“I worked at a restaurant where you filled in a ticket with all the ingredients you wanted on your pasta, pizza, or salad. There were large boards above a counter explaining how to order correctly. Once customers filled out their ticket they could bring it to the register. During a weekend lunch rush with a line of at least 25 people, a woman comes up to the counter and tells our cashier what she wants. When the cashier told her that he needed a ticket, she got annoyed about the ‘inconvenience,’ all while the line builds up behind her. She demands to be given a ticket and begins filling it out right there. Seeing this, I come up to the cashier and tell him to ring up the people behind her while she takes her sweet time making the important decision of which pasta sauce she wants. She finally finishes, pays, and sits with her gaggle of companions.
Later, she comes up to me and tells me that my behavior of having the waiting customers pay before her was extremely rude. I respond by telling her we try to make sure every customer gets speedy service, and her holding up the line because she didn’t read our large signs was also rude to all of the other customers. She tells me that she’d like to speak to the manager to complain about me. With a gleeful (and maybe slightly evil) grin, I reply, ‘You already did. I’m the manager.’ The look on her face when she realized she wasn’t going to get to complain and feel vindicated about my ‘mistreatment’ of her was lovely, and even though this was years ago, it still brings me joy.”
