Customer: “…and a triple burger.”

Employee: “Okay, that’s $54.22.”

A while later…

Customer: “Hey. I ordered a triple burger but only got two patties. Can you just toss another patty on it?”

Employee: “Sure! We’ll get that out ASAP!”

In the “kitchen”…

Employee: “Hey. The guy ordered a triple burger, but I accidentally rang in a double. He said he’s fine just having another patty thrown on it; we don’t need to remake it.”

Me: “Sure, I’ve got one just coming off of the grill for that other order. I’ll take that one out to him right away.”

Manager: “DID YOU CHARGE HIM FOR IT? GO CHARGE HIM FOR IT.”

Now, my thinking is that the guy spent upwards of $50 at a slightly nicer local burger joint, we messed his order up, and he’s being totally accommodating about how we fix it. Let’s eat the fifty-cent cost and make him feel good about this.

My manager’s thinking is that we wouldn’t want to lose that twenty-odd cents of SWEET, SWEET PROFIT fixing the guy’s order. We should go out to him with his burger-sauce-covered hands, tell him to dig his wallet out and come up to the counter, and ring through another transaction FOR A F****** DOLLAR. Because we messed up. It costs half our cost of the patty just to swipe his debit card!

If it’s something minor, it was potentially/probably our mistake, and the customer isn’t rude, then f*** it; spending a few bucks a day/hour to keep people happy like that is some of the best and cheapest advertising you can get.

I’m working in a hotel around 1:30 am. A guest comes in to check in, so I get his name, check his ID, and verify his reservation.

Me: “All right, will you be parking with us?”

Guest: “Yes.”

Me: “Okay. Parking is $39 a night, plus tax. Let me get you a parking pass.”

Guest: *With a blank smile* “Is that how much it is?”

Me: “It is.”

Guest: “Oh, I don’t want to pay that.”

Me: “Yeah, I know it’s expensive.”

Guest: “You will take the charges off and let me park for free.”

Me: “I’m sorry?”

Guest: “I don’t want to pay that. You will let me park for free.”

Me: *Pauses* “Sir, I can’t just let you park for free.”

Guest: “Yes, you can. I don’t want to pay that.”

Me: “Sir, you’re not a loyalty member, and your reservation is just regular with no parking included. Has something gone wrong that you want this as compensation? What’s your reason behind why you want it for free?”

Guest: “I don’t want to pay that.”

Me: “Sir, not wanting to pay for it isn’t a valid enough reason to get it for free. Nobody here would pay if it was.”

Guest: “But I want it free.”

Me: “Sir, so does everyone who parks here.”

Guest: “You cannot give it to me for free?”

Me: “No, sir, I’m afraid not.”

Guest: “Perhaps your manager will give it to me. May I speak to him?”

Me: “Our general manager isn’t here on account of it being 1:30 am, but you’re welcome to talk to him in the morning. I promise he’s going to say the same thing I did, though.”

Guest: “Perhaps.”

Me: *Pauses again* “Until then, shall I set you up with a parking pass?”

Guest: “Yes.”

My manager was unsympathetic in the morning, and the guy did pay.

Parking is outrageously high everywhere in this city, not just at this location. It’s also an internal, gated garage, though there’s an open city lot nearby that costs about the same.

Sadly, I was, in fact, not the droid he was looking for.

Roughly every other Saturday, a bar in my city hosts a coffee morning for members of a certain alphabet-themed community. The coffee morning runs from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm, during which time the bar supplies free tea and coffee to attendees.

One day recently, the coffee morning overran. I had some really great conversations with a couple of people I hadn’t had opportunities to speak to before. As we were wrapping up, it was close to 1:15 pm. Since the bar also does food until 3:00 pm, I decided to stay a bit longer and get lunch.

I walked up to the bar, ordered lunch off the menu, and asked for another coffee. The person behind the bar adopted a world-weary frown and said:

Worker: “Just so you know, it’s after 1:00 pm.”

Meaning, “You will have to pay for your coffee now.”

Me: *With a smile* “Yes, I understand.”

Because I’m not an idiot and I can read both basic instructions and a clock, and because I had pulled out my card, a look of relief passed across her face. 

Even though she immediately tried to disguise it, it was obvious that she had expected me to be an awkward, entitled idiot and argue over the £2.75 cost of a coffee. So glad I could show her that not everyone’s THAT person.

Many years ago, I worked at a bookstore. In the USA, most items sold have a UPC (Universal Product Code) barcode. Books, however, generally use the international EAN (European Article Number) barcode. Nowadays, most books use the same thirteen-digit number for ISBN (used to assign a unique identifier to books even before computerized POS and barcodes were a thing) and EAN, but back when ISBNs were only ten digits, the main benefit of using an EAN instead of a UPC on books was that EAN standards allow an additional five-digit number to encode the price. You can flip over most books and see two barcodes, with the one on the right being shorter. The first digit is the currency, and the next four are the price, assuming two decimal places; for example, 50599 is USD$5.99, 11200 is GBP£12.00.

I don’t know if this is still the case, but when this happened at the bookstore where I worked, when you scanned a book with an EAN-5 price code, the encoded price overrode whatever the price in the system was. This was useful because, assuming the barcode was done correctly, the price printed on the book would always ring up even if the inventory system had an older price.

One day, a gentleman came to my register with two books: one large art book and one paperback novel. I scanned both and told him his total was $47.99.

Customer: “Are you sure?”

I double-checked that the two titles listed on my screen matched what was in front of me.

Me: “Yes.”

Customer: “I don’t think that’s correct.”

Me: *Turning the screen to face him* “Here: [Art Book] is $40 and [Novel] is $7.99.”

Customer: “Check the books.”

I turned the books around and looked at the barcode area. Most books have the price printed near there, but some hardcovers only have it on the inside flap. When encountering books like that, I had become used to just looking at the string of numbers printed above the EAN-5 instead of opening the book. Sure enough, the novel said $7.99, and while the art book didn’t have a price, the numbers said 54000 which I knew to mean $40.00.

Me: “They look correct to me.”

Customer: “I insist you double-check the price inside of [Art Book].”

I sighed, flipped the book over the right way, and opened the cover. My eyes bulged out as I read the tiny print on the inside of the dust jacket: “United States $400.00 Canada $460.00”.

Of course, I apologized profusely and thanked him for pointing that out. I deleted the scanned item, and then covered the EAN-5 with my finger and scanned it again; with only the EAN-13 being scanned, the system rang it at the listed price of $400.00.

After we completed the transaction with various apologies and expressions of gratitude on my part, I got my manager, who went up to the Art section to sticker over the barcodes of the remaining copies and submit a misprint form to the publisher.

I wear fairly simple (and I like to think professional and sophisticated) clothing to meetings. My client wears nothing but animal prints, strings of giant gold beads, and such, and sells costume jewelry in the same style. I figured out (correctly) that she would want a website based on said pattern.

Client: “I want my business to be like Mary Kay. God, I’m such a cougar. But what the h***, I’m proud of it. Anyway, I want my clients to host parties and to get free stuff for hosting while selling my jewelry to their friends.“

Me: “It’s a common business model, so it could be done. However, I’m a designer, not a business planner, so we should be discussing your design for the website and business cards.”

Client: “That’s my point!”

Me: “Sorry?”

Client: “If you sell jewelry for me, then you would have to make up business cards and e-vites, and then you could just forward them to me and I’ll change it from to your name to my name. Your money would come from stock sales. And in exchange for letting me use the e-vites and cards, I’ll give you some free gold jewelry!“

Related:
The More You Read The Worse It Gets, Part 11
The More You Read The Worse It Gets, Part 10
The More You Read, The Worse It Gets, Part 9
The More You Read, The Worse It Gets, Part 8
The More You Read, The Worse It Gets, Part 7