They come through the door with a bad attitude. Maybe a bad day at work. Maybe crazy traffic. But most likely they just hate their life and now it's time to make you hate yours. Count on at least 2-3 things being "wrong" with their order/service. They love to talk to a manager and apparently love the taste of bodily fluids in their entrees. Your only solace is the knowledge that you're about to win the break room bad-customer-off at the end of the night. Work on your impression of the customer during your next smoke/bathroom break. While the demographic for this type of customer can be quite varied, if you see a women over the age of 55 come in, be prepared.
2. Overly Nice Person
Them: "How you doin' today?!?!" Your Mouth: "Great!" Brain: "I wish you had died 5 minutes ago so this wouldn't be happening now." Overly Nice Person is way worse than Mean Person. You wouldn't think so, but it's true. Mean Person is not only tolerable due to your ability to possibly enact covert, food-tampering revenge on them while mocking their shitty voice to your fellow employees, but also the fake, company-mandated niceness you have to use to counteract Mean Person helps slightly neutralize this customer's long term effects on you. Kind of how scientists say that forcing yourself to smile can actually make you feel happier. ONP doesn't offer you any of that. In fact, his ridiculously sunny disposition only highlights how much you hate where you're at right now and the fact that you have to stay here the next 4 odd hours and work that double on Saturday.
3. Chatty Person
Sometimes can overlap with Overly Nice Person, but usually not. While ONP can be a chatty Kathy, a true chatty customer usually keeps his inane conversation in the complaint department. "Oh, man work today..." "It's so hot/cold/humid/snowy out..." "Did you hear about..." Look, if you're not talking about the things you want to shove in your face hole, the person attending to you could not give less of a fuck about what you are saying. But mainly, they're just wasting your time with all their pointless fucking questions and comments. And in the food industry, not only is time money, but this customer is also stealing away those few precious minutes you get to stick it to the man by getting paid to text your friends and take mini-naps in the bathroom.
4. Coupon Person
"What can I get with this?" is usually what you'll here from these people. They're going to waste your time because they don't know what they want. They don't even know what this restaurant serves or if they like it, they just know coupons give them big stomach-boners. When you can't make a major substitution or change the terms of the deal and still honor the coupon, they cry "Bullshit!" Yes, getting a meal at 25% or more off is really bullshit. I hope you choke to death on your free side, someone at your table takes the leftovers home and serves it to everyone you love for an after funeral snack and they all choke and die too. If you're a server, don't count on a tip. Unless the coupon says they need to leave one to get a free drink.
5. Children
When working food industry, I HATE me some children. But I hesitate to go too hard on them because while their actions are the direct cause of some of your worst shifts, they're really just the middlemen in the hate process that you really have for their parents. I'm just saying, the kids getting into the syrup fight at the table in the back probably don't have a lot of positive direction at home. Regardless, the children parent combo is the WORST "person" by far. Not only are you texting your girlfriend immediately after the first chocolate milk they spill to remind her not to forget to take her birth control today, but now every customer in a 10 foot radius of this shitshow is a staunch pro-choice supporter.
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