You may have noticed that I've been capitalizing 'Customer' in my past posts. This isn't because Customer is the name of my best friend; quite the opposite. I do this because Customer is the only way I can describe this group of people hell-bent on making an already miserable job a suicide watch. Every customer is the same in their 'uniqueness', but after seeing a couple of thousand faces and hearing the same questions/comments time and again, that customer just becomes Customer. Part of the collective sea of humanity that feels the need to rain on my sunny day at Chickenland and get away Scott free! Customer can be nice and Customer can be mean and Customer can be downright nasty. On a normal day, Customer gets his food and leaves. However, THIS IS CHICKENLAND. Need I say more?
Of course I do! Seeing as not much is normal here at Chickenland, neither are the days. On a 'normal' day, Customer is stupid. That's right, stupid. Just dumb. This is an exchange between one of our managers, Chief, and drive-thru Customer:
Customer: I want X.
Chief: So you want X, can I get you anything else today?
Customer: No, that's all. Oh, can I get that to go please?
Chief: Are you sure you don't want to eat that here?
Good job Chief. That's the perfect way to handle stupid Customer: with sarcasm. They're so dim, that they'll think you're being polite.
Top 5 most annoying questions from Stupid Customer.
- Do you guys sell... chicken fingers? (There's a picture on the board.)
- Do you serve breakfast at this hour? (There's a sign saying BREAKFAST SERVED ALL DAY. In all caps.)
- Do you sell just plain biscuits? (Uh no, we have to cut them in half and add love to them. 'Chickenland: Famous Chicken and Biscuits. It's written on everything. Really.)
- Um... I want.... Uh... (Please don't waste my time.)
- What comes on a chicken biscuit? (Well let's see... chicken and... wow I should know this one.)
Shawn and I have discovered a way to fight the monotony by playing games with Customer such as the 'meow game' and saying 'pull up to the second window please' (there's only one drive-thru window.Now if there's anyone that hates Customer as much as me, it's Shawn. Shawn wrote the book on Customer service. "We're servers, not servants!" Shawn is the cashier who will say nothing as Customer approaches the counter and will just stare at them, hard, until they're ready to order or just run away in terror. He is the most unhelpful and intimidating cashier I've ever met because he truly hates Customer. Even nice Customer. Nice Customer gives you a tip even though we're not allowed to accept them. Nice Customer doesn't just take their food and get, they stay for a minute and ask how you're day is. But Nice Customer doesn't come around to often. Instead, Mean Customer can't get enough chicken.
It's been a while since I had the misfortune of serving Mean Customer, but I ran into her two nights ago. Customer orders our family meal using a coupon. I knew she was Dick Customer by the way she ordered:
"I want X, all-white meat, I have a coupon for Y dollars and I already know there's going to be an upcharge on in it, it's fine."
She says this very quickly and drives around before I can total it up. It comes to some reasonably priced sum and I even found a way to make it cheaper than the normal way of totaling it up. She pulls up and hands me her money, too little. When I tell her the price, she looks at me funny and insists I got it wrong. Not really sure how you can mess up three button clicks, but I humored Customer and looked it over again. I called Chief over and she found that the normal way of totaling it would have added X more dollars to the price. I was beaming. I informed Customer that I had actually made it cheaper than it should have been. Customer is not beaming and hands me the coupon.
Now my first clue should have been the Santa Claus hat on the Chickenland logo. Seeing as I'd been there for 4 years and have yet to see this, EVER, I immediately assumed it was from a Chickenland in a different franchise and I proceed to tell Customer that we cannot accept this coupon and she'll have to pay the actual price. I try to console her by saying that the meal is on sale now and that we couldn't take the coupon anyways.
Shit got real.
Customer never likes to hear "can't", "won't", "don't", or any other negative contraction. It's like kryptonite because at that moment they are forced to realize that they never had any power in the situation. Customer is just a passing guest in our home and they would do well to remember that. In this situation, Customer forgot. She gets a look in her eye that I know all too well: Customer Rage. It's a dangerous situation for the both of us because Customer might yell at me and hurt my feelings and I might flip my shit and jump through the window to teach her some respect. It's always uncertain and very tense. I call Chief over one more time and show her the coupon. She tells Customer what I'd already said about the sister Chickenland and then notices that the coupon would give a discount of around 80 % and is actually three years old! Chief says, "I'm sorry ma'am, we can't (there's that negative again) take this coupon. My boss would kill me if we did, but I will copy it and send it off to the district supervisor so they'll be able to investigate this further." And she walks to the office to do just that.
It's just me and Raging Customer now. Since, I'm in the crosshairs now, she tries to plead her case to me like I could actually do something. I tell her that I just push the buttons and take money and I have no affect on the prices and apologize. She 'says' she understands that and that she isn't mad at me and asks again how much it will be.
Me: It's still X dollars.
Customer: Well this is all I have.
(Look, I'm not going to barter here. That is not my job.)
Me: I'm sorry, but it's still X dollars.
Customer: Are you serious?! I come here every week and use the same coupon and get it for a lower price every time!
(Hold it, I've worked just about everyday this summer and have never seen you're lying self in this window. And just how many 3-year old coupons do you have you weirdo?)
Me: Ma'am I'm sorry, but I-
Customer: You know what? I'll pay it, but you've just lost a customer over this.
And more money suddenly appears! She made a big show of searching her bank envelope too for 3 extra dollars and ends up giving me another 20.
Lost a customer? OH GOD NO!!! The store is going to run into the ground and I'll lose my job because ONE Customer decided to never eat here again. Excuse me for a moment...
Well I couldn't find any pills to swallow and slitting my wrists is just too painful a way to die to me so I guess I'll have to live with this forever. Even though Customer said she wasn't mad at me, she proceeds to snatch away the food hanging in my hands and tells me:
YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!!!1!!111!1!!1! and drives off.
Hold up bitch. You don't yell at me for being a mature adult and NOT spitting in your food (or worse) and then say I don't know how to treat people. Do you have a friggin Ph.D in Hospitality because I know I have at least a 20-year degree because my parents raised knew how to teach me manners. And I just so happen to LOVE serving people. Ugh! The nerve. This was two days ago and I'm getting mad again lol. It's time to end this, but it's far from over. Customer will appear over and over in this blog in all of its incarnations from Nice and Sweet to Stupid and Unreasonable. And on behalf of everyone in the Customer service business, this is for all those unsavory types that try extra hard to make our lives at work hell:
Thank you Customer! Have a nice day!
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