. He will then ask an associate to get a new bottle. After we get the bottle for him, as he leaves later on, he will stick the honey in his newspaper to hide it and walk out. My nickname for him is Pooh Bear.)
Me: “[General Manager], Pooh Bear is back. Can I please say something?!”
General Manager: “No, I’ll handle this. I’ve had enough.”
(Our GM walks over to him as he’s leaving and gets his attention.)
General Manager: “Hey, man, I’m glad I caught you. I wanted to check out the sports highlights from last night!” *opens newspaper* “Hey, man, isn’t that our bottle of honey?”
Pooh Bear: “Oh… uh… Yeah, is that okay?”
General Manager: “No, it’s not okay, dude! Stop stealing our honey. That’s theft. We could call the cops and have you arrested. We have cameras constantly monitoring our store and we have you on numerous occasions stealing from us.”
(He hasn’t been back in almost two weeks now. And that’s how we pulled off “Operation Pooh Bear!”)
(There is a power outage in the middle of the day. For some unknown reason, we are always one of the few with power, which means the whole city comes over to hang out since we have books and coffee. Of course, this means we have lines and lines of people anxious for the warmth of coffee and food.)
Coworker: “Next in line, please!”
Customer: “I would like a caramel macchiato and a spinach and artichoke quiche.”
Coworker: “All right, that adds to $10.12, please! And your food and drink will be right at the end.”
(We switch off who is doing what since it is so busy and I am making the drinks. After a little while we have her food and drink ready to go.)
Me: “Okay, I have spinach and artichoke quiche and a caramel macchiato!”
(Customer looks at her order clearly not satisfied.)
Me: “Is something wrong?”
Customer: “I wanted to eat this here.”
Coworker: “We’ve been really busy because we’re one of the few businesses not without power, so we ran out of plates. You can still eat it here if you would like.”
Customer: *clearly still not satisfied* “If I want this on a plate, I should be able to get this on a plate. Who is the manager tonight?”
Coworker: *says our manager’s name* “Would you like to speak to her?”
(Somehow my coworker still has a smile on her face even with how much we’ve had to do all night. I don’t know how she does it. The customer grunts, takes the bag and drink and walks away. Later that night, as my manager and coworker are getting ready to close, nearly having to kick people out in the process…)
Customer: “Are you [Manager]?”
Manager: “Yes, I am. What seems to be the problem?”
Customer: “I have a complaint to make. You need to fix the behaviors of your employees. If a customer asks for a plate, they deserve to get a plate.”
Manager: “Well, would you rather eat on a dirty plate or in a nice, clean bag?”
Customer: *looks appalled* “Why would you give me such an attitude?”
Manager: “Sorry, but it’s now 10. We are closing up and you have to leave.”
Customer: “Whatever!” *slowly walks away*
Manager: *with a smile* “Have a good night!”
(Apparently this customer does this a lot. She always has a complaint to make about our business, yet she always comes back. We also had a customer stand up to this rude lady customer and tell our manager that we gave excellent service, especially for it being so busy in the middle of a power outage. Mind you, we had actually forgotten her food because of all the chaos, so that part restored my faith in humanity!)
