Do You Know What Happens To Old Ice?
“The ice dispenser broke at the fast food joint where I used to work. As a temporary fix while we waited for the repair guy to come take a look at it, we set out a giant serving bowl full of ice with tongs, so people could still ice their drinks. About 10 minutes after putting out the ice bowl, a customer came up to me to complain that the machine wasn’t dispensing ice.
I told him: ‘We know. A repair guy was called, but he’s not here yet. In the meantime, there’s a bowl next to the soda fountain, so you can still get ice.’
The guy immediately got an attitude about it. ‘How do I know that ice hasn’t been sitting out there all day?’
I stared at him for a few seconds before saying, ‘Because it’s still solid.’
‘…’
‘If left out at room temperature, ‘old ice’ would just be water.’
‘I want to speak with your manager.'”
You Can’t Be That Dense, Can You?
“A woman came into my restaurant clearly looking for her friends who were already sitting down.
The restaurant was small, and you could see every seat from the front door. I handed her a menu and said: ‘Go ahead and take a look for them – they’ve gotta be here somewhere.’
She looked at me, then down at the menu in her hands with what can only be described as a look of both fear and confusion. I asked her if there was anything wrong, to which she responded: ‘How do you have a map of where everyone is sitting?’
She thought we live-printed maps every time someone new came through the doors.
Later that night, she asked me what duck was.”
“I Still Don’t Know What She Actually Wanted”
“Working in a coffee shop, I had a lady ask a colleague for an Americano in a small cup. He put the order through as a ‘small Americano,’ as anyone would, and I made it and brought it out to her. She exploded at me, saying she wanted an Americano in a small cup.
I explained that this was exactly what she had received. Then she pointed at the espresso cups.
Me: ‘Oh, you want an espresso?’
Lady: ‘No, I want an Americano in one of those small cups!’
Me: ‘I can make you a double espresso and it will be cheaper than a small Americano, which is just two shots of espresso topped up with hot water’
Lady: ‘I don’t WANT a double espresso, I want an Americano in a small cup!’
Me: ‘I can make you an espresso, and I can add a little bit of hot water to it – though not much will fit in the espresso cup – if that’s what you want? It would be much cheaper that way as well.’
Lady: ‘HOW STUPID CAN YOU BE? I WANT AN AMERICANO IN A SMALL CUP’
She flounced out, telling me she’d be taking her business elsewhere. I still don’t know what she actually wanted.”
“They Looked At Me, He Was Starting To Look Nervous, And His Brain Knew Something Was Wrong”
“I worked at Burger King, and one day, we had a really busy rush with the line stretched all the way to the door. This guy came in and got in line with a terrible look on his face. He waited in line for about 10 minutes (anger building), got up to my register and screamed while waving a Taco Bell bag at me: ‘You forgot my sour cream.’
I was dumbfounded at how the guy could have waited in line, with all the pictures of burgers plastered all over the place, and the completely different color scheme. So I told him I would go get my manager (she was a real old and crankier kind of lady, rough around the edges).
As I came back, I could see the guy had an odd look on his face. It was like it was starting to sink in. When my manager came up, I told her: ‘We forgot the sour cream for his tacos.’ She looked at me, rolled her eyes harder than I have ever seen anyone roll their eyes, and turned around and walked back to her office.
The guy looked at me, he was starting to look nervous, and his brain knew something was wrong. I pointed out the window, he looked out the window and saw the Taco Bell next door.
He was out the front door fast, bright red, not saying a word.”
Does That Answer Your Question?
“I worked at a small all-local, all-organic grocery store for a bit.
A lady came in with a friend, and they are looking at the eggs. She finally said: ‘Are these eggs organic?’
Me: ‘Well, they’re not certified, but these are grown here in town by someone who feeds them a non-soy, non-GMO supplemental feed. But they’re on pasture most of the time.’
Lady: ‘So they eat bugs.’
Me: ‘Well, yes, quite a few of them, it’s good for organic pest control in the gar…’
Lady: (To her friend) ‘Those bugs could come from anywhere. This is why you have to ask the hard questions about your food, and really know what you’re putting in your body. King Soopers has actual organic eggs.’
Chickens that eat bugs are healthier. Not only that but ‘organic’ eggs from a grocery store are just chickens kept in the same awful, disgusting, inhumane conditions as regular chickens, but they’re fed a more expensive organic feed. Their eggs are just as bland and watery as any other commercial egg, too. But what do I know.”
The Guest Isn’t Always Right, Especially When They Throw Punches
“I was serving a large table at a small restaurant where I worked. I was running out the food and had three plates in my hand. One was resting on a linen covering my arm because it was an extremely hot dish. I walked up to the table and was setting the first dish down when a guest decided to grab this dish off my arm. He immediately burned his hands and dropped the dish all over the table. He freaked out and started yelling at me for not warning him it was hot. He demanded to see my manager, who happened to be the owner as well. The owner talked to the guy and bought his dinner for him, but he kept yelling that he was embarrassed and wanted everyone’s dinner paid for and for me to be fired. At this point, his friends told him to calm down and started telling him it was his fault and to stop embarrassing everyone. He finally shut up and they continued the meal.
In the end, I split up everyone’s tabs and ran all the cards, and this guy walked up to me with his booklet, opened it up and showed me that he tipped me one cent and said: ‘I tipped you one cent because you were terrible. How does that feel?’
I was kind of shocked that he could be so mean, but I responded by saying that I didn’t care and tried to walk away from him. This, I guess, made him so angry that he threw a punch at me. Luckily, he completely missed. The rest of his group saw this and ran over and grabbed him and he started screaming at me. Then we called the cops and he was removed from the building.
It was a weird day at work, but the video footage we watched clearly showed him grabbing the plate and throwing a punch. The guest isn’t always right.”
But Aren’t Those Those The Same Thing?
“I used to work at a fast food place. One day, a lady came through the drive-thru and ordered a cheeseburger with no cheese.
Me: ‘Oh, okay, so you would like one hamburger then, ma’am?’
Lady (now huffy): ‘No! I want a cheeseburger with NO CHEESE!’
Back then a cheeseburger was $1 and a hamburger was 69-ish cents. She wasn’t the only person to have ordered that either. It still baffles me today. The hamburger and cheeseburger got the same bun, had the same burger patties, and got the same toppings (ketchup, mustard, onion, and pickle). The only difference besides the price was the cheeseburger had cheese and had a different colored wrapper.”
It’s Always Great When Someone Gets What They Deserve
“I was working at Sbarro in a rather affluent area. An awful woman came in with that oh so familiar attitude of ‘I’ve never worked in my life for money, and I’m a princess.’ She ordered a slice of the stuffed pizza, and our pizza maker, a very polite guy of Guatemalan descent, scooped the pizza up with a spatula and put two fingers (with gloves on) on top of the pizza to make sure it didn’t fall.
She then proceeded to scream: ‘UGH! THAT MEXICAN JUST TOUCHED MY PIZZA!’ I politely informed her that he had gloves on, the brick oven is 450+ degrees, and he’s not a Mexican. She continued to rant and rave about it and demanded a discount, despite the fact that we gave her a new piece, sans ‘Mexican’ finger touching, and I told her that we would not be giving her a discount. Meanwhile, her poor husband (with child in tow) had a disappointed look on his face of ‘I can’t believe I procreated with this despicable wench.’
After she sauntered off, the woman behind her in line began to empathize with us, calling her an “ungrateful fool.’ I then offered the woman and her two sons their pizza for free if we could get a little poetic justice. She happily obliged and took off in the woman’s direction in the all but empty food court. From completely across the court, we heard our hero shouting at her calling her, among other things, ‘disgusting human being, scum of the earth.’ All the while the uppity rich girl maintained her uppity salt of the earth composure and threw terrible racial epithets at the woman and her two young boys. At that, the woman screamed: ‘Get lost, you white cracker’ and promptly threw her slice of pizza in her face and took off.
I honestly have never laughed so hard in my life, all of us did, and that woman glared daggers at us, as we laughed at her.”
They Didn’t Know The Key Ingredient To Ice Cream?
“I worked at a Dairy Queen.
We had a promotion for the Ultimate Burger, so there were full menu-sized panes that said: ‘ULTIMATE BURGER.’ A lady approached the register, pointed slowly at the giant poster with mouth agape, and asked:
Her: ‘Is that the Ultimate Burger?’
Me, without looking: ‘Yes, yes it is.’
Her: ‘Oh, I don’t think I could suffice an Ultimate.’
I flinched. She proceeded to order a bunch of other food. My friend Kurt overheard this and we turned it into a game where we’d try our best to misuse a fancy word for no reason. All shift, we tried but never really topped that customer’s line.
Then Andy, the resident skateboard punk, rolled in, 45 minutes early for his shift as usual so he could get baked and talk to everyone. After chatting for a minute with Kurt and me, Andy turned to the bathroom and said: ‘Excuse me, gentlemen, I have to go use the faculties.’
We died laughing, but we were ashamed. Andy won our game without even knowing we were playing.
Another time, during winter, there hadn’t been a customer in two hours, and my friend Kurt and I had a history of trolling each other.
A girl and her friend approached the counter and asked: ‘Is there dairy in your ice cream?’
I’ve got a reasonable poker face. I said: ‘I think so, but let’s make sure.’
I called back loudly to the kitchen: ‘Hey Kurt, is there dairy in our ice cream?’
Kurt, a full-time class act who did not see the customers come in called back: ‘Are you stupid or something?’
I got to turn back and face the customer that definitely heard that and said: ‘Yeah there’s dairy in there.'”
At Least They Got A Long-Running Joke Out Of It
“Back in the day, a good friend and I waited tables together.
One night, our sections were right next to each other. I was picking up the check at a table right next to one where he was dropping off food. One lady had gotten some chili lime glazed shrimp scampi.
As he set it down, she got this disgusted look on her face. He quickly picked up on that and asked her if everything was OK. She looked up at him like he was stupid and said: ‘Mah skrimps still got their they feet on them!’
My friend just stood there for several seconds completely baffled before just saying ‘Um, that, that’s how they come on the plate.’ I was getting sat by that point and walked off to greet the table, but he later told me she was pointing at the tails. She thought the tails were the shrimp’s feet and was disgusted they were left on.
How this woman, who was clearly in her 30s or 40s, lived her whole life without seeing shrimp with tails, I’ll never know, but it was so insane and hilarious to us that ‘Mah skrimps still got their feet on them’ became a running joke between us.”
She Probably Spent Her Entire Life Thinking Everyone Else Was Wrong
“Someone once told me she couldn’t have eggs since she was lactose intolerant. I told her to not worry’s since there was no dairy in the dish but I could still do it without eggs. Her response: ‘Did you not just hear me say I can’t have dairy?’
This was an old, grumpy lady who seemed to think eggs, or anything from what we think of coming from ‘farms,’ was considered dairy. She has probably spent her whole life telling people they are wrong.”
They Thought It Was Food Poisoning Until…
“I worked in a store that sells ice cream cakes. One day, a woman came in with half a cake, and we thought she brought it in because it was melted. Nope, much more concerning: Her son had a piece yesterday and got ill. They didn’t make the connection until the daughter ate a piece that morning and also became ill. To say the least, my manager was freaking out. If there’s some kind of food poisoning going on, the whole store could be shut down and it would be a huge mess.
She passed me the cake and told me to check who made it so we could call it in. I opened up the case, looked at it, and it took every bit of control I could muster to not laugh in front of the customer.
The cake was a Valentine’s Day cake, and it was September. My manager had to explain to the woman that half-eaten ice cream cakes don’t hold for a half a year, but the woman kept insisting we test it. Her protest was ‘but it’s in the freezer…’ Manager gave her a ‘well, obviously it wasn’t on the counter‘ look.”
This Customer Was So Smart, Too Bad He Didn’t Know Anything
“I used to work at a bagel store. It was a small hole-in-the-wall kind of place. Most people were decent, but you’d get some real nutcases. At this shop, we made sandwiches, and with this, provided the option of making a bacon, egg, and cheese on a bagel. Given that we were a small joint, we didn’t have a griddle, and instead, microwaved pre-made egg patties, not too dissimilar to what some fast food places do. Most people had no problem with this and happily ate them.
However, this one, uh, curious customer was an exception. I was cutting some fish and was nearby when my coworker (W) was taking care of this customer (C). For context, this guy had ordered several bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches.
C: ‘Excuse me, did you put the eggs in the microwave?’
W: ‘Yeah, they’re egg patties, sir. We cook them in there.’
C: ‘No, no, you’re not supposed to put eggs in the microwave. You’re going to poison people!’
W: (looking confused) ‘This is what we do. It’s not dangerous…’
C: (getting insistent) ‘You can’t do that anymore. I’m a chef, and we don’t make eggs like that. You’re going to poison people.’
W: ‘Well, sir, I already made the sandwiches, do you want me to take them out?’
C: ‘I’ll take them this time, but don’t do that anymore, you’ll poison people by microwaving the eggs.’
He mentioned the ‘poisoning’ and how we need to change our practices several more times, then took his sandwiches and left, leaving us very confused. My boss, who also overheard, said that in all his years he never heard of people getting poisoned from microwaving egg patties.
Some people actually believe microwaves actually nuke food. Worse still, these people drive cars.”
It’s Always Smart To Use Threats Of Violence, Said No One Ever
“I spent 10 years working retail and food service. I’ve had things thrown at me and have been physically threatened on more than one occasion.
The worst ones would be the guy who threatened me because I couldn’t find his special order. Someone else eventually found it (I was the only cashier so I had to send him to someone else to look books up), and it turned out the item had come in over a month beforehand and had been sent back to the publisher because he didn’t pick it up and he didn’t answer the phone when we called him three times to let him know it was there.
The other was a horrid man who went off on one of my coworkers. When I asked him to stop yelling at her, he switched to me instead. He just kept screaming. I think what started it was him asking for a newspaper, which is kept behind the register. He wanted to have it in hand before paying for it, which isn’t allowed, and he called her stupid and all sorts of things. I rang him up (the biggest reason she wouldn’t help him was that she was ringing out someone else), and he kept screaming the entire time. He asked for a manager, and when the manager tried to intervene, he told her to shut up and said no one her age could tell him what to do.”
The Cabbage Wasn’t The Only Thing That Stunk Here
“While working at the store that was created in the very depths of Satan’s butthole, Walmart, I was pulled from my regular spot in apparel to the registers when they were having a huge wave of people. Having done registers two or three times I was pretty used to it and was only a little challenged with remembering the fruit/vegetable codes and such. So anyway, I open a lane and up walks a very wide, very tall man with a cart overflowing with food.
Cool, whatever, I ask how he is and begin ringing up his items. All is well and we’re about $350 into his transaction when the cabbage reaches me. It didn’t have a sticker and I didn’t remember the code so I quickly checked the chart by the register for the code, type it in, the scale weighs the infant sized cabbage and calculates the price, all is well. I go to bag the cabbage when I hear, “That’s not how much that is.” I double check to make sure it wasn’t rung up multiple times and explain that it costs X amount per whatever weight. ‘Cabbage is poor man’s food, it shouldn’t be that much. I’m not paying that much for cabbage.’
Once again I try to explain to him that it’s all based on weight and I can’t lower the price of his cabbage. After yelling at me and berating me over this, he wants to see a manager. Fine. So I call up a manager who is obviously already very done with everyone’s antics and explain to him what’s going on. He tells the customer exactly what I did but offers to remove it if it’s really that big of a deal. Guy says no, it’s fine, whatever. At this point, I’m nearly in tears and just want to get back to folding t-shirts.
I finish ringing up his items in silence while the customer keeps telling me how I should at least offer him a discount or give him the cabbage for free since I caused so much trouble.”
