*clicky clicky* it's PICTURE TIME!!!!

[reformedwaitress]

So I'm not sure if this is a tourist town phenomenon, a server (restaurant / bar) phenomenon or if other service people deal with it to, but have you ever had to deal with customers taking pictures of you?

As I see it, there are three types of picture taking customers -- the ones that seem cool about it and ask permission, the ones that seem a little creepy about it and ask permission and then you have the sucky ones, sleazy creepy ones that just take your picture while you aren't paying attention. I had one of each last night.

I had a family of german tourists that were just very sweet and fun and that I adored. They were so excited that I could understand some of that they were saying when they were speaking german and they just had fun. The mother really liked me and my "uniform" and asked if I would be willing to take a picture with her. I was perfectly happy to of course.

Then I had a table of four probably former frat boys that were all drinking and getting slightly drunk. They were nice enough but they saw me take a picture with the tourist mother and asked if I would take a picture with them. Again, they asked and were nice about it. I was a little weary but figured it wouldn't hurt anything so I did.

Then there was the sucky customer, who wasn't even one of mine. There was an older guy sitting at the end of the bar and my manager kicked him out. When I asked why he cause because they guy would take his camera whenever I was cleaning tables or leaning over (I wear skirts to work) and taking pictures of the back of me or trying to get down my shirt. He said the guy was creeping him out and we asked him to leave.

So has anyone else had to deal with these kinds of people?

[Boozy]

I was asked to take pictures of patrons all the time when I waitressed. It was always when we were really busy, my hands were full, and they had some ridiculously elaborate camera that required a full tuturial to use.

It's not always sucky behaviour, but I do wish customers would try to determine whether or not its a good time to be asking.

[friendofjimmyk]

I used to wait tables in a not so touristy location but people would occasionally ask me to take their pictures. No problem, but as the above poster mentioned, make sure my hands aren't full, I'm not talking to another table, ask me if I want to be in a picture and please no long tutorials.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I did!

One time I was in furniture moving everything and securing the bookcase and storage cabinet displays to the pegboard, so that some little booger machine couldn't pull the damn things over onto himself/herself, when a bunch of high school girls came over and asked if they could have their picture taken with me.

I thought it was strange, but I agreed. We sat down on one of the futon mattress displays, one of them took the picture, they thanked me and ran off.

A co-worker told me they were on a scavenger hunt, because they had requested something similarly bizarre from her.

[customersruinmylife]

A random old hag once took a photo of me when I wasn't expecting it and said the following:

Old Hag: I'll never need porn again!!

I threw up in my mouth a little.

[mariamousie1]

Excuse me, but that last comment has required me to go for brain deprogramming. Where's the Men in Black when you need them?

[customersruinmylife]

That's EXACTLY what I thought when she said that.

[karma_gypsy]

A co-worker told me they were on a scavenger hunt, because they had requested something similarly bizarre from her.

I see that quite often around here (well, not where I work, but around town). The photography class always does a photo scavenger hunt once a year. I used to take photography (and was a teacher's assistant) and got to come up with ideas for the hunt. My fellow TA's and I came up with some pretty random ideas. . .

[ArenaBoy]

I've had one instance that I can recall and that was for a basketball game 2 years ago and I was photographed without being asked. I've had people ask me to take pictures for them and 100% of them have been polite about it.

This is something that I found very odd thought that happened last summer. I was driving to Canada one night and I got stuck in Woodward during the Dream Cruise. (For those who don't live in Michigan, the Dream Cruise is a big classical car event where people drive their old cars down a street called Woodward. It runs through quite a few towns.) Anyway, I'm stuck in traffic and I see this camera flash go off in my direction and I look and lo and behold some girl took a photo of me. Now photos being taken during the Dream Cruise is normal but I drive a 98 Saturn and last I checked that wasn't a classic car. It was very creepy though.

[friendofjimmyk]

A random old hag once took a photo of me when I wasn't expecting it and said the following:

Old Hag: I'll never need porn again!!

I threw up in my mouth a little.