Whoever You Are, Don’t Come Back

I work at a sandwich place where the entire process is on display. A customer comes in and puts the order under Dave. The order goes down the line.

Me: “Dave?”

No response.

Me: *Louder* “DAVE?”

No dice.

Me: “[Coworker], do you know where Dave is?”

But it’s the lunch rush and they can’t place a face to the name. All right, no big deal. We are located in a plaza so it’s common for people to order and then leave to do a bit of quick shopping before coming back to grab their food. They usually inform us, but not always.

Five minutes pass:

Me: “Dave?”

No luck. Now I’m starting to wonder if he had to rush off for some reason. The guy already paid for his food, after all. Maybe he had an emergency?

Five minutes after that, a guy comes up, clearly irritated.

Customer: “Where is my food? I’ve seen half a dozen people that were behind me already leave with theirs!”

Me: “My apologies. Can I get the name for your order so I can look you up?”

I assume we gave this guy’s food away to someone else. It happens occasionally, and I am already mentally preparing to shower this guy with coupons and give him a refund for wasting his time.

Customer: “My name is Steve.”

Me: “All right, Steve let me take care of you real quick.”

But alas, there is no Steve within the last hour of orders.

Me: “Sorry about this, sir, but I’m having trouble finding you. What did you order?”

Customer: “Well, you shouldn’t; I ordered just twenty minutes ago. I got [order].”

Well, doesn’t that sound familiar?

Me: “Oh, wow, my apologies. I’ve been calling out that order for some time now! For some reason, we have the order under Dave! I’m really sorry about that; sometimes we mishear the name as it gets a bit loud back here, but usually it is at least close!”

Customer: “Oh, I gave them a fake name.”