Family/Friend SCs

[blas87]

I figured one of us should bring back this thread:

This is thread that is dedicated to our family members and/or friends that are SCs. Sure, we love them to death, but we get really embarrassed when they pull crap and make asses of themselves in public.

Ok, who wants to start?

[wagegoth]

My stepmother-in-law (we'll not go into the evil she has created, at this site anyway) is one of those cheap tippers. She only leaves $2 (yes, that's two dollars) at a restaurant, no matter how many people were served, how much the check was, etc. I'll leave two dollars for a cup of tea (I know tea is a pain for the waitron, but I'm allergic to coffee, and I just tell the waitron what I want instead of making them drag out the big, wooden, box o' tea, and a hundred side items).

She makes a big point of picking up the check (they don't have a lot of money, so I know it makes her feel a bit proud and/or snobby to do it). Because I know this is going to happen, I always make sure I have some extra $5 and $10 bills, and then I'll sneak back and find the waitron afterward and give them the tip.

Thankfully, I haven't had to see her in about 5 years as she avoids us as much as possible. ;)

[bars.of.a.rhyme]

Daddy once paid a gas station attendant in nickels and pennies.

I was wandering around looking for a bottle of soda, and I came up to the counter, saw the gigantic pile of coins, and shouted "SWEET PINE-SCENTED MADONNA!" My dad didn't understand my chagrin. After all, coins are money too. I'm a coinist, discriminating against coins to further my anti-coin agenda, bills 4 lyf, etc.

Don't hate him. He's never worked in retail, or any other job in which he would have had to count out a cash drawer. Luckily, my mother has extensive retail experience.

The other day my car broke down, and he came out to wait for the tow with me, since I'm a 19 year old girl and he had qualms about me waiting all alone in an abandoned parking lot at two in the morning. The woman with AAA couldn't give him a finite estimate on when the tow truck would arrive, and he was a little cross with her...but that was because it was two in the morning and he had to work the next day. I told her that she probably had a script and that the call was probably recorded for corporate to listen to and badger her about, and he grudgingly agreed. Yay!

Other than that, I've never seen him do anything unreasonable. He's gotten angry at employees before, but it was legitimate.

[Kiwi]

My mother despite working in retail can be a cs. She will demand a manager at the drop of a hat, complain about long lines, tell wait staff she saw them "standing around doing nothing" etc. All the classic sc stuff.

Although if I ever tell her about a sucky customer incident I had she gets all up in arms about how rude and nasty those people were... then do the same stuff to another person... sigh

[Ljt09863]

my Fiancee's mother is a horrible SC. we went to a restraunt once, and her food came back slightly(very SLIGHTY) cold, and the chicken sandwhich had a bone in it. everybody elses food was perfect. well, Fiancees mother told the waitress about the bone, but not about the food being cold. the waitress explained that some of the chicken has bones and there really isn't anything they could do about that.

well, fiancees mother didn't like that, and wanted to leave her about a $3 tip on a $50 bill. so after they got up and left the table, i threw seven dollars more on the table and walked off.....only to find Fiancees mother telling the waitress what she did wrong and what she needs to do from now on... other than the bone being in the chicken, eveything was fine! she filled our cups, got us food quickly, did everything fine. but that bone was enough.

she has done other things, but im not going into them right now.

[Fera Festiva]

I have a friend who - despite having only ever worked in customer service jobs - can be a terrible SC. She once had a massive rant at the guy sat behind the counter in a shop because he didn't "greet her properly" when she walked in. (Her reasoning is that customers are mean to her all day, so when she goes shopping she gets to be rude "back". :confused: I told her that Karma will bite her in the ass one day, but it didn't make a difference.)

My Dad used to be an SC, but now all three of his children have worked customer service, so he's mellowed considerably. :D

[susan]

I've never seen my sister be an SC to a worker, but she is one of those people who doesn't understand the concept of "opening times." She complained, at length, to me about the time she went Xmas shopping at ToysRUs. She was standing outside the door 5 or 10 minutes early and couldn't understand why they wouldn't open. Our convo went like this:

Her: But there were a whole bunch of us. They should have opened early!
Me: But they don't open until [whatver time].
Her: We were all standing there. Why didn't they open?
Me: Because they don't open until [that time]
Repeat ad infinitum

We've had that conversation about other places since, but she still doesn't get it.

My mom is another one of those who will complain about "workers just standing there." She will listen to me, though, when I point out that they may have trained to do whatever function she wants or that they might actually be in the middle of doing something else, even if it doesn't look like it.

Sadly, I have been known to get snippy with CS workers if I am really stressed out about whatever situation they can't help me with. I almost always apologize to them and make sure they know that I know it's not their fault and I'm not angry at them.

[April]

My MIL is the type who will see a minute defect with merchandise and badger and hammer and bitch and moan until she gets a discount. She usually goes for 50 percent. She badgered one poor manager so long that she ended up getting 50 percent of a mini fridge that was already discounted 50%.

I have never been shopping with her (my stories were told to me by my husband) and I never will

[SurlyBarman]

I have a couple friends who aren't always a pleasure to be out with. There are these two in particular, let's call them Brad and Serena, though those are not actually their real names. Brad and I used to work in the same restaurant and Serena works in a coffee shop. Both of them ought to know how not to be sucky customers, seeing as they have to deal with them on a daily basis. Anyway, this one night after Brad and I finished up our shift, we headed down the street with Serena and a couple other people to this bar for a couple drinks. They proceeded to hassle the waiter, calling him "Bob" instead of asking him what his name really was. They were rude, demanding, acted discontent the moment they walked in, didn't leave much of a tip, and Serena was being way over the top with her ghetto attitude. On top of that, she was insulting everyone in our group. Called me "Billy Bob" and "Cowboy" a couple times. On another night at the same bar, they behaved a little better when the management sent over a round of free drinks because they recognized me as a regular.

[MadMike]

I don't remember my grandma ever doing anything bad in the stores, but one time when she heard me complaining about my job, she actually said that God-awful line. You know the one. I told her about a few incidents at my job where the customer was definitely not right, but she didn't seem to believe that people could actually be that horrible.

[Dawnchaser]

OK, I've worked mostly phone jobs my whole life.

My whole family has heard stories about the rudeness and idiocy I dealt with on a daily basis.

Yet my mother is still TERRIBLE on the phone. She has a nasty habit of calling me up to crow about how she really put some poor hapless CSR in his/her place that day :eek: And so on...I was really really getting sick of it.

99% of the time she was totally wrong to do so as her pissiness rarely had anything to do with anything the CSR on the phone at the time had done.

I kept saying, "Well, you know, that person didn't really have anything to do with it," or "Maybe you'd get better results by being nicer"...Things like that. Not particularly wanting to start an argument since she's incredibly stubborn and she usually calls me at work.

It sort of sank in a few months ago when I said "Look, how would you like it if I called up and told you I'd just been treated in that way by some idiot customer calling up?" Now she's at least a LITTLE bit better. SIGH!

[CherryCokeKissez]

Thankfully no one in my immediate family is an SC that I know of. My dad will give staff a hard time, but very playfully (and usually in such a way that I end up rolling my eyes at him) so they know he's kidding and they kid back.

My dad's mom on the other hand, wasn't really sucky so-to-speak, but she would tip 15% up to five dollars. Five was her max for a tip no matter the size of the bill. I don't know if that's because she was sucky or because that was how she was raised (during the Depression and whatnot) or what. I don't remember her a whole lot, she died when I was ten...

[ArenaBoy]

My mom usually isn't an SC but when it comes to food service don't get me started. She's worked in food service for years, she even works at the arena and is well-respected. The problem is when we go out to eat, she ends up turning a good meal into a "that waiter is taking too long" when he just left our table and my mom had a chance to ask for something. I've found myself telling my mom to just relax, and she too thinks that "The Line" is important when it comes to customer service.

My dad tends to be an SC when it comes to technology. He gets pissed easily over simple things and he is the exact reason as to why I shop for myself when it comes to technology. When I was looking for a laptop for school, I wanted to get a Mac for movie editing and music editing. Me being the idiot I am, took my dad along just so he could look at computers for fun. Big mistake. My dad is a die-hard Windows fan, he is a pro at fixing the problems that pop up but put him in front of a Mac and he's as helpless as a turtle on its back. He was making a very loud fuss about Macs not coming with a word processor, a spreadsheet program and all that stuff. Needless to say, I make sure I'm nearby if he wants to play with my Mac, gord knows what he could end up doing to the thing.

[jb17kx]

Thankfully, nobody in my family is an SC, although they get close sometimes.
Thank God.

BTW, Wagegoth, why is tea so much of a hassle?

[Pagan]

My mom doesn't do the SC stuff. However, I did discover on our trip that she does one thing that falls in the clueless category - she doesn't read signs! :eek:

We got off the plane in Dallas (DFW) at 6:15pm. Found out that our connecting flight to Albuquerque was leaving at 6:20pm, in another terminal. Had to go up the stairs find the tram thingie, then the gate. I was the one who wound up navigating and she kept asking how I knew where to go. Now, I know we were tired and the jetlag was starting to catch up (up since 2am in Dublin), but I wanted to tell her, "Mom, look up!" :lol:

I should mention I noticed this the whole time, two weeks, England, Scotland, N. Ireland. Read the signs Mom!

[Jester]

BTW, Wagegoth, why is tea so much of a hassle?

Hot Tea is The Bane of Waitstaff Existence. If you have someone who orders a hot tea when you are busy, it can be a royal pain in the butt. It is more labor-intensive than virtually any other drink (if you are not a bartender, that is). You have to grab the saucer, the cup, the spoon, the tea bag, the lemon, the cream, the sugar, and the kettle with the hot water, and in virtually every restaurant I have worked in, they are not all in the same place, or even close. It doesn't seem like much to someone who has not dealt with it, but trust me, ask any restaurant server what they think of making a Hot Tea for someone....and watch their eyes roll.

That being said, I would rather have someone who wanted hot tea order it than order something else because they felt it would be too much trouble for the staff and then be unhappy the whole time because they didn't get the hot tea they wanted.


As for family....I have well documented some of the SC antics of my sister, The Wicked Witch of the West, in other parts of this forum. Now, if you want someone to organize some kind of event you have, she is absolutely amazingly good at that. The suckiness comes in from HOW she is absolutely amazingly good at that...to wit, she will steamroll over people to make sure things get done, not ever thinking that she could get the same stuff done without being such a domineering bitch. And no....I am not overly fond of her.

[Banrion]

Tea, as explained by Waiter: http://waiterrant.net/?p=95

[friendofjimmyk]

The other day my car broke down, and he came out to wait for the tow with me, since I'm a 19 year old girl and he had qualms about me waiting all alone in an abandoned parking lot at two in the morning. The woman with AAA couldn't give him a finite estimate on when the tow truck would arrive, and he was a little cross with her...but that was because it was two in the morning and he had to work the next day. I told her that she probably had a script and that the call was probably recorded for corporate to listen to and badger her about, and he grudgingly agreed. Yay!.

Okay, we don't have scripts here when it comes to telling people what time their tow trucks are coming...we can only give a rough estimate because that is the nature of the business. There is no way to tell the precise time that a tow truck will get to your location.

The only thing close to a script that we have is our opening statements. We have to ask if the vehicle is blocking traffic and we have to ask if the member is safe, after that, no more scripts.

If he was giving her a hard time about not being able to tell him what time the truck will be there, that's not something corporate will badger her about. Because everyone gets the same general estimate on service time.

Sorry, not meaning to sound as if I am on a soap box! I understand the frustration on your end when you are not given a precise time, but please understand that AAA has over 45 million members and they all don't take turns breaking down one at a time and on top of that, unless you are in an area that has their own AAA fleet, our service providers are privately contracted and run private, non-AAA calls as well as AAA calls.

Please give us a break! We try so hard! **CRY**

[friendofjimmyk]

Now back OT -

My father is a terrible person to be in public with. He is the ultimate entitlement king when it comes to servers in restaurants. He calls male servers "Stosh" and female servers "Stella". (These names come from a long time ago when a local radio station used them to indicate stupid people - most servers who wait on us are too young to remember - but I remember and that's all that matters)

He's the type of diner that can't tell the server everything he wants at once - meaning every time the server comes back, dad is ordering or asking for something else. Then he tips 10% if that. Even when I was working in restaurants all the years I did, I could not break him of this habit.

He asks questions and when they are answered, truthfully and honestly, he doesn't believe the server. If they tell him something that goes against what he was thinking, he says, "Yeah, whatever"

I'll never forget the time he and an ex b/f of mine sat at my bar while I was working and drank ALL AFTERNOON. Ran up a huge tab AND NEITHER ONE OF THEM FREAKIN' TIPPED ME!!!!!!! Maybe he was getting back at me for all the money I borrowed from him over my life time? Who knows?!?!

I haven't lived in Ohio for nearly seven years now and when I go back to visit, it seems as if he has gotten a bit better, but maybe that's because he's remarried and she may have straightened him out a bit.

[idrinkarum]

My FIL is an SC. He hates to go to restaurants 'cos then he knows he has to spend money. :rolleyes: And he's lousy at giving tips. Him & MIL always argue about tips 'cos he wants to only give 5-10% on the check, but MIL gets hyperventilating. And then, B & I always have to pay our way, even though they tell us before we get there, they're going to pay and then they don't. :pissed:

My mother can be an SC too. She always does the: "Do you have any more in the back" song and dance. She pulled it at a local grocery store and I so wanted to say: "Look Mom, he said there was no more cheese either in the back or up here. Do you really want him to pull it out of his a$$???? 'cos you know, no offense to him, I wouldn't want anything that came out of that orifice." I, instead, just walked away from her.

[Moon§hiner]

My ex-wife was known at the "Enforcer" and loved every minute of that title....If we did carry out and got home and there was a pickle or no onion on the sandwich a prompt call to the lacal fast food resturant had us a free meal waiting next time because of her rants.
She used to be a manager of the local Pizza Hut and we would go in and order a Canadian Bacon, Sausage and Hamburger pizza....they'd bring it out and I'd start eating...she would take one bite and say to the waitress "that's italian sausage, we don't want that"...HUH???? By this time I have had 3 slices so we get a free meal for next time.....guess what?....next free meal same problem. It got to the point where I was embarassed to even go out to dinner with her.
Since I'm on a rant I'll add the time that my brother had a portable phone for 3 or 4 years and it died....since she used to work at K-mart and they had a satisfaction guarantee she took it back and BS'ed her way in for another one.
If I hadn't been married to her for 18 years and knew better, I'd swear she was born with testicles of steel.

[AFpheonix]

Hot Tea is The Bane of Waitstaff Existence. If you have someone who orders a hot tea when you are busy, it can be a royal pain in the butt. It is more labor-intensive than virtually any other drink (if you are not a bartender, that is). You have to grab the saucer, the cup, the spoon, the tea bag, the lemon, the cream, the sugar, and the kettle with the hot water, and in virtually every restaurant I have worked in, they are not all in the same place, or even close. It doesn't seem like much to someone who has not dealt with it, but trust me, ask any restaurant server what they think of making a Hot Tea for someone....and watch their eyes roll.


Interesting, because most of the places that I order tea from give me the cup and spoon and carafe of hot water, plus a small box of assorted teas to choose from myself that stays on the table, not a community box. I'm also rarely given cream, but that's ok with me. I'll have my tea good and english at home :)

I do have to say though, that Takahashi's and Arawan's have some of the best tea, ever. Takahashi's in particular has a great fresh, loose green tea. Mmmmm....

[booger]

My step-grandmother will open packages to see if she likes the item, and if she doesn't, she will leave the open item on the shelf. She did that once with a bag of socks when I was with her, and I was so embarassed!

My crazy step-aunt will take food from her freezer and other relative's freezers, and also return gift that she received (and needed) and somehow manage to return them to get money for cigs and bottled water. Also, one time she took my sisters to Wal-Mart and she had to pee but I guess she didn't like the bathrooms there because she peed in a soda can in the parking lot! o_O Did I mention she is crazy?

My husband isn't a SC persay, but he is the worst at ordering through drive-thrus. It drives me bonkers because he doesn't know what he is ordering half the time, and he always wonders why I tell him he needs to work on his ordering skills.

My actuall blood relatives and nice customers :) Never seen them cause any problems. I don't tend to cause problems either, because I know how hard my fellow slaves work and what they have to deal with. :)

[Lehk]

I'm also rarely given cream, but that's ok with me. I'll have my tea good and english at home :)

i didn't know cream went in anything but chai tea.

[AFpheonix]

I like hot tea with milk and sugar, it's something I picked up from my mom, and she got from her very british mother. Best with something like earl grey, though.


Oh, and chai is tasty!

[Pagan]

I think the hot tea problem is peculiar to the US. The whole time we were in the UK, the waitstaff would ask if we wanted tea or coffee. Some restaurants here, I've almost had to smack hands because they've just "assumed" that I would be having coffee and would start pouring it! Now, I love the smell of coffee and I like coffee drinks, but actual coffee, blech.

OT - We went into Twining's in London for about 5 minutes, which turned out to be a good thing. As it was, I walked out with three boxes. Who knows what would have happened if I had had longer!

[danegrous_21]

well right now its just me and my mom. my mom is pretty alright customer, her patience is somewhat short but overall alright, untill we go to resturants. she then turns into a undercover agent of the FDA and a federal licensed health inspector.:confused:. when ever we get a table, she seems to reclean everything, with whatever we have. she will examine her food, and might even send it back, which for yrs i tell her not too, then i saw the movie 'waiting', and though i know that was maybe a extreme, i know some people that have seen that happen at places. so she is very cautious when and where we eat. she always says"i cant believe that some people and places dont understand the concept of washing the food before they cook it":confused: owell at least she can tip accordingly

[Jester]

Interesting, because most of the places that I order tea from give me the cup and spoon and carafe of hot water, plus a small box of assorted teas to choose from myself that stays on the table, not a community box. I'm also rarely given cream, but that's ok with me. I'll have my tea good and english at home :)

Keep in mind, my experience is from family-type restaurants and some fine dining restaurants in the U.S. Your mileage may vary. I just brought them lemon and cream (sugar was on the table in most places) just so they would have whatever they needed, to be honest. But the point of my post is just that American restaurants are not well-designed for hot tea service, as everything you need is not in the same place, so a hot tea becomes a Big Deal. As I said, ask any American server.

she always says"i cant believe that some people and places dont understand the concept of washing the food before they cook it":confused:

Don't be that confused...she is partially right. Much food should be washed before it is served/prepared/cooked, as in all produce and chicken, and much seafood, actually. Probably other stuff as well, but I have spent the majority of my food service career in the FRONT of the house, not the back.
:cheers:

[marder]

A few years ago, I went with my wife and a friend of hers to visit a local fair. This happening in Switzerland, we decide to go to one of the fair's restaurant and have a cheese fondue for three. The menu had to kinds of fondues, one with a single cheese, the other one with two cheeses mixed (moitie-moitie).
As we have already eaten about a third of the fondue, my wife's friend (WF) suspects that we are eating the kind of fondue we have ordered. I am not a specialist, but the fondue did taste good to me.
Anyway, she calls the waitress and tells her the has served the wrong fondue and demands it to be replaced. The waitress replies that we have the fondue we have ordered and wonders why we have eaten so much of it if it was not to our taste.
WF asks her to bring the manager.
Manager comes and stands by his waitress, he is not going to replace the order as we have already eaten too much of it.
In a move that let my wife and me completely stunned, mouth gapping widely :eek: , she throws a fit and says that "we" are going to leave for a better place and that "we" are not going to pay.
I put "we" between quotes, because we remained completely speechless during the whole event, WF did not bother ask us how "we" would like to handle this whole issue.
The manager replies that "we" are going to leave at once and "we" are going to pay for the fondue and starts waiving at a nearby security guard. This fair is well known for having many people coming from the countryside and drinking too much, they are used to quickly handle aggressive customers.
So we pay and leave, not wanting to be put out by force.
What had started as a nice evening out with a friend ended up abruptly in being almost thrown out of a restaurant. I never felt so embarrassed in my life, having the whole restaurant, usually extremely noisy, completely silent now, enjoying every moment of our "issue".
Since that event, we have successfully avoided any occasion of eating out with WF.

[Seanette]

Had to chew DH out today for some rather SC behavior. We'd stopped at WalMart to pick up a few items, such as some pantyhose I badly needed (the pair I was wearing had popped a big run and I felt a strong need to look decent for court) and eat lunch (feeding me always helps my disposition. If I'm stressed *and* hungry, I really can be a bitch. Fortunately, I was not also PMSing this week). After we ate, game plan was for DH to take our purchases to the car while I ducked into the restroom and changed pantyhose. Got back out to find that door-kid needed our receipt before he'd let DH leave (the receipt that happened to be in my wallet), and let's just say that DH did not mean Darling Husband on this occasion (bluntly, DickHead was a lot closer). I did say something right then, then he had to listen to some chewing out in the car (after he calmed down, he did concede that he had seriously overreacted). Yes, he was stressed, but so was I, and embarrassing me by getting nasty with some poor WalMart kid who was just doing what his boss said to do did NOT improve anyone's day (I did tell DH that if he really did feel that strongly, the reasonable response was to talk to corporate, not the front-line grunts).

Yeah, he's admitting he was wrong, so maybe there's hope yet. ;)

[hecubus]

Even though my dad should know better, as he had something like 30 years dealing ith customers as a pharmacist, he still embarrasses me once in a while when we go shopping. He'll be the first one to break out with "I guess it's free, then," when something doesn't scan.

What really made me cringe, though, was after I graduated high school back in 1978 (when dinosaurs walked the earth), my family sold our store, and we travelled around the country for about a year. Just about every time we pulled our truck and fifth-wheel trailer into a gas station, my dad would insist on telling the gas station attendant, clerk or whatever all about how the state of Wisconsin basically drove us out of business with their draconian Welfare reimbursement policies, and how we bought the trailer and decided to travel, and on, and on, and on. I don't think we hardly ever got out of a gas station inside of 30 minutes, because my dad insisted on telling and retelling our life story to whoever might be listening.

He's also a big fan of (what I consider) pretty bad limericks and punny jokes, and will tell them to anyone; clerks, nurses when I've been in the hospital. Usually, when he starts, I just mutter "oh, no" and bury my face in my hands. It's kind of gotten to be a running gag with us.

I love him to death, but, man, can he be embarrassing. Although, he is 78 years old, and he's not about to change now, so I give him a lot of slack.

[ArenaBoy]

He's also a big fan of (what I consider) pretty bad limericks and punny jokes, and will tell them to anyone; clerks, nurses when I've been in the hospital. Usually, when he starts, I just mutter "oh, no" and bury my face in my hands. It's kind of gotten to be a running gag with us.

Oh man, my dad is like that too. I've grown used to it if he does that thing at home but in public it drives me nuts.

[hecubus]

Oh man, my dad is like that too. I've grown used to it if he does that thing at home but in public it drives me nuts.

I feel your pain, my brother. :wave:

[Seanette]

My DH tends toward puns and similar bad jokes. [sigh]

Good thing for him I love him, or he'd probably have to hide the duct tape in self-defense. :devil: