Thread spinoff: Customers by the busloads!!!!

[ditchdj]

Anyone have the misfortune of working at a restaurant or grocery store next to a busy highway or interstate and get those stupid buses where you get over a hundred customers at once???? It used to piss me off when I worked at Wendy's and had that. Even as a customer it would irritate me. I remember one time when I worked at a Taco Bell next to an interstate and the lobby closed at midnight. Right at 12 when I was cleaning the dining room this idiotic bus pulled in and I literally RAN to the manager to get the key to lock the doors. I got those suckers good and locked right when the bus driver was getting off to check the doors.

[Shabo]

I used to work at F-ly's, and we would get a lot of people coming out for ice cream after a concert or recital or anything like that. I hated them so much...

I actually almost had a mental breakdown one day when they came in. They started seating themselves... in my section... and then when we finally got them all straightened out and organized, I got the drink orders for my tables. When I came back out, THEY HAD ALL SWITCHED SEATS! This is not musical chairs people! I straightened out what drinks went where, and got food orders. What a nightmare, trying to keep tabs separate for the families... I should have made a separate one for each person and let THEM deal with figuring out who was paying for who... but I digress.

So I get orders for food/ice cream, go start making a gazillion ice creams, when I come out with everything... yep, musical chairs ensued again. I was freaking out at this point because I didn't know where to deliver any of the food anymore, and I was sick of chasing the customers around the restaurant. I went back in the kitchen after I had delivered what I had brought out, and I started kind of ranting... then I just kept repeating "They won't stop moving, they won't stop moving". My manager on duty had to grab me by the shoulders and be like, "Shabo, it's all right. It's going to be fine." I calmed down after that, and was able to finish the tables... but WHY would ANYONE be so rude as to constantly switch seats around? WTFOMGBBQ!!!! And it wasn't just the kids switching seats! It was the parents too! I could totally deal with it if it were one or two tables, but when it's every single table I have? And switching around with people from tables that I wasn't serving? It was too much for me to handle. Thank god my manager was there, or my brain would have gone *insert picture of mushroom cloud here*

[Demonoid Phenomenon]

I thank the Gods Of Retail for never making me deal with this situation.
And I have the utmost sympathy for anyone who does.

[Acolyte]

Oh, god, I used to get that at McDonalds all the time.

Actually, as a spectacular send-off of sorts, on my last day *2*! buses full of old tourists pulled in at 6:10 AM. My manager flat-out said 'No. We don't have enough food to feed you all. Come back 6:30.'
And they did, and there was a lot.

[customersruinmylife]

One Wednesday morning at my bar, we got a phone call from a guy, basically warning us that he was going to be bringing a party of 40 people in on the afternoon, and that they wanted food. Now, Wednesday afternoon isn't exactly peak time for us, so there were basically three members of staff on, me, the manager and someone in the kitchen. We tried ringing for backup, but no one was available.

This "party of 40" turned out to be 95 people, all wanting food, and they all wanted it delivered at the same time so they could eat together. They all ordered at the same time, then complained when it ALL wasn't out after ten minutes. I think it took about two hours to get all the food out, and the manager went over to the leader of the group and basically told him that once they left, they were never allowed to come into our bar again.

They DESTROYED the place. It literally looked like a bomb had gone off in the place. They were there for four hours, and when they finally did leave, we had to lock the doors so we could clean up the place.

[Becks]

Shabo, those people were just evil. :comforting pats: there, there™®

[AnaKhouri]

Apparently these days a 'field trip' means the kids get to go shopping. Not to a museum or a zoo or a historic house, mind you, but shopping. In the spring we have 3-4 school trips a week coming into the bookstore, most from the eastern part of the state, which is mountainous and populated by coal miners and people that make meth in their trailers.

The little kids aren't too bad (though explaining to them about sales tax wears me out) but the teenagers are hellish. And the teachers are usually way ruder than the kids!

[Shabo]

Shabo, those people were just evil. :comforting pats: there, there™®

The worst part about it was that it was the end of my shift when they came in, but because there were so many of them, the other servers were begging anyone who was still there to stay. And since they were so conveniently seating themselves in my section...

I was too nice. I felt bad for the other servers since they worked not one but 2 serving jobs to pay the bills, and they work their butts off too. And never got a day off from the stupid manager.

[Becks]

The worst part about it was that it was the end of my shift when they came in, but because there were so many of them, the other servers were begging anyone who was still there to stay. And since they were so conveniently seating themselves in my section...

I was too nice.

Did your coworkers appreciate that you stayed and whatnot?

[Shabo]

Did your coworkers appreciate that you stayed and whatnot?

Oh, absolutely. They closed every night, and they were used to big random rushes, but this one filled 3/4 of the restaurant. No way that 2 people could have handled that on their own, especially when most of them want ice cream. We have to make those ourselves. Even the manager ended up taking some tables and helping with ice creams because there were so many people.

[Becks]

I'm glad to hear that.

It's one thing to have sucky customers, but unappreciative coworkers suck muchly.

[ibor132]

Heh, I've had busses at both of my jobs. At the arcade, it'd be one of two things - busloads of kids at camp in the summer, or French-Canadian tourists who stopped by the mall.

The camp kids were the worst...the single busiest it's ever been was when we got a bus with about 35-40 10-12 year olds, with only me and a cashier working. Normally I don't mind busses, but this was the rudest bunch of kids I've EVER seen (and you see a lot in 3 years at an arcade). "It atteee my monnnneyyyy!". "I didn't get tickeeetsss!". And then at the end, 35 10 year-olds swarming the showcase, all of whom need to leave "right now". It probbly took us 40 minutes to get them all through. I've worked the busiest of busy days at the height of tourist season, and still nothing has trumped the busload of kids.

At the clothing store, busses are a pain, but less so, mainly because I'm not expected to try to wait on more than one person at once. If we have 5 cashiers ringing, there isn't a whole lot more I can do to try to get people through faster. The biggest problem is the langugage barrier, and the seeming complete inability of tourists to read signs, or to wait their turn. If I'm on a service register, returns come first, so THAT line doesn't get crazy-long too. And no, you can't bypass your respective line if you end up in the wrong place...there's signs at the enterance to the queues, and it should be readily apparent that if there are 10 people in line, you can't bypass them by going in that other line.

[Gurndigarn]

I got it in reverse once. We did after-hours parties at the arcade I managed. One of our group (not family) offerings was to put all the video games and pinballs on freeplay for two hours, with a per-head charge. A group called, expecting 25-30.

I think 8 showed up. Not even enough to cover the normal after-hours fee, let alone the nuisance of setting everything to freeplay and back.

In their benefit, the group's pastor sent me a check to cover the personal nuisance factor— he had to have seen the annoyance in my face— so I'm not personally annoyed with him— but after that, freeplay parties started having a minimum charge.

[blas]

When I worked at the honkey tonk truck stop, well, it was a popular place for the young kids to go way after curfew so they could order multiple milkshakes and chainsmoke for all hours of the night and camp out at booths and tables.

Wednesday nights were awful. The local high school's Show Choir kids would all come to the restaurant after rehearsal and they'd all play musical chairs. They never knew how many were coming, so it would start out with 4 or 5 sitting at a booth, then all of a sudden 4 more would show up, so they'd take it upon themselves to move to a table and push two tables together. Then 2 or 3 more would show up and they'd grab yet another table or even grab their shit and move over to an even bigger table we usually kept empty for larger parties. RRRRR.

By the time they left there was always melted ice cream, straw wrappers and plum full ashtrays all over the table, even with a few cigarette butts inside almost empty milkshakes.

Oh, and if we were lucky......a dollar tip or less, underneath an upside down glass of water.

Stupid kids.

I was on the high school newspaper team, and I had spent a few days making an expose on those kids. They were supposedly the bright, cheery, drug free, happy go lucky GOOD KIDS in that Show Choir. I even took a picture of them all smoking when I snuck my cell phone in my apron one night.

The school newspaper teacher was irate with me, angry with my anti-school attitude, and threatened to have disciplinary action taken against me if I didn't delete that story that day.

What a bitch.

[South Texan]

Working for a family owned hotel (hell in and of itself) near Six Flags Over Texas and Arlington Stadium AND just off the highway joining Fort Worth and Dallas meant we got tons of tourists who chose to register under their own, individual names and failed to inform us they would be arriving in one large hoard - usually on a bus they had rented or one the sponsoring group owned.

These people would swamp our restaurant right after they arrived (usually at 3:00 when the staff was at minimum) and demand immediate service because they all were starving due to no one wanting to stop for lunch in order to get to their destination (us) as quickly as possible even though they would not be going anywhere touristy until the next day. The front desk was no help as the niece desk clerk would suggest they all go into the restuarant and relax even if they were not hungry so she could take her sweet time checking in everyone and could pull the busboy out of the dining room to be the bellhop.

Once we had a youth softball league do this to us, and two of the adult sponsors decided to walk into the kitchen area to place orders and get stuff because our one waitress, chef and busboy could not serve all eighty-plus whining kids and parents quick enough. Our restaurant manager told them to get out of the kitchen and be patient. They went to the spineless brother-in-law manager to complain. Of course all he did was run into the kitchen and scream that he was going to fire all of us while we were rushing around trying to get orders out.

Then we would have the senior discount (i.e. CHEAPO) tours who would make reservations for dinner and arrive to check in at 7:00 p.m. We would have to have a full staff ready for them. Without fail, fewer than a fourth of the tour would come in the restaurant and then these would only order something like soup or pie as the tour did not cover dinner and they therefore had gorged themselves at the tour-sponsored lunch. The next morning, these seniors would be the first in the dining room when it opened at 6:30 a.m. for breakfast (all arriving within the span of five minutes) wanting immediate service so they could check out and be on their bus by 7:00. They all would want bellhop service as well. They rarely tipped either.