My workplace catered a funeral gathering awhile back. Someone from the funeral home called us to set everything up, we delivered the order to the funeral reception site (a hotel), and that was that. Or so I thought...
An hour or so after we deliver the order, I get a call:
Me: XXX Catering, this is CC, how can I help you?
Hotel Manager: Yes, you are catering a funeral reception that is going on here right now, but there are no servers.
Me: Let me see... <I look over the catering order, no mention of servers or a service fee.> I'm sorry, I don't see any mention of full service on the order.
HM: So you just drop off food and make other people do all the work?
Me: Well, since it's mostly cocktail sandwiches, we typically don't provide servers unless they are requested.
HM: Well, my employees are taking up my time to make your company look good, and you need to get somebody over here now to serve this food.
Me: I really am sorry, but since full service was not ordered, we don't have the staff to accommodate that.
HM: Well, that shouldn't be my problem. Right now my employees are doing your work.
Me: I apologize, and I will have my manager call you right away. <I say most of this to a dead line, having been hung up on.>
Servers for finger food?
Can't people pick up miniature sandwiches and carrot sticks by themselves? I guess I should know better than to ask that question.
Anyway, I send someone to call the boss (no calling out on our phone), and another call comes in. This time it's the mother of the deceased. She says that more people came than she thought, and we need to get another 100 sandwiches over there RIGHT NOW!!! They also need 10 more cases of assorted sodas.
Well now, it seems that these folks can feed themselves! So I alert the deli that we need 100 sandwiches, then send someone to load 10 cases of soda into the catering van. Deli calls over some reinforcements to help prepare the sandwiches, and the order is on its way.
Our driver has been gone about 10 minutes when another call comes in to us back in the kitchen: It's Mom again, saying the funeralgoers have left because there was no food or drink, so she doesn't want it anymore. Our driver left her phone at the store, so we can't alert her to this new development. She arrives, unloads the soda onto a cart and wheels it up to the hotel door.
There are a bunch of high-school kids standing around outside the door. Seeing our deliverywoman and her cargo of soda, a couple of them ask her, "Hey, where's the beer?"
Har har, that's hilarious. As she continues to wheel the cart into the building, some of the kids run by and grab 12-packs of soda off the cart!
Did I mention that this funeral was for a kid who was driving drunk and killed a classmate in the crash? Way to honor your buddy's memory, asshats, even if he was behaving badly when he died.
An hour or so after we deliver the order, I get a call:
Me: XXX Catering, this is CC, how can I help you?
Hotel Manager: Yes, you are catering a funeral reception that is going on here right now, but there are no servers.
Me: Let me see... <I look over the catering order, no mention of servers or a service fee.> I'm sorry, I don't see any mention of full service on the order.
HM: So you just drop off food and make other people do all the work?
Me: Well, since it's mostly cocktail sandwiches, we typically don't provide servers unless they are requested.
HM: Well, my employees are taking up my time to make your company look good, and you need to get somebody over here now to serve this food.
Me: I really am sorry, but since full service was not ordered, we don't have the staff to accommodate that.
HM: Well, that shouldn't be my problem. Right now my employees are doing your work.
Me: I apologize, and I will have my manager call you right away. <I say most of this to a dead line, having been hung up on.>
Servers for finger food?


Well now, it seems that these folks can feed themselves! So I alert the deli that we need 100 sandwiches, then send someone to load 10 cases of soda into the catering van. Deli calls over some reinforcements to help prepare the sandwiches, and the order is on its way.
Our driver has been gone about 10 minutes when another call comes in to us back in the kitchen: It's Mom again, saying the funeralgoers have left because there was no food or drink, so she doesn't want it anymore. Our driver left her phone at the store, so we can't alert her to this new development. She arrives, unloads the soda onto a cart and wheels it up to the hotel door.
There are a bunch of high-school kids standing around outside the door. Seeing our deliverywoman and her cargo of soda, a couple of them ask her, "Hey, where's the beer?"

Did I mention that this funeral was for a kid who was driving drunk and killed a classmate in the crash? Way to honor your buddy's memory, asshats, even if he was behaving badly when he died.
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