Major Psychotic Fucking Hatreds

[KhirasHY]

What are we on now, 47? Sure, that sounds good

47) Children. Just children.

48) Sloppy, unclean eaters. I shudder to think what the homes of these distended hosebeasts must look like if they eat like that at a hotel.

49) Non-tippers. Seriously, I made over 40 drinks at our bar tonight, and made a handy $0 in tips. Thankfully I get paid my Night Audit wage regardless, but if I was paid a tipped wage, I would choke someone.

50) Wheedlers. A wheedler is the kind of person who tries to haggle about everything in the frigging universe, even in places where haggling won't help you. Every time I buy something from a Best Buy/etc. and hear someone trying to get a lower price on a TV, I have to stop myself from castrating them with a set of garden shears.

51) TMIers. I didn't need to know about your hernia operation. Nor do I want to overhear you tell your friend about your colon surgery to remove your polyps. There is such a thing as "praiseworthy homicide", damn you.

52) Spoilers. I've had 3 people in the last week spoil movies I wanted to see, mere seconds after I mentioned "I haven't seen that one yet, was it good?" Seriously, you fuckers, that is not an invitation to explain the twist and ending of the movie to me! This is especially bad at a hotel, people talk way too damn much.

[Sulhythal]

53: People too important to dirty themselves by handing the money directly to the lowly cashier, and so put it down on the counter and point at it when I tell them the price.

54: People who condescendingly tell me the name of the (very common) fruit or vegetable when I'm looking through the PLU booklet for the code to give the computer. (those who are genuinely trying to be helpful get a pass on this one.)

55: People who ask where a product is, and when told the location reply with "No it's not" I have not yet had a case yet where they were correct about it not being where I told them. Oddly enough, the ones who are more polite about it end up being the ones looking for something we just ran out of.

56: front lane supervisors who walk up behind you while you're on backup, turn on your lane light(which we keep off because we're only supposed to be there for a few minutes for...you know...backup) and NOT TELL YOU. I don't know how often I have either almost walked away without turning it back off OR wondered why people kept coming up to my register when I'm trying to get back to my department, after all my light wasn't on...Oh...yes it is.

[Jester]

Yup, you read the title right and if you can tell me where the title came from, I will personally bake you a brownie.

Before I even read the rest of the responses, being the huge fan that I am, I have to tell you I immediately recognized the title as a comment from a George Carlin bit. "I don't have pet peeves, I have major psychotic fucking hatreds!" And then he goes on to list many of them.

By the way, prefer my brownies to be female, thank you very much.


While I have several pet peeves that annoy me, there are a few MPFHs that make me want to strangle people.

1. People who snap at me to get my attention. Pretty much every bartender and server I know finds this to be beyond rude, and we generally will go out of our way to ignore such assholes. Do this at a busy bar, and you just sent yourself to the end of the fucking line, pal.

2. People who whistle at me to get my attention. As one of my friends has said repeatedly to such idiots, "I am not a fucking dog."

3. People who yell out their drink orders as I'm passing by them with my hands full of drinks, clearly attending to someone else. Listen, pal, the bar is packed, and we are working as fast as we can, and we will get to you. But simply barking out "THREE COORS LIGHTS AND TWO JACK AND COKES!" as we pass by with drinks for other people is a lousy way to get service, but a great way to label yourself as a douchebag worthy of being utterly ignored.

4. People who tell me what a horrible person my coworker is. Look, I don't care if they DID give you lousy service the other day (and chances are they didn't), but I work with them, and I like them, so just shut your hole and give me your order. Telling me I'm so much better than them because they're crap doesn't elevate my opinion of you at all. In fact, it does the exact opposite.

5. People who think it's totally acceptable to throw things at bartenders, to yell at bartenders, to abuse bartenders, and in general to think that they are the only ones in a full bar that matter, or that they can do whatever the fuck they want. Look, have fun, be rowdy, enjoy yourself, but once you start being a raging douchepile, you are dead to me.

Now, to read everyone else's comments!

[Jester]

Call me crazy--you wouldn't be the first--but a lot of these seem more like pet peeves than honest-to-goodness psychotic hatreds. Of course, since I am not doing the jobs of the people commenting, my opinion may well be completely invalid.

We're also blamed for out of stocks, the weather and various world problems as well.

When you live and work in a tourist destination, you definitely get a lot of blame for the weather. "Why is it so cold/windy/rainy? Key West is supposed to be warm/nice/sunny!" Actually, it's a tropical island, which means the weather changes a LOT, for no apparent reason. Welcome to the fucking tropics.

People who come through the empty cashier lane behind me and expect me to drop the customer I'm with to tell them where XYZ is.

In my bar, these are the change people, i.e., the people who are not there to buy any drinks or food, but merely want change, usually for parking meters.

"Excuse me. Excuse me! I just need some change!"

Yes, and the guy over there needs a Jack and coke, the ladies at the end need three pina coladas with floaters, the electricians right here on their lunch break need to order their lunch, the locals over their need their check so they can get to work on time, and the group from Ohio need another round of beers. The difference between all those people and you? They're all paying fucking customers.

You can wait 30 fucking seconds (or two minutes, if that's what it takes) for me to get you your damn change. After all, I'm doing you a favor, since you're not actually a customer.

Okay, add these people to my list of major psychotic fucking hatreds. Not the people who come in for change--just the people who come in for change and think that they are more important than everyone else at the bar, and can't wait five seconds to get their damn change. Fuck them. I hope someone beats them to death with a parking meter. Where's Cool Hand Luke when you need him?

Anyone using the following methods to get my attention: Waving, yelling "Hel-LOOOO!" down the aisle, whistling, clicking fingers, or anything other than "excuse me". If you don't know how to ask for help, don't act offended if you don't get any.

Several of these methods drive my fellow bartenders insane, but honestly, at a busy bar, I have no problem with people (politely) waving their hands to be noticed, or (politely) waving money to get my attention, etc. However, the people acting like coked out baboons waving their hands in the air like they just don't care, or the idiots violently waving their money 3 inches from my face, or anyone stupid enough to whistle or snap at me?

I'd like to introduce them to Cool Hand Luke.

I have to stop myself from castrating them with a set of garden shears.

Thanks--that was, so far, the best laugh of the day for me!

[Grendus]

Lemme see... With Jester's 5 that takes us to:

62: Pseudo activists who always gripe about how the self check machines "take away jobs". While it's true that a few people have been not hired because of them (though less than you'd think: they're less efficient than a cashier and have to be watched, plus there's a pretty generous margin of error on hiring at most chain stores) that number is DWARFED by the number of people not hired because of the computerized registers that they seem to love so much. Don't like them because they're hard to use? Sure, they can be. Annoying? Sure, they can be. Error prone? Sure. But if you're going to gripe about "lost jobs" at least pick the right targets.

[Jester]

Lemme see... With Jester's 5 that takes us to:

6, actually, as I added one in my second post. Of course, I didn't know when I typed my original post, after having read only the original post, that we'd be continuing the OP's numbering scheme.

[Dreamstalker]

I'll number mine as soon as I figure out what we're up to

Parents who think it's cute to let their children scan items and play with the scanner/belt (and then bitch at me when Junior patting his hands on the belt causes it to throw a fit).

People who expect me to hold their hand on self-scan or ring everything up myself. I have other customers to help, and three other registers to watch. If you don't want to scan your own shopping, we have regular cashiers open. I'm only here when (not if) something goes wrong.

Using the self-scans (or any register) as a price check station. We have these nifty little scanners in two aisles that can do that. If you scan an item and leave the register, I don't know if the item is still in the store or has walked off.

[smileyeagle1021]

53: People too important to dirty themselves by handing the money directly to the lowly cashier, and so put it down on the counter and point at it when I tell them the price.

There actually are valid reasons for doing that. As a cashier, I refuse to have people hand money to me directly. I actually insist on having it set down on the counter for the camera to see before I handle it, same with giving change, with the exception of coins which I hand directly, cash, I set down on the counter so the cameras can see it. It's protection on both sides, as a customer, if a cashier shorts you, the camera will have proof, as a cashier, if a customer claims you tried to short them and you didn't, the camera again has proof (of course, this is assuming the place has cameras on the register, which most places have). Handing stuff directly from person to person, your hands obscure what is being passed back and forth.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

People who open and mess up packaging to see what the item looks like, because the picture on the box isn't enough or something. Bonus points if they decide to actually buy the item, but take an unopened package to the register and leave the ripped-apart one on the shelf.

People who take the leaves out of our display kitchen tables (because measuring tapes and maths is hard) and then leave the leaf sitting around someplace for me to put back into the table.

People who bring food and drink into the store. I get stabbity when I see anybody in the store with a cup from Starbucks or McDonalds or some other fast food place. Because that cup is just going to be abandoned someplace, empty or not. Guaran-damn-tee it.

[KhirasHY]

I'm just gonna have to add "people who punch me in the face" to the list. I figure that's a given.

[camjuniper]

71 (or so). People who excessively bitch about their actual-legitimate-the-computer-didn't-eff-this-up ten cent fine.

72. People who steal from the library. We've lost over a thousand dollars in stolen DVDs this past year. Fuck you very much. Our new security measures for then & the pillaged music collection add a lot of work and slow us down. And an entire year's issues of almost a dozen magazines--Mad, Smart Money, Kiplingers, Rolling Stone, New Yorker . . . grr! And I really hope that the person who stole the very popular Aspergirls was someone who actually needed it and was too embarrassed to borrow it properly. That I will forgive. Otherwise? Well, my rusty spoon needs walking.



PS: @Sunshine--I <3 your icon! Are you still reading? I just finished Hit List (waiting for the ebooks means I'm behind, oh well!). I'd add that I read the one about the hundreds-of-years-old studly vampire mooning over a ditzy high school girl when it was called The Vampire Diaries . . . or Buffy . . . .

[smileyeagle1021]

73. People who bitch about our players club. We are one of the more generous in the city. No we don't give free play, we do bonus cash, you know, as in cashy money, spend it however you like. No, we don't have promotions to get you to sign up. If you're the type of person who only signs up to get $10 free play for signing up, you aren't the type of person who we want as a customer anyway.

73b. People who don't understand the difference between betting and losing. When I say that you will have to bet a certain amount to earn the points needed for a promotion, that does not mean that you need to lose it all to qualify. In fact it's the fact that you don't have to lose it that requires the amount to be so high, because we know you are winning some of it back.

[Sunshine]

@cam...oh yeah. Love lkh...in fact, my best friend preordered the new one for me. It was my xmas gift :-)i cant wait!!!

[Dreamstalker]

74. Staring blankly and expecting me to know what that means. See that button on the screen that says "Need Help"? Use that, please. I can only deal with the problems I know about, I'm not making the polite ones who know how to ask wait while I try to figure out what you want me to do.

75. Causing a spill, then walking away while pointing at me. Goody, you know how gravity works. I wish we could force customers to clean up their own messes.

76. How can I make it clearer that you cannot buy gift cards at self checkout?

[retailsweetie]

People who bring food and drink into the store. I get stabbity when I see anybody in the store with a cup from Starbucks or McDonalds or some other fast food place. Because that cup is just going to be abandoned someplace, empty or not. Guaran-damn-tee it.

We once had someone leave a pizza on a shelf. A pizza. Like, how do you miss that you left your whole freaking pizza somewhere?