So..did I tell you about the HUGE ASSHOLE????

[I am the Lizard Queen!!]

So, as some of you may know, I have officially quit my job at the hotel lounge (hurrah!!!! I am even more pooor, but I don't care. The teeth grinding, heart palpitations and panic/rage attacks were ruining my life!) so I will have fewer stories, but this one is a humdinger!
So, a few weeks ago I get to work and my boss and co-worker M is already there, putting away a bunch of inventory. I drop my bag behind the bar and go to help when suddenly I hear this gabbling noise that actually makes me jump.
::BG:; Our lounge is extremely quiet. we have televisions but we are NOT allowed to turn the sound up and there is only music playing in the background. It's....pretty boring, if you ask me, but they strive for a very mellow atmosphere. unless you are an employee. then it's hell:;End BG::

So I turn around and this guy is walking into our ALMOST SILENT, nearly empty lounge, all by himself, but he is clapping his hands and yelling 'Woo! All right!!! Let's go, I'm here, LET'S GET SOME DRINKS!!!"
So..yeah. Immediately I really dislike this person. I have known people like this, who cultivate this "Irrepressible, fun-loving, larger than life attitude" and in my experience, deep down, these guys will tear your face off if you are forced to explain something to them which means the world doesn't revolve around them. And I have nothing against people who have some drinks and get a bit loud with friends; I tend to do it myself. But honestly? If you can't walk into a quiet lounge without clapping your hands and screaming 'I'M HERE!!! I AM ENTERING THE ROOM! WHATEVER CONVERSATION YOU WERE HAVING UNTIL I GOT HERE IS COMPLETELY UNIMPORTANT!" Then you are probably a huge asshole. Just my opinion. In fact, that's what we'll call him. Huge asshole or HA.
So I go over to him and ask him if I can help him. And he gives me this skeevy, cocky smile and says "I don't know!" Looks at me. Big shit eating grin.
Me: "well, would you like a drink?"
HA "Oh yes"
Me: Would you like to look at our drinks menu?"
HA :" Nope, I want you to tell me what you have."
Me: "Well, are you looking at wine or beer or a mixed drink?"
HA :Grin gets even bigger "I have NO idea! You're just going to have to tell me what you have!"
Me: "until we can narrow it down to the type of drink, I don't think I can help you. Here is our menu" (seriously. Fuck off. God.)
HA: pushes menu back to me "Well, what kind of wine do you have?"
I open the menu to our wine page and hand it back to him (we have about 40 different kinds of wine and I already know this useless shitfinger isn't going to help me narrow it down. "Here are all of our wines"
HA : chuckles and says "no nonono girl. I want you to TELL me."
So, I end up reading our wine list to him. Now it occurred to me that maybe he couldn't read, but while I am reading the wine list he is reading the names of bottles over my shoulder and interrupting me to ask unrelated questions like "What's that Frangelico?? What's the Macallan?" So clearly he can read. He's just a HUGE ASSHOLE.
So we go through this entire production, and when I am done he leans over, smirks right in my face and says 'I'll have a bottle of water"
yep. A. Bottle. of. Water.
So he gets his water and leaves and that's when M tells me that he has been pulling this crap all week. Obviously the guy just gets off on wasting other peoples time. Awesome.
So, a few hours later I am hefting a huge, extremely heavy tray of glasses towards the restaurant when I hear the sound of stupid. "gabble BLOBBKLE I AM HERE EVERYONE IMMEDIATELY MAKE YOUR LIVES ALL ABOUT ME!!!!" Clapping his hands. Yelling. Like a toddler, basically. This time he has his idiot girlfriend with him who has her face stuck into her phone texting the entire time.
M is downstairs doing "inventory" (whatever. he disappears for hours at a time and it's total BS) so I call over to him 'Hi! I'll be with you in 2 seconds!" Still carrying the gigantic tray of glasses that is actually making my arm shake and jitter.
So what does HUGE ASSHOLE do? He starts motioning me over to him and saying "Naw naw naw girl, you gotta serve us! We're here for a drink!!!"
Me: "Well, our menu is right there on the bar and I will be back as soon as I set this down"
HA: Awww, NAW GIRL, you come over here and tell me whatcha got. Regale me with your drink selection" Then he turns to his girlfriend and, without even lowering his voice, says to her "Ha! Look at her! She don't know what REGALE means!" Stupid girlfriend titters like this is the funniest thing EVER.
So I heave the giant tray of glasses over to them and say, with the biggest, fakest smile I can manage "Actually sir, I do know what regale means. I have excellent perspicacity!"
HA: "Ha, now you're making words up!"
Me" No, I'm actually not. I'm quite loquacious." (side note: vocabulary gets me hot. It's my thing. I like to get drunk and spell things. I am a turbo nerd!)
And while he processes this I say, ever so sweetly, "And now I really have to put these glasses away so you're just going to have to regale yourself for a minute"
And after all of that...guess what they ordered? Yeah, 2 bottles of water.

[wagegoth]

Oh, lord, the absolute immaturity and insecurity and self-centeredness displayed.

I work with an HA. We're lighting candles and offering prayers for the day he leaves.

[DeltaSierra]

What a jerk. If he came in again, I'd simply have taken out a bottle of water before he even started his blathering and said "Here ya go!"

[starsinthesky]

Delta that is the best idea ever.

[Zapper]

As an English teacher who also has an absolutely seething hatred for that kind of cognitive defective, you have made my list of heroes. I honestly had no idea there really were people like that. What else did you find out about him? He seems like the type to have a high-priced car cover up for small, ineffective genetalia.

[dalesys]

...taken out a bottle of water...

put a Nuk on it, and said, "Here ya go!"

[Eireann]

Or, you could have said, wide-eyed, "Oh, I'm terribly sorry! I had no idea you couldn't read! All our other customers are very literate, you see. What a terrible handicap it must be for you; have you looked into adult reading courses?"

[depechemodefan]

Maybe it's best not to see him drinking. With a drink in him, he would be the king Kamehameha asshole.

[MoonCat]

the sound of stupid

Playing now in a hotel lounge near you....starring HUGH JASSHOLE!!

he has his idiot girlfriend with him who has her face stuck into her phone texting the entire time.

Probably something like this: "Gonna kill U for setting me up with this guy OMG what a dickhead"

[EricKei]

Next time he comes in, just cut him off and say that you're all out of bottled water (preferably while holding a bottle). Tell him he can a> drink tap/hose water (which is likely what's in the bottles anyway), b> settle down and behave himself, in which case you'll get his drinks like anybody else, or c> leave

[Hyndis]

Ugh. These people.

These are the people who peeve me off the most. I can take angry or stupid. I can handle that.

What really peeves me off are the people who intentionally waste my time and they know they're doing it. They enjoy acting like huge assholes and go to great lengths simply to waste people's time. They get so passive aggressive about it, pretending they need hand holding every step of the way for even the most absolutely basic tasks, and refuse to do anything on their own or even to figure anything out on their own. Even to the point of refusing to read on their own.

Note that if you are unable or unwilling to read, its the same result. You're illiterate. Doesn't matter if you can read, if you can read but refuse to read, you're still illiterate.


One thing I've sometimes taken to doing is to embrace their time wasting fully, and embrace it to the point that I'm now wasting their time, which very quickly enrages them. I do tech support myself, and I'll dumb things down to the point where I'm instructing them how to move a mouse or how to push a button.

This is very hard to do and its a gamble. If you can pull it off and call their bluff, you should so enrage them that within a few minutes they will get annoyed and leave, or stop wasting everyone's time and allow me to get on with fixing the problem. I think this might be from insulting them with politeness by babying them through everything. They really do not like the tables being turned.

But again, its a gamble. For those who genuinely get off by wasting time, they might even enjoy it, and attempt to slow things down even further, slower than a glacial pace.

[Merriweather]

Or, you could have said, wide-eyed, "Oh, I'm terribly sorry! I had no idea you couldn't read! All our other customers are very literate, you see. What a terrible handicap it must be for you; have you looked into adult reading courses?"

LOVE it.

[Pixilated]

What a jerk. If he came in again, I'd simply have taken out a bottle of water before he even started his blathering and said "Here ya go!"

Love it! Of course he'd probably demand that you go through the whole menu with him anyway, by implying that this time he was going to get something different.

Or, you could have said, wide-eyed, "Oh, I'm terribly sorry! I had no idea you couldn't read! All our other customers are very literate, you see. What a terrible handicap it must be for you; have you looked into adult reading courses?"

Or hire a minder/reader to go everywhere with you ... even perhaps a guardian ... ?

[magician5]

Please regale us with more of your stories!

[XCashier]

Note that if you are unable or unwilling to read, its the same result. You're illiterate. Doesn't matter if you can read, if you can read but refuse to read, you're still illiterate.

Actually, the term for that is aliterate. But I don't think that's this idiot's problem; he's just a self-centered asshat who likes making service people jump through hoops for his entertainment.

I quite like Eireann's suggestion, especially if you can say it very loudly in front of a lot of people.