Stupid Things Customers Say

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One of the entertaining things about working at a cafe, is the constant flow of drivel that comes out of some customers mouthes. Sometimes I find myself thinking how I should be annoyed at what they've said, rather than impressed with just how idiotic they seem to be. During our end of day close sometimes the ladies I work with and myself like to incorporate silly things said during the day into our conversations. Over the weekend a man was a little taken back by the $4 price for a large coffee and claimed that he could 'go up to Coles and get a whole tin of coffee for $1.79 and it would be just as good'. I thought this was going to be the weekend winner, but on Sunday afternoon as I was just about to close the coffee machine down a lady bustled into the cafe hysterically claiming she needed a coffee. She needed a small decaf latte. She was quite infuriating to serve because she choose to stare at me rather than answer questions, and when I charged her out she  challenged the price. When I told her that decaf was 50 cents extra, she picked up her coffees and sassed, 'of course the less you get the more you pay'. So.. I'm pretty sure she doesn't understand that decaf is a different blend and that we don't actually knit pick the caffeine out ourselves. 

After working in hospitality it has really made me think twice about my own dinning experiences. And think about what I ask and say before it leaves my mouth. Because if you give yourself an extra twenty seconds to possibly observe the environment, you may save yourself the hassle of asking stupid questions such as, 'do you guys sell coffee?'. Yes! Yes we do, it is a cafe after all. And, 'do you do takeaway coffees?' as they stand in front of a stack of takeaway cups. After a year and half of working at the cafe, I have heard some pretty silly things, but my most favourite thing that was said recently to one of the other waitresses was by a couple of middle aged women. Sarah seated the ladies and told them it was table service but they chose to come up to the counter anyway after being seated and asked if they could get things off the menu cheaper if they didn't utilise our table service. 

Sometimes there are days where I'll have a handful of people come in throughout the day and say equally silly things that really makes me worry. I would never, ever go into a cafe or an establishment and ask the staff things like 'have you considered how this cafe is contributing to the obesity epidemic? If you put that much food on someones plate, they're going to eat it'. That was last week's gem, and the most concerning thing about the way the conversation played out was the lady who asked me this was deadly serious and genuinely annoyed with how much food came out on her plate because she left the cafe the day before feeling too full and unable to eat her dinner that night. All you can really do is laugh I suppose.