Yes, we charge for cups of ice.

[SuperB]

Care to wager on that one?

Heh, no. 'Cause I don't really believe it any more than you do.

[aurelemsrealm]

Here's how it works in my store.

Regular soda fountain cups are made of that thin plastic (like the 32-44 oz Taco Bell cups). If you use it for ice, you get charged the full price regardless. I don't care that it's "just a cup of ice." I scan the bar code, and it's a done deal. If you want to get a fountain drink after that, you may go ahead and do so. You already paid for it. If you don't want it after that, I'm still not giving you a refund. You dirtied the cup. No one else can use it. Tough luck for you. The only exceptions I make are for regular customers who make my day better. If I like you, you'll probably get what you want from me.

Regular coffee cups are made of this paper fiber material (I don't know how to describe the material any better than that. Same rules apply. If you ask me nicely and treat me with the same level of respect you expect, I'll probably give you what you want. We can get by with a few exceptions here and there without getting in trouble. I'm just not wasting them on customers who show no appreciation for my services. Get on my shit list, and you might as well forget about any special treatment because it's not going to happen. About all you can expect at that point is minimal service for minimal gratitude. Yes, management generally turns their heads when myself or one of the other clerks decides to unleash a little frustration on customers we'd rather see take their business elsewhere. When one of us dislikes a sucky customer, it's probably a safe bet the rest of us hate you, too. We do communicate with each other and conspire against all you SCs. Furthermore, we're not scared of your empty threats to tell on us. We hear it all of the time, and laugh about it as soon as you make your dramatic exit and storm out the door. Even if you do go to the trouble of telling, management generally pays no attention to it once you're done bitching if they bother mentioning it to us at all. "Oh, by the way, hahahaha, your favorite sucky customer stopped by or called to tell me about blah, blah, blah that you did..... HAHAHAHA!!!!! I don't care though. Jerk deserved it."

Our ice cups are small styrofoam cups. I usually don't charge regulars for the ice cup price if I like them. I charge them if I dislike them. Usually, if one of us dislikes a particular customer, the rest of us dislike that customer also. It usually means that customer is the typical daily SC. Therefore, we make them pay for it regardless. It's just the principle of the matter -- be nice to your clerk and your clerk will be nice to you. Yeah, I think that's pretty much the bottom line. It's not that we care how much you pay for it. It's just the means by which we can reward the good customers and punish the bad customers without making it obvious.

We have scan cards for each size of cup, and we also have scan cards for "small refill" and "large refill." I usually just take whichever bar code scans first when it's a "large refill." Of course, I scan it as a small for regular customers who I like. Everyone else gets charged whichever one scans first. Regular PITA customers get charged for the large when they have a big cup.

[ColonelInTheKitchen]

Our KFC doesn't charge for water, but when I worked at the KFC in KY, we did. I think it varies from owner to owner, really. We're supposed to charge at least 10 cents for a cup of water, but usually we don't even bother. Sometimes we don't charge older folk for their drinks, as a senior discount type of thing, but if they're being difficult or we know they are SCs, we will charge them.

Of course, the whole senior thing is at our discretion, so who's to say who will get a free drink? I had one lady, I gave her a drink and told her I wasn't charging her for the discount, and then she looked surprised. I said, "not that you're a senior or anything," and winked, and she grinned so big at me. She couldn't have been less than 45 though.

[JustADude]

She couldn't have been less than 45 though.

My mother would kill you if she heard you say that. She's nearly 50, and she says she won't consider herself old until she can't stay awake through the final set at a club.

[Becks]

"Well, what if I just buy the slushie and buy the bigger cup and just pour it into the other cup? Huh? What will you do then?" Well...you are perfectly able to do that. If you want to spend $7.50 for what amounts to about 12 oz of frozen Kool Aid, go right ahead. Knock yourself out. I had a woman do exactly that one time, and it was comical as hell.

Do exactly WHAT? Knock herself out, or play "switch the cups"?

[Namrepus221]

Oh man... this happened a few days ago where I work.

I work in a 7-11 and we charge for cups, regardless if they are filled, unfilled, Ice, slurpee, coffee, what have you. The following is largely paraphrased from what happened cause I can't remember every little piece of the conversation.

This woman comes to the counter with an empty 20 oz. bottle of Diet Mountain Dew, and a Big Gulp cup filled with the missing contents of the bottle. I scan the Mt. Dew, and the cup and tell her the price.

Woman: "I'm just paying for the mt. dew"

Me: "I'm sorry ma'am, we charge for the cups as well"

Woman: "They only charge me for the cup at Sheetz"

Me: "I'm sorry ma'am. You opened the soda so you have to pay for it, and we charge for the cups as well. It's store policy"

Woman: "But they don't do that at Sheetz"

Me: "Ma'am, this isn't Sheetz."

Needless to say I had to disappear for a second to restock Ice in the soda machine. My co-worker told me that the woman remarked she was never shopping at our store ever again. I told you I was sorry atleast 3 or 4 times Miss. She was gonna pay for the soda either way because she opened the product in the store.

The funny thing is... I've talked to 3 employees of local Sheetz stations as well as several other people who frequent them (God I love the MTO menu, *drool*)...and they said the same thing. They charge for the cups as well.

In regards to the coffee and soda refill from another store. Yes we do allow them. But we charge for them. About 94 cents for a soda refill in any cup (except the big 52 ounce mugs which is like a $1.05 or something... been yelled at about that as well by someone from Nevada bitching that we were overcharging him and that he could get a refill in his mug at his local 7-11 for less than a dollar), and we charge 84 cents for the coffee refills. You can get ice in a cup if you bring it in as well, we won't charge you for that. But once you put anything besides ice into it from the soda machine, it becomes a chargable item.

I did have one woman get 2 Double Gulps (64 oz drinks) of ice once... she payed abotu $3.75 or something for them. Mathematically that works out to about 4 or so pounds of ice if I'm doing my calculations correct.

Now our bags of ice are abotu a $1.35 for the 7 pound bag. You can see where I'm going here. The cups acctually cost her more than the ice she wanted them for.

[Sableonblonde]

Do exactly WHAT? Knock herself out, or play "switch the cups"?

LOL I would love to see somebody knock themselves out Haven't gotten that lucky yet. However, on my way out of work once I did see somebody walk right into a pole. It wasn't amusing, because I wouldn't really laugh at somebody for doing that, it was just kind of shocking to witness.

I don't understand why people want to buy cups with just ice...if you're already paying, why not just get a drink in there as well? I guess maybe they have their own bottled drinks with them or something like that. Although it does piss me off when somebody orders a cup of just ice and I ask if they want anything to drink in it and they snap at me, "No, just the ice!" Gee sorry, I was only trying to be nice. Won't make that mistake again.

[sms001]

This woman comes to the counter with an empty 20 oz. bottle of Diet Mountain Dew, and a Big Gulp cup filled with the missing contents of the bottle. I scan the Mt. Dew, and the cup and tell her the price.

I've had minor varients of this one as well. Ran out of bag-in-a-box for Coke at the fountain so SC gets fountain cup with ice, opens a 20 oz. of coke from the cooler, fills cup and then throws the bottle away. I was so stunned I let her get away with it.

Another did essentially the same thing, but with a flavor that wasn't available on the fountain. When he brought both cup and bottle up I rang "cup of ice" and scanned the bottle. He said "No, a 32 oz. soda is only $.89" I explained that that was the FOUNTAN soda price - he had a bottle. "Yes, but you don't HAVE Cherry/Vanilla/Nutrasweet Only/No Caffeine/Extra Carbonation/Hint of Mango/Hair of Dog Coke on your fountain." So this brilliant consumer's entitlement was that he should get whatever liquid he wanted in a cup for eighty-nine cents.

If it had worked (It didn't, and management was a LOT less nice about it than I had been.) I woulda said screw the quik-stop, I'm going down to the liquor store, and if there's no Glenmorangie on the fountain, I'm heading down the aisles 'til I find some

[MystyGlyttyr]

When I worked at the candy store, we had a little drink fountain with like, five drinks on it...Dr Pepper, Coke, Sprite, and something else, I don't know what. It was just a way to make a little extra money since we were on the third floor of the mall and the only other place to get drinks was the food court on the first floor and the complete other end.

One day I'm in the store and had literally JUST finished pouring a Sprite for a customer when this obviously QUITE agitated man comes stumbling in, red-faced, wheezing, drooling, the whole nine yards, with a panicky-looking woman behind him with her hands on his back.

"We need water!" she starts yelling.

"We don't have water, here, drink this!" And I shoved the Sprite in the dude's hands. (Fortunately, the other customer was a cool guy and waited on everything to get settled down before he got a replacement Sprite.)

So I whip my stool out from behind the counter so the guy can sit, and he sits down, gulping the Sprite while his wife or whoever the lady is kind of pets his hair back and tries to calm him down, and I give her a roll of paper towels so she can clean his face up a little, and after a couple minutes, everything is cool. (I found out later that the guy had some sort of weird acid-reflux-like disease, but so severe that he would almost literally be PUKING stomach acid.)

So after this poor guy comes tripping over himself into my store with a singed esophagus and drool all over himself, the lady turns to me and starts digging loose change out of her purse, asking how much for the Sprite.

I kinda laughed and explained that there was no way in hell I was charging her a soda when the poor guy was obviously that sick. The both of them looked at me like I offered them tickets to heaven, I swear. Afterwards when I asked my boss about it, he agreed with me that in something that looked like a medical emergency, we were supposed to do whatever we could to help and not worry about it (we got an occasional diabetic or hypoglycemic who we had to force feed some pecans or something like that).

The really sweet thing was that it turned out the guy was a DJ for one of the area radio stations, and a couple weeks later he brought me a bag of free CDs as a thank-you gift. Nothing I would listen to in a million years, but still a really nice gesture.

[Becks]

Mysty, what a nice post. It warmed my heart.

[wanderingjoe72]

Correct me if I'm wrong (it's been a long time since I lived in the American south-west), but don't a handful of states including Arizona and Texas REQUIRE a fast food chain to make free cups of water/ice available to anyone who asks for one?

I am here in AZ and I haven't run across that one. A lot of places do it as a courtesy, which of course SCs translate to a right.

I've seen roadside stores like "The Thing" that advertise free water. This is as a courtesy to draw in customers.

[Dreamstalker]

I know that most sit-down restaurants in NM I've been to will only serve water on request due to the fairly-regular drought situation. One year it got to where you could taste the bleach/chlorine/whatever they had to use to treat the water because the reservoir was so low...harmless, just tasted funny if you weren't expecting it.

[PepperElf]

not a bad policy most of the time... it stops non-paying people from getting the cup and then putting soda in it anyway.

the one time i found that kind of policy to be insane was back in the late 80s when the ice was requested for my sister at a sports event... i don't remember exactly why we wanted ice for her - possibly because she was overheated because of her races that day.

but anyway... we needed ice, but they wouldn't give out any ice for her except in one of their cups. (they were pricy too)