Tweet
An oldie but goodie: my cafe chain sent out a coupon for a free pizza. No purchase necessary, nothing else required, just show up and get free pizza. It had an expiration date of 6 months. One might think that this was plenty of time, but no. On the very last day, we got slammed by people wanting their free pizza, and our normal wait time of 10 minutes got pushed back to 20 minutes. Special orders were running at 25 or 30 minutes, and since we make the pizzas on a first-come-first-served basis, any delay with one pizza got passed to the second. In short, we were running around like blue-balled mongeese who have just scented a female in heat.
This lag and the overcrowded dining room were especially irritating to the folk who didn't have a coupon and bought their pizza at this time every week. I would have felt sorry for them if they hadn't made a point of stopping me from returning to work just so they could bitch at me. Please note that I'm the pizza trainer. Customers seem to read this as 'Head of the Pizza Department' when really it means 'I make better pizzas faster and thus must share my wisdom'. As the imaginary Department Manager, I was treated to long discourses on our lack of customer service and speculation on my abilities as a trainer. Since I had adrenaline pumping trying to actually work, this did not sit well with me, and I started saying, "Hmm, let me go check on that," and went back to work. Whatever the customer yelled at my back was conveniently swallowed by the masses of talking people in my store.
The pizza station is normally filled by one mildly industrious worker or two slackers. We had three workers scurrying with both managers jumping in when they could and we were still gettting hit. After an hour of this nonsense, one of my managers, Lucy, declared no special orders and no 'chatting with' (see also: getting cursed out by) the customers. So then she was gone fielding complaints from the entitlement whores.
The first story of Unusual Jackassery:
One of our sister stores ran out of pizza dough on this night. Their manager extended the deadline on the coupons by a week and signed it. Eight days later, we had a couple come in with another store's expired coupon. This sort of thing really screws up our inventory software and we are never under any circumstances to allow it. They could not understand this, even the sister store's manager had told them it would only be redeemable at sister-store. The man kept bellowing about 'false advertising'. Unfortunately, Lucy was not working that night, and my manager caved like a damp souffle. They were elderly, too, so I'm betting they've raised up at least two more generations of Entitlement Whores.
The second story of Unusual Jackassery (Jillassery?):
Back to Doomsday Night. A woman, let's name her Dandelion, called in at 3 pm to request two pizzas for pick up at 5 pm. At this point, the dinner rush hadn't started, and while we knew we were going to be hit we didn't realize how hard. The trickle of orders picked up speed at about 4:30, and I didn't remember the pizzas until 4:50. They take 8 minutes to cook, so we moved this order to the head of the queue and had them out at precisely 5 pm. I was very nervous, because some customers expect the order to be ready when the second hand on their watch clicks over to the minute, never mind that no two clocks are the same. Because of that, I always try to have them out of the oven five minutes early. To my relief, Dandelion wasn't here yet. Our soup station is set up so that the unused pots have metal lids just slightly smaller than our pizza boxes, so I set them there to stay warm as is our custom. This is actually against Corporate, we're supposed to set them on the counter, but Corporate aren't getting bitched out, we are, so we do what we want.
Dinner rush started in full swing at 5 pm. Surprisingly enough,
the groups ordering pizza often ordered sides or entrees for some members, so all the food stations was getting slammed. Remember the pizza boxes that just slightly overhung the other soup pots? They stayed there until 6:30 pm. That's right, our valiant soup servers put up with that for ninety minutes. Lucy came through, checked the time on the ticket, and pitched them. I was about ready to punch something, since we were eyeing our steadily diminishing supply of pizza dough with alarm. Two pizzas trashed, on the one night we might run out (I usually throw away about one third of the product at the end of the night). We were still getting kicked in the gonads, though, so I didn't have time to worry about it.
7 pm, our newbie cashier calls Lucy over. Two rather trashy looking women with five children in tow are bitching her out because she can't find their pizzas. Lucy quickly acertains that this is Dandelion and her wonderful sister. I pieced their conversation together later from what snippets I overheard while I worked my tail into the ground and what Lucy told me afterwards. Dandelion simply could not understand why her pizzas weren't ready at 7 when she said she'd pick them up at 5. Lucy explained that food gets stale until her face turned blue, to no avail. According to Dandelion, we should have some sort of magical machine that will keep pizza fresh and hot for hours upon end, and upon consumption the food will still taste as if just popped out of the oven. Keep in mind that Corporate told us to leave the food out. We put them on the soup station as part of our own inititive. Dandelion continued to rant about the machine our sister store has. Lucy asked which one, and then told her that she, Lucy, has been there on many occasions and they have never had a magical food-stasis machine. Personally, I think Dandelion meant the oven, as I doubt she's ever used one before.
Three or four times I heard Dandelion demand, "Are you callin' me a liah?" and Lucy respond with, "I'm saying you're mistaken," in her patented explaining-to-a-child voice. After five minutes Lucy convinces her that the pizzas have been thrown away. "Why'd you do that? I'd'a eaten them."
After two hours of sitting out, she'd have gotten food poisoning, and who would be blamed for that? So Lucy rings them up again, and it turns out that they're paying with the free coupons. Lucy's delight in pointing out the 'one coupon per order' was short-lived, as nowhere on there did Corporate put 'Your skanky sister may not ring up a second order with a second coupon.' So we wasted four pizza crusts on this miserable family. One of my coworkers wanted to spit in her food. I thought he was joking, but I ended up having to wrestle the food away from him. Food contamination is bad, mmkay?
I deliberately moved Dandelion back two spaces in the queue, to speed up the line for polite and paying customers. I brought the food out to their table in 20 minutes, as by this point we had shortened our wait to 15 minutes. Dandelion started ripping me a new one, as our pizzas were too small and how was she supposed to feed 7 people off of this bitty little spread. I politely explained that our pizzas were intended for two people each. Says it right there on the menu. She kept going, and I cut her off with, "I'm sorry, ma'am, but I need to continue working. My manager is at the counter if you'd like to share your concerns with her," and I walked away. Her sister demanded of my backside, "Well, where is your crushed peppers?" I half-turned, pointed to the condiment counter, and said, "Right there." Sister huffed, "Ain't you gonna bring 'um to me?" I gave her a disgusted look and said, "No ma'am, I need to go do my job." Dandelion and Co started yelling at me, even after I rounded the corner, so I filled Lucy in and kept walking. She went back there and told them to STFU or she would kick them out for disturbing the other customers.
An hour and a half later, Dandelion and Co finally left. As the two women were packing the kids into their car, the five-year-old boy came back in, walked up to the counter with two customers waiting to order, and mooned the newbie cashier. Then he raised trou and ran like hell. Outside, Dandelion high-fived him. Inside, however, newbie had collasped on the counter giggling and shrieking "Boy butt!". In the spirit of soladarity, I joined her and the two paying customers in laughter.
This lag and the overcrowded dining room were especially irritating to the folk who didn't have a coupon and bought their pizza at this time every week. I would have felt sorry for them if they hadn't made a point of stopping me from returning to work just so they could bitch at me. Please note that I'm the pizza trainer. Customers seem to read this as 'Head of the Pizza Department' when really it means 'I make better pizzas faster and thus must share my wisdom'. As the imaginary Department Manager, I was treated to long discourses on our lack of customer service and speculation on my abilities as a trainer. Since I had adrenaline pumping trying to actually work, this did not sit well with me, and I started saying, "Hmm, let me go check on that," and went back to work. Whatever the customer yelled at my back was conveniently swallowed by the masses of talking people in my store.
The pizza station is normally filled by one mildly industrious worker or two slackers. We had three workers scurrying with both managers jumping in when they could and we were still gettting hit. After an hour of this nonsense, one of my managers, Lucy, declared no special orders and no 'chatting with' (see also: getting cursed out by) the customers. So then she was gone fielding complaints from the entitlement whores.
The first story of Unusual Jackassery:
One of our sister stores ran out of pizza dough on this night. Their manager extended the deadline on the coupons by a week and signed it. Eight days later, we had a couple come in with another store's expired coupon. This sort of thing really screws up our inventory software and we are never under any circumstances to allow it. They could not understand this, even the sister store's manager had told them it would only be redeemable at sister-store. The man kept bellowing about 'false advertising'. Unfortunately, Lucy was not working that night, and my manager caved like a damp souffle. They were elderly, too, so I'm betting they've raised up at least two more generations of Entitlement Whores.
The second story of Unusual Jackassery (Jillassery?):
Back to Doomsday Night. A woman, let's name her Dandelion, called in at 3 pm to request two pizzas for pick up at 5 pm. At this point, the dinner rush hadn't started, and while we knew we were going to be hit we didn't realize how hard. The trickle of orders picked up speed at about 4:30, and I didn't remember the pizzas until 4:50. They take 8 minutes to cook, so we moved this order to the head of the queue and had them out at precisely 5 pm. I was very nervous, because some customers expect the order to be ready when the second hand on their watch clicks over to the minute, never mind that no two clocks are the same. Because of that, I always try to have them out of the oven five minutes early. To my relief, Dandelion wasn't here yet. Our soup station is set up so that the unused pots have metal lids just slightly smaller than our pizza boxes, so I set them there to stay warm as is our custom. This is actually against Corporate, we're supposed to set them on the counter, but Corporate aren't getting bitched out, we are, so we do what we want.
Dinner rush started in full swing at 5 pm. Surprisingly enough,
the groups ordering pizza often ordered sides or entrees for some members, so all the food stations was getting slammed. Remember the pizza boxes that just slightly overhung the other soup pots? They stayed there until 6:30 pm. That's right, our valiant soup servers put up with that for ninety minutes. Lucy came through, checked the time on the ticket, and pitched them. I was about ready to punch something, since we were eyeing our steadily diminishing supply of pizza dough with alarm. Two pizzas trashed, on the one night we might run out (I usually throw away about one third of the product at the end of the night). We were still getting kicked in the gonads, though, so I didn't have time to worry about it.7 pm, our newbie cashier calls Lucy over. Two rather trashy looking women with five children in tow are bitching her out because she can't find their pizzas. Lucy quickly acertains that this is Dandelion and her wonderful sister. I pieced their conversation together later from what snippets I overheard while I worked my tail into the ground and what Lucy told me afterwards. Dandelion simply could not understand why her pizzas weren't ready at 7 when she said she'd pick them up at 5. Lucy explained that food gets stale until her face turned blue, to no avail. According to Dandelion, we should have some sort of magical machine that will keep pizza fresh and hot for hours upon end, and upon consumption the food will still taste as if just popped out of the oven. Keep in mind that Corporate told us to leave the food out. We put them on the soup station as part of our own inititive. Dandelion continued to rant about the machine our sister store has. Lucy asked which one, and then told her that she, Lucy, has been there on many occasions and they have never had a magical food-stasis machine. Personally, I think Dandelion meant the oven, as I doubt she's ever used one before.
Three or four times I heard Dandelion demand, "Are you callin' me a liah?" and Lucy respond with, "I'm saying you're mistaken," in her patented explaining-to-a-child voice. After five minutes Lucy convinces her that the pizzas have been thrown away. "Why'd you do that? I'd'a eaten them."
After two hours of sitting out, she'd have gotten food poisoning, and who would be blamed for that? So Lucy rings them up again, and it turns out that they're paying with the free coupons. Lucy's delight in pointing out the 'one coupon per order' was short-lived, as nowhere on there did Corporate put 'Your skanky sister may not ring up a second order with a second coupon.' So we wasted four pizza crusts on this miserable family. One of my coworkers wanted to spit in her food. I thought he was joking, but I ended up having to wrestle the food away from him. Food contamination is bad, mmkay?I deliberately moved Dandelion back two spaces in the queue, to speed up the line for polite and paying customers. I brought the food out to their table in 20 minutes, as by this point we had shortened our wait to 15 minutes. Dandelion started ripping me a new one, as our pizzas were too small and how was she supposed to feed 7 people off of this bitty little spread. I politely explained that our pizzas were intended for two people each. Says it right there on the menu. She kept going, and I cut her off with, "I'm sorry, ma'am, but I need to continue working. My manager is at the counter if you'd like to share your concerns with her," and I walked away. Her sister demanded of my backside, "Well, where is your crushed peppers?" I half-turned, pointed to the condiment counter, and said, "Right there." Sister huffed, "Ain't you gonna bring 'um to me?" I gave her a disgusted look and said, "No ma'am, I need to go do my job." Dandelion and Co started yelling at me, even after I rounded the corner, so I filled Lucy in and kept walking. She went back there and told them to STFU or she would kick them out for disturbing the other customers.
An hour and a half later, Dandelion and Co finally left. As the two women were packing the kids into their car, the five-year-old boy came back in, walked up to the counter with two customers waiting to order, and mooned the newbie cashier. Then he raised trou and ran like hell. Outside, Dandelion high-fived him. Inside, however, newbie had collasped on the counter giggling and shrieking "Boy butt!". In the spirit of soladarity, I joined her and the two paying customers in laughter.
Comment