I just got off the phone with a bitchy truck driver who came into our facility to fuel his vehicle. After he'd come inside and paid, he waddled over to the coffee machine, poured himself a cup and then proceeded to walk out the door. The manager stopped him when he noticed this and said that he had to pay for the coffee. The trucker went off on a tirade, saying that he comes in here all the time and that if they wanted to keep his business they would give him the coffee free of charge.
**A quick note, the station he was in always has customers at every pump, often with several cars lined up behind the car that's currently pumping, so it's not like we're in dire straits attracting repeat customers.
Thinking fast, the manager turned to the other customers in the store who were watching this lunatic make his demands and asked them "If I give this guy free coffee to reward him for his threat, while I force guys you people to pay for your coffee, how many of you would ever come back to buy fuel here?"
The lesson here is that apparently by involving other people in a situation with an SC who aren't burdened by the weight of having to act nice to keep their job, you can get a far better, if not more blunt, resolution to these problems.
A couple of the customers in line were construction workers, very good at catcalling, who went off on the guy, calling him everything from being a freeloader to a no good f****b**a****. The manager, now having the answer to his question, turned back to the guy and told him he wasn't getting it for free, because if he lost his business it would be peanuts compared to losing the business of all the rest of those in line.
The guy left his coffee there and hightailed it out with his dignity in tatters. It's funny that he still had the balls to call after such an escapade but I told him he wasn't getting free coffee and that if he didn't want to come back then fine, we'd just rely on our other thousands of customers to get through the day. I was very satisfied hanging up on him then.
PS. I just made that manager employee of the month which gave him a nice bonus to go along with it.
**A quick note, the station he was in always has customers at every pump, often with several cars lined up behind the car that's currently pumping, so it's not like we're in dire straits attracting repeat customers.
Thinking fast, the manager turned to the other customers in the store who were watching this lunatic make his demands and asked them "If I give this guy free coffee to reward him for his threat, while I force guys you people to pay for your coffee, how many of you would ever come back to buy fuel here?"
The lesson here is that apparently by involving other people in a situation with an SC who aren't burdened by the weight of having to act nice to keep their job, you can get a far better, if not more blunt, resolution to these problems.
A couple of the customers in line were construction workers, very good at catcalling, who went off on the guy, calling him everything from being a freeloader to a no good f****b**a****. The manager, now having the answer to his question, turned back to the guy and told him he wasn't getting it for free, because if he lost his business it would be peanuts compared to losing the business of all the rest of those in line.
The guy left his coffee there and hightailed it out with his dignity in tatters. It's funny that he still had the balls to call after such an escapade but I told him he wasn't getting free coffee and that if he didn't want to come back then fine, we'd just rely on our other thousands of customers to get through the day. I was very satisfied hanging up on him then.
PS. I just made that manager employee of the month which gave him a nice bonus to go along with it.
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