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So I was cheerfully minding my own buisness at work the other night, occassionally interupting my movie watching to serve customers.
I had just finished deciding between watching the new indiana jones movie or the first season of scrubs (scrubs won out) when a nicely dressed woman came into the netcafe (I do graveyards, so this was at around 2am) carrying what (at the time) I took to be a few bags and a sleeping roll.
So naturally I paused my video watching and sold her 30 minutes of computer time, made sure she logged on correctly and then went back to scrubs.
Around 2 episodes later I realised that I hadn't seen her leave, nor had I sold her more time, and since I hadn't loaded the next episode up yet, I decided to check on her.
Low and behold I found her passed out on a keyboard. This is not happiness. If I can't be asleep in the middle of the night, neither can anyone else in the store.
Strangely I was in a good mood and decided that rather than yelling at her I would tap her on the shoulder and inform her that she was not allowed to sleep down here.
As was to be expected, the denials (coming from a woman with the imprint of a keyboard on her face) that she was not sleeping began.
My good mood rapidly faded and I told her that rather than offering her the ability to buy more time on the condition that she stayed awake that it was time for her to leave.
Apparently (according to this strange woman) the fact that she had purchsed time that had run out around 40 minutes ago made her a customer, and as such I couldn't tell her to leave..
I showed her the section in our conditions of entry that says we reserve the right to refuse service on any grounds.
She then decided to tell me that I was mistaken about her being asleep, and I did not need to sell her more time, because she had time left as she had logged out of her computer within 5 minutes of coming to the store. I found this strange, and commented upon this strangeness, as anyone wishing to log out of a computer or pause their time needs to get me to do it at the front counter. And while I tend to ignore most things, I was fairly sure I would have noticed missing a section of my show.
This was met by claims of "how would you know if I logged out or not ? You're spying on me. Why are you spying on me ? Don't spy on me" which went on for long enough for me to get bored with it and tell her not only did she need to leave the store, but she was nolonger welcome back.
Amidst the claims of "I know my rights, you can't do that" (which is odd, because Australia has no formal bill of rights, but that's another story) she got about half way up the stairs and started screaming "You're burning in hell".
Me being bored, I decided to ask if she ment that I was going to hell.
Apparently not, for I am already burning in hell. Which surprised me, because I thought I was at work...
Anyways, she finally left, and I went back to my program thinking all was done.
It was not to be. A few hours later she returned with a well dressed man and started screaming to him that I was a racist and he should sue me for her and have the store closed down and various other things that I did not pay any attention to.
By this time, I had returned to a fairly good mood and decided to see what was going on rather then just asking them both to leave. Apparently the woman was a muslim, and had decided to fetch a <cleric> (i'm not too sure about the term being fairly non religious.. a lay person from her mosque in anycase, sort of a culteral adviser or something ?) and show him what kind of evil person I was.
So I talked to the guy for a few minutes and told him that the reason I asked her to leave was because we have a strict policy about sleeping in the store (aside from that, we risk council fines if someone sleeps here due zoning regulations). At that point I remembered that I had also asked her to not return to the store and pointed this out to them both. At which point she started yelling that I was anti-muslim and many other strange things that failed to register with me.
Anyways, the man very calmly turned around to her and said something along the lines of "I think it is time that we left, it is your fault that they do not want you here" and all was done.
The funny thing though, was about 30-40 minutes later while I was having a smoke I turned around to someone in sudden realisation and said "Wow. You know, I think that sleeping mat was actually some kind of prayer mat..."
I wouldn't even have had that sort of belated revelation if she hadn't told me the only reason I was telling her to leave was because of her religion
It is ~6am and I felt like sharing a story.
I had just finished deciding between watching the new indiana jones movie or the first season of scrubs (scrubs won out) when a nicely dressed woman came into the netcafe (I do graveyards, so this was at around 2am) carrying what (at the time) I took to be a few bags and a sleeping roll.
So naturally I paused my video watching and sold her 30 minutes of computer time, made sure she logged on correctly and then went back to scrubs.
Around 2 episodes later I realised that I hadn't seen her leave, nor had I sold her more time, and since I hadn't loaded the next episode up yet, I decided to check on her.
Low and behold I found her passed out on a keyboard. This is not happiness. If I can't be asleep in the middle of the night, neither can anyone else in the store.
Strangely I was in a good mood and decided that rather than yelling at her I would tap her on the shoulder and inform her that she was not allowed to sleep down here.
As was to be expected, the denials (coming from a woman with the imprint of a keyboard on her face) that she was not sleeping began.
My good mood rapidly faded and I told her that rather than offering her the ability to buy more time on the condition that she stayed awake that it was time for her to leave.
Apparently (according to this strange woman) the fact that she had purchsed time that had run out around 40 minutes ago made her a customer, and as such I couldn't tell her to leave..
I showed her the section in our conditions of entry that says we reserve the right to refuse service on any grounds.
She then decided to tell me that I was mistaken about her being asleep, and I did not need to sell her more time, because she had time left as she had logged out of her computer within 5 minutes of coming to the store. I found this strange, and commented upon this strangeness, as anyone wishing to log out of a computer or pause their time needs to get me to do it at the front counter. And while I tend to ignore most things, I was fairly sure I would have noticed missing a section of my show.
This was met by claims of "how would you know if I logged out or not ? You're spying on me. Why are you spying on me ? Don't spy on me" which went on for long enough for me to get bored with it and tell her not only did she need to leave the store, but she was nolonger welcome back.
Amidst the claims of "I know my rights, you can't do that" (which is odd, because Australia has no formal bill of rights, but that's another story) she got about half way up the stairs and started screaming "You're burning in hell".
Me being bored, I decided to ask if she ment that I was going to hell.
Apparently not, for I am already burning in hell. Which surprised me, because I thought I was at work...
Anyways, she finally left, and I went back to my program thinking all was done.
It was not to be. A few hours later she returned with a well dressed man and started screaming to him that I was a racist and he should sue me for her and have the store closed down and various other things that I did not pay any attention to.
By this time, I had returned to a fairly good mood and decided to see what was going on rather then just asking them both to leave. Apparently the woman was a muslim, and had decided to fetch a <cleric> (i'm not too sure about the term being fairly non religious.. a lay person from her mosque in anycase, sort of a culteral adviser or something ?) and show him what kind of evil person I was.
So I talked to the guy for a few minutes and told him that the reason I asked her to leave was because we have a strict policy about sleeping in the store (aside from that, we risk council fines if someone sleeps here due zoning regulations). At that point I remembered that I had also asked her to not return to the store and pointed this out to them both. At which point she started yelling that I was anti-muslim and many other strange things that failed to register with me.
Anyways, the man very calmly turned around to her and said something along the lines of "I think it is time that we left, it is your fault that they do not want you here" and all was done.
The funny thing though, was about 30-40 minutes later while I was having a smoke I turned around to someone in sudden realisation and said "Wow. You know, I think that sleeping mat was actually some kind of prayer mat..."
I wouldn't even have had that sort of belated revelation if she hadn't told me the only reason I was telling her to leave was because of her religion
It is ~6am and I felt like sharing a story.
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