Say (no) Cheese...(LONG)

[zigcat]

So this guy who has, thank god, a very infrequent history with us decides to once again darken our pizza place. This time he decides to call to complain that there's cheese on his pizza when he "don't do dairy." News to us, since he didn't SAY he didn't want cheese. But wait, he DID say he didn't want cheese, indirectly, by not including it in his list of toppings. Nope. Don't work like that. You have to SPECIFY NO. CHEESE.

That reasoning was completely lost on him as he hemmed and hawed and cursed and demanded compensation and spun Non sequitur yarns about his being a concert promoter and how he had connections to certain consumer watch dog groups who defended people like him from unscrupulous businesses. It went on and on. Given this guys history with us, there was no way in hell he was getting ANY kind of compensation. After all this was the same guy who could just not get it through his head that we were closing early one night due to the fact that we were inordinately and unexpectedly busy and had completely burned through our dough and prep. He reasoned that since he was calling during business hours it was our obligation to serve him. "What do you want me to do?" the owner finally said, "Go buy some Wonder bread and a can of tomato soup? Good GOD the time you spent bitching about something that we have no control over, you could have called another pizza place."

Back to the cheese debacle:

EXCERPT

SC: You guys need to get your fucking act together and give customers what they want. I'm fucking lactose intolerant, now I can't eat this damn thing because there's cheese all over it. I want to know what YOU'RE going to do to correct this.

ME: I'm going to tell you to chalk it up to a learning experience. That if you don't...

SC: LEARNING EXPERIENCE?! God damn it I...

ME: ...that if you don't want cheese on your pizza, it's YOUR responsibility to tell the person taking your order AND to mention that you're lactose intolerant. We had no way of knowing.

SC: I said I want JUST pesto and chicken.

ME: Which means those are the only TOPPINGS you want. Cheese comes standard unless you SAY. I. DON'T. WANT. CHEESE.

SC: You got a bunch of incompetent hippies working down there? I've been ordering from you for 20 years.

ME: I know. How unfortunate for us. You would think you would know how things work by now.

SC: JESUS CHRIST! What is so difficult for you to understand? My pizza was made INCORRECTLY.

ME: Your pizza was ORDERED incorrectly.

SC: Do you have even the slightest clue about why you're in business?

ME: To make a profit.

SC: You think you're gonna make any profits by fucking over your long time customers?

ME: You did that yourself when you failed to specify your desire to have NO CHEESE.

SC: You're running a really shitty business. Do you do this to ALL of your customers?

ME: Only the ones who try and blame us for their own mistakes and think they're OWED something for it.

SC: YOU fucked up my order and now you're telling me you won't do anything about it. Talk about customer service! Incompetent...

I'm over it by this time.

ME: Look, it's not our job to anticipate your wants, needs or desires. YOU need to make them clear. People order pizzas with alterations all the time but they make it KNOWN which alterations they want. And if by some chance we screw up their orders, THEN there's grounds to complain, THEN we need to do what we can to make them happy. You've kept me tied up going the rounds with you when I need to be back on the make line. All you're succeeding in doing now is disrupting our business.

SC: You listen to me you little fucking...

CLICK

He kept trying to call back. Unfortunately for him, when we saw his number on the ID we simply picked up the receiver and put it back down again.

A few minutes later, the owner came in to drop off some home-made goodies for the crew. We told him about the situation.

OWNER: Not HIM again. Did you tell him that pesto has cheese in it?

ME: Didn't even cross my mind.

Phone rings again. Guess who?

ME: It's him again.

OWNER: I'll take it.

I went back to the make line. A few minutes later, the owner came over.

OWNER: He wants a copy of his receipt. Whatever good that'll do him. I'm gonna get it ready to go out in the mail tomorrow. Something about how he's gonna contact the BBB about our back door dealings or whatever.

ME: What did he say when you told him pesto has cheese in it?

OWNER: "Yeah if you WANT it to."

ME: Seriously? It's the fucking RECIPE!

OWNER: Anyway. There's lemon pie on the back table. I gotta run.

My co workers and I thanked him for dealing with this fucktard, considering it was the owner's day off.

It's become kind of a joke now. Whenever someone orders, let's say, a pepperoni and mushroom, after we're off the phone with them we'll say:

"Hey, better make that pizza without cheese. It's not on there." or "They must not want sauce, cause it's not written down."

[MoonCat]

Man, that's weird. I've never heard of anybody who didn't understand that cheese comes standard on a pizza. Even a white pizza. As to pesto, it's mostly basil, olive oil and parmesan cheese, isn't it? Another thing I never heard of without cheese. Pretty sure you'd have to specify no cheese in either case.

Guy is an asshole who thinks the world should cater to him.

[Argabarga]

That's like being shocked your hamburger came with a bun

[Thana]

Sounds like one of my customers today. I recently started working at "Where's the Beef?" and I had a lady order... I think it was a double stack... yeah it was a double stack, with no bun, no mustard, no onion, only ketchup and extra pickles, also switch out the American cheese for Asiago. Her order comes up and she starts going off on me. "There's mayo on this! I'm allergic to soy! I can't have the mayo! This will have to be completely remade!" She wasn't nice about it.

My poor sandwich maker looked at me (Customers can't see the sandwich makers from the front) and mouthed "What the heck?!" because as I was repeating the lady's order back to her, since it looked wonky, I called out to my sandwich maker "Only ketchup, extra pickle and switch out the American for Asiago!". The food was remade and my sandwich maker brought it up to the manager in case there was a complaint and the manager said "Oh I know. She does this every time. She'll tell the cashier one way and then demand a completely different way. She's just a b----."

[Kittish]

That's like being shocked your hamburger came with a bun ground meat patty.

There, fixed that.

I've NEVER heard of a pizza coming without cheese, unless it was specifically ordered that way.

[XCashier]

I take it this is a small local pizzeria, and not a corporate chain? I'm glad you're allowed to tell problem customers to bug off. Can you ban this clown?

Everyone who knows what a pizza is knows that it comes standard with cheese! If you don't want cheese, you have to specify "no cheese". This idiot was just looking for trouble.

[EricKei]

Back at DaddyJim's, we strongly recommended against that, as the weight of the cheese was the main thing keeping the pies from becoming one huge bubble of dough with a crust ring around it >_> We had to warn custy's that it would likely bubble up, appear burnt, and have areas devoid of sauce due to bubbles forming -- even tho we popped as many as we could en route (pair of sharp tines on a looooong stick), which, of course, meant opening the pizza oven's side window and letting heat escape...

[sirwired]

A few years ago I was at Yellow Arches and some insane lady was railing at the counter-person and the manager because, for the 2nd time in a row, her 1/4 lb cheeseburger had the audacity to include cheese when she ordered a "#3 plain".

To me, you, and the staff of the place, a "plain" cheeseburger means one without onions, pickles, ketchup, and mustard. To her, it also means it's no longer a cheeseburger, just a patty and a bun. (Though I would not have put it past her to claim it doesn't include the bun either.)

If this had occurred after I started reading CS.com, I probably would have spoken aloud and pointed out that she might consider saying "plain #3 w/o cheese", as it takes a lot less time than ordering, getting it "wrong", and then going off on a screaming fit.

As a side-note, who gets a McD burger just for the tasteless bun and dry, poorly-textured meat? The toppings are what turns those mediocre ingredients into a tasty delight. (Turning mediocre ingredients into tasty delights is a hallmark of the "true" national cuisine of any country, whether those mediocre ingredients include stale bread, the stuff put in sausage, overripe fruits, whatever... I happen to glow with American Pride over our national miracles in food processing. Although topping sub-par meat with savory and spicy toppings as a way of disguising how lousy it'd otherwise be is certainly a global phenomenon as old as agriculture.)

[Barracuda]

I'd have to disagree that our national cuisine is sub par. New England style seafood, Cajun and Creole, the various different styles of BBQ, as well as the culmination of the hamburger (not all of them come from fast food, after all,) Hawaiian food, all of these are also American food. And usually made with fresh ingredients and quite delicious!

[sirwired]

I'd have to disagree that our national cuisine is sub par. New England style seafood, Cajun and Creole, the various different styles of BBQ, as well as the culmination of the hamburger (not all of them come from fast food, after all,) Hawaiian food, all of these are also American food. And usually made with fresh ingredients and quite delicious!

Oh, I don't think our national cuisine is sub-par. I was just trying to point out that anybody can make fresh stuff taste good (quality ingredients usually don't need much preparation or seasoning), but what you do with the scraps, leftovers, tough parts, and other "waste" takes some real genius. (I wouldn't be surprised if that's one reason cajun/creole food is so spicy; you gotta do something with those leftovers (before modern refrigeration) and shrimp past its prime takes a lot of covering up.)

[EricKei]

whether those mediocre ingredients include stale bread

I can personally vouch for this one from when I lived down NOLA way -- Take stale french bread (at least 24 hours old), cut it into 1" cubes, soak it in an egg wash (beaten eggs and milk), then bake until crispy. Voila: Pain perdu. Literally, "lost bread" - a variation on French toast that goes really well with powdered sugar.

As for sausage...I'm not sure I wanna know exactly what goes in them, tho boudin -- where one of the main ingredients (aside from meat) is rice -- is damn tasty, and a good way to stretch ingredients.

[Crossbow]

Next time he orders "chicken and pesto", send them to him in a couple of bowls. He never said he wanted the crust, did he?

[Argabarga]

Next time he orders "chicken and pesto", send them to him in a couple of bowls. He never said he wanted the crust, did he?

Sadly, even when their own shortcomings are turned back on them like that, jerks like the SC in the OP never EVER see how they were in the wrong, and your idea will teach them nothing, except that now the store is deliberately mocking them, and that's BAD SERVICE!!!!!!eleventy!!!!

[Seanette]

It may be deliberate mockery, but it's still funny.

[Dizazter]

I have the opposite problem where I work. We do birthday parties and offer a combo deal with a one topping pizza and soda.

Me: What would you like for the one topping?
Them: Pepperoni and cheese.
Me: Ok, so that's a pepperoni and a coke.
Them: Pepperoni and CHEESE.

I really want to ask them where on this planet they order pizza that doesn't come with cheese.