Client: “Our page isn’t updated.”
Me: “We haven’t been given any content to update it with.”
Client: “We thought we’d save time and space by not sending the attachments.”
Me: “You’re saving time and space by not sending the content we need to update with?”
Client: “The emails sent faster, didn’t they?!”
I’m a shift supervisor at a store for a regional coffee chain. It’s a Sunday morning and we are absolutely slammed. The local favorite professional football team has a playoff game today. Most of our customers have been dressed in full purple and gold, trying to get their coffee before noon kick-off.
It is 11:50 am and a family of ten, in full purple and gold, walks in and comes to the counter to order. They each order a specialty drink and a sandwich. Because there are so many and we can only cook two at a time, the sandwiches alone will take us close to fifteen minutes to make. The last guy to order also pays.
Customer: “And hurry up! We need to be back home for kick-off!”
My cashier looks over at me.
Me: “Sir, [Team] kick-off is at noon; that’s in ten minutes. Your sandwiches alone are going to take about fifteen minutes to make. There’s no way you’ll be home in time.”
Customer: “We’ll make it in time if you quit talking and make our stuff!”
Trying not to roll my eyes, I join my coworker in making the order. The entire time, the man and his family are making loud comments about how slow we are and how they are going to miss part of the game. Even working as quickly as we can, it still takes us around fifteen minutes to finish everything. We hand off all the drinks and sandwiches only for the guy to say as they are all walking out the door:
Customer: “Thanks for nothing! We still have a fifteen-minute drive home! We’re going to miss the whole first quarter! I’m going to report you to your manager!” *Storms out*
I printed off a copy of his receipt, circled the time on it, and left it with an explanation on the back for my manager. Sure enough, the guy called in the next morning to complain. My manager burst out laughing on the phone and hung up on him.
How on earth did he think that coming in with ten minutes before the game starts, getting coffee, and then driving fifteen minutes home was going to work? Did they have a time machine?
I had been working at a local chain pizza delivery store for a few weeks when [Manager #1] announced that he was going to be out of town on a Saturday, two weeks hence. No problem, the owner would just send a replacement from one of the other stores for the day. The other employees started getting nervous; apparently, there was one manager in particular, [Manager #2], they didn’t want.
Thursday before his day off, [Manager #1] told us that [Manager #2] would be managing the store Saturday evening. Everyone groaned, even though [Manager #1] relayed the owner’s assurances that the issues had been addressed with [Manager #2].
During a lull on Thursday afternoon, [Manager #1] explained to me that [Manager #2] was disliked because she couldn’t close the store in a timely manner. Normally, we start breaking down the make line and cleaning up after the late rush (when we get one or two orders per hour). Pizza ingredients go into their metal tubs and are placed on a cart, and the cart is wheeled into the cooler. The make line is washed down, etc. We spot clean as necessary so that when we close at 2:00 am, it takes no more than thirty — maybe forty-five — minutes to finish cleaning and walk out. [Manager #2] couldn’t lock up in less than ninety minutes, even on a “fast” night.
Saturday night, I found out why everyone was groaning. We weren’t allowed to break down the make line because we got three orders between 11:00 and midnight, so clearly it was going to be even busier, even later. Since [Manager #2] was expecting another large rush, none of the late-night drivers were allowed to leave early; they had to stay until the store closed at 2:00 am (which is when she allowed us to start cleaning) and help with cleaning up before she would start checking them out. Then, she had to complete the paperwork and prepare the bank drop before we were allowed to leave.
Sunday afternoon, [Manager #1] came in and called me into the office.
Manager #1: “How did last night go? Did you get out early?”
Me: “Oh, yeah, we got out early—”
[Manager #1] interrupted, surprised and pleased.
Manager #1: “Really? How—”
Me: “I mean, a lot of people consider 5:00 am to be ‘early’.”
In 2013, I started my first “real job” as a security guard for an industrial storage facility in Central Oahu. At the time I had a coworker who was habitually late to work. This was a massive problem before I had been hired and it continued to be a massive problem while we worked together.
The nature of our site meant that there needed to be a guard twenty-four-seven, so if she was late, the guard working the shift prior to hers would be forced to stay until she arrived. In my first month, I was held back more than sixteen times for anywhere from thirty minutes to three hours due to her tardiness. She never called to say where she was, why she was late, or when she would be in, and it was always a gamble as to what time I would actually get off work.
Within the next month of working, my sixteen-year-old car decided that having an alternator was no longer on its list of priorities, and while I was waiting on getting paid to buy a replacement part, I was fortunate enough to have my father to take me to work. I maintained my standard of not being late for work until the second week when there was a car accident on the freeway and we got stuck.
Three minutes after my shift was supposed to start, [Coworker] called me to ask me where I was.
Me: “It appears there was a bad accident on the [Freeway]. We are trying to push to [Valley] to get off and continue to the site on surface streets.”
[Coworker] immediately went off.
Coworker: “You need to be on time! It’s incredibly important that you’re here to relieve your coworkers! It’s about work ethic. You have a responsibility to be at work not only on time but early for the pass-down of information between shifts!”
I absolutely lost it.
I knocked her down several dozen pegs and told her in no uncertain terms that she, of all people, did not belong talking to anyone about being on time. I outlined all of the times she had been late and how late she had been. I pointed out the fact that I had never said a thing to her about it and asked her how she could have the balls to speak to someone that she had been screwing over since day one about “responsibilities”.
She didn’t have a response. Apparently, prior to my arrival, the other guards had just taken this kind of thing in stride. In her pause, I continued, telling her that she was not a supervisor or an assistant supervisor and that she did not belong calling me and trying to level corrective actions, especially on my personal phone.
She was pissed and ended up hanging up on me after sputtering some nonsense about “tact” and “manners”.
By the time I got to work, she had left, leaving the supervisor at the time manning the guard shack. The supervisor asked me what in the world had happened as [Coworker] had asked him to handle it for her and I told him straight up, verbatim, the entire conversation.
The supervisor laughed. He agreed with me on every point and was actually happy that someone other than him had finally put their foot down with her.
[Coworker] didn’t last much longer past that day. She ended up getting eliminated when Hawaii enacted the Guard Card later that year as she did not possess the required high school diploma or GED to qualify for the license.
Unfortunately, she was replaced by the biggest problem to ever set foot on that property, but that’s a story for another time.
Client: “The boss has changes. I just received them.”
Me: “The thing went to print five hours ago.”
Client: “Did you submit it with the changes I’m about to give you?”
Me: “No?”
Client: “Why not?”
Me: “When did you get these changes?”
Client: “Just now.”
Me: “Yet, the thing went to print five hours ago.”
Client: “Well, just make sure that submission has these changes on it.”
Me: “Right. Got it.” *Thumbs up.*
