posted on Feb, 14 2007 @ 01:34 AM
Slash,
It feels good to finally read about another person's annoyances with the food service industry. Although I've never technically worked fast food, I
worked at a movie theatre for 9 months, and am almost at my year and a half mark at Starbucks. The things your describing sound so much like the
things I go through. It's refreshing to hear someone with similar stories. Even though Starbucks is a million times better a job than the movie
theatre, we still have our share of irritating customers, GMs, DMs, etc. I totally can't stand snobby customers (And trust me, we get A LOT of them
at Starbucks) who think that you're some kind of robot that's supposed to magically wade through a long line in a matter of seconds. Most of the
time, our customers at Starbucks are really cool. I get to joke around a lot, and we have a lot of regular customers that we know by name, they know
us, etc. But oh man, ever once in a while we have that customer. There have been a few, but the first story that comes to mind took place
about 6 months ago.
I was on bar, which means I was making drinks. A customer had ordered and iced caramel machiatto. For those of you that don't know, an iced caramel
machiatto is vanilla syrup, milk, ice, espresso, and caramel. It's typicall layered so that the milk and syrup is on the bottom, and the ice,
espresso, and caramel are on top (We also have a hot one, but I'm sure you can use your imagination.) Sometimes, though, people get it mixed up. We
call that melted, but there are a lot of different words for it. Melted, upside down, mixed, blended, the list goes on. Anyway, I get finished
making the drink, hand it to the customer, and he says "No, I wanted that blended." The way he said it led me to ask the question "Blended as in
mixed together? Or did you want a Frappuccino (Blended ice drink. People get confused and say the wrong thing all the time, so it's a perfectly
legit question.)" "No," he says, "I wanted it blended." I ask one more time, just to be sure, because that's the nice guy I am. "So,
you want me to actually dump this into the blender and blend it up like a frappuccino?" He says "yes." Couldn't possibly be more direct, right?
Sure, it's a bit unorthodox...actually it's extremely unorthodox. At that point, I'd been there about a year and this was the first, maybe the
second person I've ever had request that from me. No matter, though, the customer is always right. So I do what the guy says, pour the drink into
the blender, blend it, put it back into the cup, and give it to him. He stands there, puts in his straw, shakes his head and sighs. He won't look
me in the eyes though - they never do. It must have took courage to say what he said. He asks "What days do you work?" I explain to him that
it's pretty random, and I work anytime they need me, any day. I ask, "why?" and he says "Because now I know better" and walks away.
To a lot of people, that wouldn't be too frustrating, but people who know what it's like to go through something like that know it's infuriating!
The nerve of that jerk to say that to me after I've been so damn nice to him and put up with his stupid requests...ugh! I know I shouldn't let it
get to me, but it did. I felt like going around the counter, knocking that drink out of his hand, and throwing him out of the store. Of course, I
would lose my job, but it'd be damn satisfying!
Thanks for actually reading through that mess if you did. I tend to write a lot more than I originally intend...