The Embodiment of Evil...

[Rayen]

I think that everybody is aware of the fact that I work at KFC. (Don't ever eat there, by the way.) All of you that ponder the true meaning of the word 'evil' can stop wondering. I figured it out over the weekend.

So this little old lady comes in, stands at the counter for ten minutes, and then decides on the two piece leg and thigh combo. I tell her that it comes with a side and a drink, but she doesn't want the drink. After going round and round about the differences between a drink and a side item, she states (rather rudely) that she wants mashed potatoes and coleslaw.

As I'm packing her meal (without a drink) I turn around and notice that she's stolen a cup. I figured that I wouldn't say anything, however, because she's a little old lady and obviously disoriented.

So, of course, she spills this stolen drink all over my clean lobby floor. She then continues to scream at me for not giving her a lid with her cup, and therefore, I need to apologize to her.

By now, I'm only <i>slightly</i> irked at this old bag. I give the woman her food, apologize, and she's happy for all of ten seconds.

Not three minutes later, she marches up to the counter and sticks her finger in my face.

"YOU gave me a small biscuit. I asked for a big one!"

I almost lost it right there. "Ma'am, the buiscuits are all the same size. Three inches across, two inches tall when baked, half an inch tall when frozen. There are no 'big ones.'"

"OH yes there are, and you gave me a small one! Look at those buiscuits, THEY'RE bigger than this one!" she exclaims, gesturing at the buffet.

"That's cornbread, ma'am."

"SEE! That buiscuit is bigger than the other one!"

So I give her a cornbread muffin, and she goes away for another three minutes.

She then proceeds to ask for my manager and explain about what a rotten server I am and how I can't tell the difference between a big buiscuit and a small one. She also complains about the way our Coke tastes.

I then proceeded to slam my head into the steam cabinent.

[jusplainfencing]

HAHAHAHAHA ROTFLMFAO! THATS GOLDEN RIGHT THERE PURELY GOLDEN....

[Catal]

May I suggest propane? Applied to her head aptly, your problem would be solved... Yes, I'm quite sure.

[jusplainfencing]

hahaha,....
although you cant be to mad i mean she probably just some crazy lady thats run away from a funny farm or old folks home,...it was probably really annoying but hey thats what makes life amusing,.....

[Rayen]

Honestly, folks. Treat fast food people with dignity. We're already forced to wear stupid uniforms and scrape baked beans off of ceiling tiles when little children think it's funny to splatterpaint the restaurant. We do more disgusting things in one shift than you will probably do all week (depending on your occupation). Be patient. I beg of you.

[Katman]

I've had all sorts of trouble with customers at the fast food place I used to work at, Domino's Pizza. The biggest pain was the policy regarding fifty or one hundred dollar bills. Our store didn't allow us to accept anything above a twenty, and there were about four signs up informing the public of this (two outside the store, and two on each of the registers).

One particular evening, a lady comes into the store and orders a pizza. She's hispanic, but I know she can read and speak english because she read the menu then placed her order in flawless english. I make her pizza and watch her read the 'nothing above a twenty' sign. I see her eyes passing over it for a good three or so seconds, so I know she didn't just look at the stupid thing, she read it.

Pizza's done, I bring her the food, she hands me a fifty. Oye. ;p

[pkt]

Rayen, et al,

I s'pose your parents brought you up right: You show proper respect for the elderly. That's encouragible. Your parents would be proud of you.

Were you a Scout? No, I'm not teasing you. I was a boy scout. Some of my high school classmate are still Boy scouts.

1. I was a manager for Wendy's.
2. As a server be courteous ALWAYS. Your customer IS your boss. S/he pays you.
3. As one who is being served, be courteous ALWAYS. Good help is very hard to come by. Furthermore, your server IS a human being too. Treat them as you would like to be treated. When you received goo dservice make sure that you show your server your appreciation. And when, not if, youreceive outstanding service, by all means, summon the manager, and praise yuou server in front of him or her. If for nothing else you'll get outstanding service the next time you go to that restaurant.

Now the other side of the coin.
4. My mother, and her friends are in their 80s.
5. A lot of people of that advanced age don't give a darn.
6. A lot of people of that age live on meagre pension income if at all. In other words, a lot of the elderly live below the 'poverty line'. Stories you hear about pensioners eating dog/cat food are not urban myths.
7. A lot of people of that advanced age do have sickness.

As a result of a combination of the above points, some elderly people do use their age to gain unfair advantage. Small advantages like butting into a queque. Doing what that woman did to Rayen.

All I can say - Are you reading this FP? - control your anger, take a deep breath, smile at the sweet dear and say, 'By all means, be my guest.'

Afterall, this elderly person might have fought in WWII, Korea, etc.
I didn't mention WWI simply because most, with a few very healthy exceptions like the 93 yo who showed up at our Provincial championship in his whites...of the WWI vets are in homes, etc.

In Canada, Chinese people did not have the vote or could not go into university or engage in any of the professions till after WWII. The cause for the fed's change of mind?

In spite of the fact that they were not citizens, Chinese people did volunteerd to fight for the country that discriminate against them.

What I'm saying is, we don't know the history of this elderly person, but there is one thing for sure: The majority of the elderly should be respected, dastardly though their behaviour may be in their old age. We don't know their circumstances. Their generation have contributed to the good fortune we are enjoying.

So be thankful to them. All these hyperboles I hear about the soldiers in Iraq should be extended to the elderly. They've paiud for the freedom we enjoy.

Besides. look at it this way, Rayen, this old lady taught you a lesson, didn't she? You learned something from her, right? so there, that's something to be thankful for.

There, I've outed myself: An eternal optimist who beleives in the goodness of mankind. Yes, I'm a small-l liberal!

PK

[civiltech]

Are yo telling me KFC serves mashed potatoes, and biscuits in the states?

How do we get on that train?



Hey Rayen, since you work for the man.....is it true that KFC genetically enhances their chickens to grow three legs, so they can put more legs in a bucket. (People just seem to enjoy the leg better.......)

[bug]

Working in food service is quite possibly one of the most horrible occupations out there. Customers quite often treat you like scum. They think you are the dregs of society, when all you're trying to do is earn some money to pay your $35,000 tuition. At the place I worked at last summer, we got a bomb threat over 55 cents. No, I am not kidding at all. That of course was an extreme case, but you always have your common rude/impatient/selfish/unforgiving customers. So now whenever I go to a fast food restaurant (not often, if I can help it), I am extra-polite and cordial as can be, because I know what it's like.

[135711]

sounds classic: you're angry with your mother that day, and when the old woman walked in you didn't click. Customer service credo: relax and smile, make eye contact. KFC is not easy, all sorts walk into the place, we have armed guards in some of our fast food places - it's the tension of who's going to walk in, matt dillion? so, you have to let go of the tension, and it's okay to be angry with a little old lady, no one's going to get upset over it.
it's even worse for fencers, and if you're below weight, worse yet, all those nerve bundles exposed! eat a hearty meal and mellow out!

[Rayen]

Um...135711? Maybe you should read the parent thread again. I promise you that it has nothing to do with my mother, or with my supposed problems 'relaxing and making eye contact.' Getting annoyed a little old lady for being a royal pain in the butt doesn't mean that I have issues with winding down.

[Purple Fencer]

*sigh* I've been the person in line BEHIND the morons when that happens sometimes...I always make an effort to be polite and friendly with the server.trying to make them laugh usually helps.

There WAS one time several years back when someone was making a scene at a McDonalds. I said something rather pointed, and she whirled on me -- somehow thinking I worked there -- and demanded to speak with my supervisor.

I just pointed over my shoulder at my wife. said "She's over there...and she probably thinks your parents were related too!"

[Catlady]

Let me tell you customer service is awful. I worked in a call center for three years and nearly lost my mind.

It's not just the elderly either. Frankly, middle-aged businessmen are worse. The longer I worked customer service the worse my attitude got from experience. When I first started that job if a customer claimed someone was rude to them, or they needed to cancel a reservation because of extenuating circumstances and should have the cancellation penalty waived, I believed them. At the end of my tenure, after having so many people abuse me, and the company that nothing short of natural disaster or alien abduction was a good enough excuse.

My favorites were

The guy who called to make a reservation, and mentioned that the last time he'd stayed at one of our hotels his bath tub had been dirty--inexcusable granted--and insisted that I make sure that he did not get a dirty bathtub this time, so my only choice was to note this in the notes which made me look like an idiot I'm sure. I felt like saying, "You want to pay for my plane ticket, then I'll scrub it personally".

Any person who in response to any statement said, "But I"m the customer". Yes, you are the customer, however, I'm still not allowed to do that for you (even though sometimes I agreed with the customer in question).

The people who would accuse me of lying when I said the hotel was sold out. Like it's not my job to sell and book hotel rooms. Invariably these people want to book a room in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, or in New York for Christmas, or a room close to the stadium during the Super Bowl and were calling one day before they wanted to come in.

I would also get blamed for the computer being down. As if I, as the technological incompetent I am, could make the computer work if I wanted, but just didn't feel like it. Some people don't seem to understand what the computer is down means;the computer absolutely doesn't work, I cannot get it to do anything, NOthing, zip. period, Nadda.I'd love to help you--if for no other reason to make you go away--but everything is computerized and since the computers won't work, there is no way I can access anything. Then I swear the IT guys would say the comps would be up in 1 1/2 hours no matter what was wrong. The problem was when it took longer, especially if it took much longer, and you'd get someone who had called before, heard that the computers were down and would be back in 1 1/2 hours, dutifully waited then called back and got to hear that it would still be another 1 1/2 hours. And no, I'm not blaming IT, I know many people who do IT, I have a vague idea what they have to do, and, frankly, you couldn't pay me enough to do it even if I were starving.


Then with call centers there's the added joy of getting obscene phone calls, or prank calls from pubescent boys who apparently have nothing better to do, nor the brains to do it. I admit after a while I started having fun insulting the obscene ones (oh the stories I could tell about these guys, and the notoriety they gained around our office, and in some cases multiple offices and the ways some of us would respond to them, but that would need a whole other thread), but then we were told we couldn't mess with them anymore

I want to say on behalf of representative of all companies, please don't blame us. Many of them are in the same situation I was in. That is they are the first and sometimes only, person the customer gets to talk to, but have no control over policy and sometimes are prohibited from doing certain things. For instance, if someone was past the cancellation deadline an did have a good reason for cancelling, I still had to send them to a supervisor because I could not access the necessary function on my computer to help them. I'm sure this and other similar situations sounded like the run around, but that's what I was required to do, and my company couldn't have cared less what we thought, even if we were the ones who had to take the heat from dissatisfied customers. Also, if a customer wanted to speak to customer service, I was supposed to ask what they needed, this was so that I could brief the customer service agent who answered on what was going on. It was intended for the customer's benefit, so they wouldn't have to repeat their story for every person they talked to--which is from personal experience, very frustrating--but sometimes someone would be really upset and just say "Never mind, just connect me to customer service" and persist despite explainations that I needed to know what they wanted. I'd finally just send them to customer service, but then I'd sometimes get a lecture from the customer service rep. for not finding out what the customer wanted. Basically, many things the company does are stupid and even unfair, many times the person you first talk to knows this, but can't do anything about it. It's very stressful for us to feel for you, but have to deny you, takie abuse from you and then take abuse from our supervisors too. I will say, it you want good customer service, try to be nice. I remember one cranky customer could ruin it for the next several calls, but one nice, patient customer, especially one who complemented me when I did something right, would put me in a wonderful, helpful mood for quite sometime. So, if everyone gave us the benefit of the doubt, then everyone would be more likely to get a pleasant, helpful, patient representative. Granted, reprsentatives need to remember that the customer may have had a taxing day up to that point, but the customer should also remember that the rep may have also had a taxing day, even though it is their job to be nice.

I just have to mention on the management ignoring us front, we had script we were supposed to follow with the customer--it was looser than at some place, in that we didn't have to do anything word for word, we needed to say certain things and ask certain questions, but we could taylor it to our style. One question was "Have you stayed at this hotel before?" this was as a selling tool, so that if they said no, we could tell them about all the "lovely features" of the hotel in question. The problem is some people were in a hurry and just wanted us to hurry up and book. They'd get angry when we'd ask them stuff like this. We kept trying to tell the supervisors about this and they'd say, no our research shows that we need to ask this question to improve our booking. Finally, their consulting company came and made the same observation. Then they couldn't change fast enough.

Well, as I always say, "It may not cost anything extra to be nice, but it can be infinitely satisfying to mouth off".

I could also tell you about some less than intelligent questions I got when I worked in a library (e.g. I don't know the title of the book, or the author, and I"m not entirely certain what it's about, but two years ago it was over there and the cover is green) although people seemed much nicer there.

[Catlady]

I did another marathon post, so I"m just going to add a bit more here.

Please don't assume either that people who are salespeople, wait-staff (that's the latest pc term isn't it), or fast food workers are stupid. When I had my customer service job I all ready had a BA in English and was waiting to go to grad. school. Getting a job with an English degree is hard--okay my fault I suppose for choosing to major in English, but I decided to do what I loved and remain sane, rather than get a degree in something that would mean big $$$ and drive me crazy-- so until the right job comes along many people with degrees of this and other similar types take whatever job they can to pay bills. I was not alone in this.

Many people I worked with were young, but they were in college in various subject, many of which were challenging.

I heard the story of a woman who waited tables to make it through law school--which if you don't know is massively hard. You might as well just move into the law library, becaue you practically live there anway, from what I've observed of friends who have done it. You could hardly call her stupid to do that.

[three_hundred_fifty_five]

What a splendid story.

You were dealing with an elderly woman. The only reason she was bothering you was to get attention... attention she wasn't getting anywhere else. If everything was perfect, extra large free cup with a lid and two extra large free biscuits, she would have complained anyway. Like, the biscuits were too large or the cup was too free.

[Aoife]

Biscuits ehhh? Well, not being at all familier with the American KFC menu, I have to ask.... could these biscuits, perchance, be anything like the biscuits in Popeye's? (I ate there when I was in DC). In which case, could somebody PLEASE tell me why on earth they're called biscuits, when they're quite plainly scones?!

Anyway... that's my pet peeve off my chest



You should always be nice to people in shops. I'm unerringly nice (to everyone in fact... it can be more of a flaw than you'd think) and it serves me well. I've never had exceptionally bad service, and I tend to get freebies.... but you shouldn't do it to get anything back, you should do it because it's the right thing to do.

[Curious George]

Biscuits ehhh? Well, not being at all familier with the American KFC menu, I have to ask.... could these biscuits, perchance, be anything like the biscuits in Popeye's? (I ate there when I was in DC). In which case, could somebody PLEASE tell me why on earth they're called biscuits, when they're quite plainly scones?!

Anyway... that's my pet peeve off my chest



You should always be nice to people in shops. I'm unerringly nice (to everyone in fact... it can be more of a flaw than you'd think) and it serves me well. I've never had exceptionally bad service, and I tend to get freebies.... but you shouldn't do it to get anything back, you should do it because it's the right thing to do.

Well that's okay.
It's possible.Anyhow.And.

[civiltech]

All I gotta say about working retail is:

Minimum wage, .....minimum effort.


From a Canadian Tire Vetran!

[Curious George]

All I gotta say about working retail is:

Minimum wage, .....minimum effort.


From a Canadian Tire Vetran!

That is a rather sweeping generalization. Who or what is a Canadian Tire Vetran? :xmas:

[civiltech]

A giant hardware/auto chain accross Canada which pays the provinces minimum wage rate.

If you pay minimum, why work the maximum and put up with all the hassle? No reward, nobody notices the extra effort, and because it's a giant chain, noone cares......