Another story from Fatburger (longish)

[Quitbuggingmeandgoaway]

Hey guys, all's well in the Shenandoah Valley but I do miss Pittsburgh!

So i've decided to share a gem from my first month at Fatburger. So here goes:

One friday evening, after our dinner rush dies down, about six women come in with about 8 kids between them. They stand about 10 feet from the register as I'm taking another order. Eventually i'm done and the ladies and kids saunter up to my counter.

1st woman: Do you have any KIDS meals?

Me: No, i'm sorry. I recommend the baby fatburger and an order of fries. We only have one size of fries, but you can get thickcut steak fat fries or skinny shoestring fries. Probably the littler ones can split an order of fries!

1st woman: So you have no kids meals?

Me: Sorry, we don't.

1st woman: oh GOD, that is so STUPID! How could you NOT cater to kids?

Me: I'm sorry, this is the menu. The baby fat was designed for kids though. We don't have an official kids meal.

So one by one, the women order for them and their kids, appropriately. Midway through, the 1st woman spies the stack of coupon booklets on the counter inadvertantly left by the manager. Inside is an advertisement for the restaurant, and three coupons, two of which give the customer a free order of fries and drink when they buy a burger. We gave them out when we'd go out and schmooze with guests (this was in sept. 05 and we were only open since may 04 so we were trying to get the word out).

1st woman: Can we use these coupons?

Me: Well, they're for......

1st woman: Why can't we use these? Your place is expensive and we can barely afford it! *screams random things*

(Manager walks over, and tells me to take them, to get them out of our hair)

1st woman: So can we use these for free shakes?

Me: No, they're only good for fountain drinks.

1st woman: But what if we pay the difference?

Me: That would be fine.

On our system, when you put in this coupon on the computer, it takes off the price of the drink, whether it's a shake or fountain drink. No way in He|| were they getting 6 free shakes from us! So I had to manually enter each into the system. Took awhile but got it through, all the while they complained how long it was taking. So my manager decides to give them 20% more off their order.....so they got about $60 worth of food for $25.

It doesn't end here.

They get their food, and I go out at times to clean the dining room, which they are all in the process of trashing. Anytime I go out to clean anywhere near them, I hear "SIR! We are missing an order of fat fries!". We just gave them the fries to shut them up. They repeated this 4 times, so they got 4 orders of fries. Then they were missing cups (SIR! We need 2 more cups!). Then they asked for toys (Sir! Do you have any toys?) Also, we have a ketchup pump but they refused to use ketchup from the pump, saying how unsanitary the pump is (while their kids are playing on the floor, ironically) and they demanded and got like 100 packets of ketchup, half of which they took home.

They stayed for about an hour, continuing to trash the place, and would carry their kids around as i'm trying to clean around them. The one woman realized she could get a free burger since they bought 8 of them, with our fat-club card. So she demanded that. Eventually the ringleader went up and demanded a full refund, which thankfully the manager refused, but she gave them coupons and took down their info for a gift card since we were "out".

So they said they'd write a comment to the owner, to which we wrote an incident report to the owner telling him our side. I never saw them again, thank god! My manager thought my handling of them was as good as possible. We never heard from them, but were told to refuse them service if they came back. All in all, they got about $75 worth of food for $25. Any more "business" from them would cause them to go bankrupt!

Hope you enjoyed reading!

[Rubystars]

This is exactly the kind of story I come here to read. It shows how truly horrible customers often are. Sometimes people don't want to believe it, they think that service jobs are "easy". They don't realize that the pay we receive for these types of jobs just is not enough for the BS we put up with.

The jobs themselves are easy, yes, cleaning, ringing things up, talking to people nicely, etc. However, the customers can quickly make these kind of jobs hellish!

I'm surprised you were told to refuse them service. In a lot of places I've worked, these kind of customers would simply be catered to until they'd done this many, many times.

Thank goodness the management understood!

[BookstoreEscapee]

The jobs themselves are easy, ..., talking to people nicely,
!

I don't know...sometimes I think this is the hardest part of the job.

[Stockholm Syndrome]

So they said they'd write a comment to the owner,

....a comment about what? How rude they were for no reason? How much free stuff they got that they weren't at all entitled to? bleh, they sound like a real joy

[Broomjockey]

And it's stories like this that make me swear to only take a job in fast food type resturants if I'm on the very cusp of being kicked out of my home. Not because the job's beneath me, but because I know if I took it, it would take a serious situation to allow me to control myself to keep the job for more than 20 minutes.

[Rubystars]

I don't know...sometimes I think this is the hardest part of the job.

Granted, talking to people nicely who have been total asses can be nearly impossible. I meant the regular, normal people.

[Maximillion]

I agree with that...I don't recall seeing "Ass-kissing" in my job description. Welcome to the wonderful world of fast food. And they really don't pay you enough to deal with douchebags like the people you dealt with.

Good job keeping your cool.

[digilight]

Damnit, now you made me think about fatburger. I really want a Kingburger right about now.

[chainedbarista]

it's like rubystars said, the job itself is easy, but the dealing with people? not so much.

1st woman: Why can't we use these? Your place is expensive and we can barely afford it! *screams random things*

then for the love of whatever, WHY ARE YOU HERE?? pay the price, if you want it so damn bad, or get the hell out, you're holding up my line.

if you can't afford it, maybe you should, i don't know, but i'm going to go out on a limb here, learn how to cook? yes, the lost art of cooking, where having ingredients on hand and preparing them is much cheaper and better for you (for the most part) than spending $5-10 or more per person.

oh that's right, you're an sc; logic merely slides off your teflon hide-my mistake.

[crazylegs]

This is the kind of incident that makes my blood boil, I can fully empathise with your manager as to why he caved but the more people who do this the more customers will try this crap, as soon as companies stop this pathetic, spinless rubbish (I know customer services or corporate need to back up stores too) then they won't try it anymore.

Customers always right, my arse.

[Tigress]

This is exactly the kind of story I come here to read. It shows how truly horrible customers often are. Sometimes people don't want to believe it, they think that service jobs are "easy". They don't realize that the pay we receive for these types of jobs just is not enough for the BS we put up with.

The jobs themselves are easy, yes, cleaning, ringing things up, talking to people nicely, etc. However, the customers can quickly make these kind of jobs hellish!

Ditto that sentiment.

The reason retail and food service have such a high turnover rate? Employees don't get paid nearly enough to deal with all the BS they have to deal with, from both customers and management.