(I work graveyards at a very busy location of a popular fast food restaurant in Canada. Our store is located quite close to a Korean shopping area, so we get a lot of Asian customers. Around two am an older, middle-aged Asian woman enters the lobby and comes up to me.)
Me: “Hi there, what can I get for you?”
Customer: “No English!” *gestures that she only knows some English*
Me: “All right, ma’am.”
Customer:“Ice cream!”
Me: “Which one would you like? We have—”
Customer: *interrupts* “Maple!”
Me: “I’m sorry; we don’t have maple ice cream.” *gestures that we don’t have any”
Customer: “Ice cream! Maple!”
Me: “Ma’am, we do not have maple ice cream. We do have a maple latte and a maple pie.”
Customer: *gestures me to take the next order*
Me: *takes the order and turns back to the woman*
Customer: “Ice cream!”
(Due to her lack of English understanding, I wonder if she wants our current promotional ice cream, which doesn’t contain maple. So I gesture to the picture on the menu.)
Me: “Is this maybe what you wanted?”
Customer: “No, No! Oreo!”
Me: “All right, ma’am.” *turns around and grabs our two cup sizes* “Which size?”
Customer: “Yes!”
Me: “Ma’am, which size?”
Customer: *gestures to larger size* “Two!”
Me: “Is that everything?”
Customer: *nods*
Me: “All right, your total comes to $[total].”
(Customer pulls out a card, and I press the corresponding button on my POS. She inserts her card then continues to look at the menu.)
Customer: *points behind me to our muffin display* “Muffin!”
Me: *walks over to display and points at the muffin I assume she was pointing at* “This one?”
Customer: “Blue! Blue!”
Me: “A blueberry muffin? Anything else?”
Customer: “Two!”
(Because she hadn’t finished payment, I cancel it and enter in the two muffins, while giving her the new total. By the time I am done, she has returned her card back into her wallet.)
Me: “Ma’am, you still need to pay. Please put your card in here.” *gestures to card reader*
Customer: *takes her card back out and enters it into card reader, presses a few buttons, then continues to look at the menu*
Customer: “Americano!”
Me: *sighs* “All right, ma’am.” *cancels payment again since she hadn’t finished* “What size?”
Customer: “Small!”
Me: *punches it into the system* “Your new total is $[total].”
(Her card is still in the reader, so I take it out, press the button on my POS, and put it back in. She doesn’t add anything else, so I go and start on the other customers order, and hand it out. I return to the POS and the payment hadn’t gone through.)
Me: “It didn’t go through; would you like to try again?”
Customer: *takes her card out and puts it back in*
(I restart the payment, walking her through the buttons to press until it gets to the pin screen. She enters her pin and it goes through. By this time her ice cream is done by my coworkers, so I hand it out to her, and tell her the rest is coming up.)
Customer: “I go sit!” *starts walking away*
Me: “Ma’am! Please stay here; your order is almost done!”
Customer: *walks back to counter* “Sorry! Drunk!”
Me: *thinking it all makes sense now*
(I grab her muffins and hand it to her.)
Me: “Here are the muffins; it’ll be just a minute for the Americano. Please wait here, ma’am.”
Customer: “I sit?”
Me: “No, ma’am, please wait here.”
(I go and get her Americano, and hand it to her.)
Me: “Here you are!”
(Looking at her two ice cream and Americano, I decide to get her a drink tray so she doesn’t drop anything. I put them in the tray and hand it to her.)
Me: “There you are. Now, be careful; the Americano is hot!”
Customer: *starts walking away* “Thank you!”
Me: *turning towards my manager* “That took WAY too long!”
(Thankfully the night went smoothly after that.)
