Xojane.com comments on 'MY SON NEARLY GOT EXPELLED FOR A SILLY MISTAKE AND I WANT TO KNOW: WHEN DID WE START FEARING OUR OWN CHILDREN? ' posted:

Temperance • a year ago
The thing is, young people, even little kids can do awful things and hurt people, even if they don't necessarily know what they are doing.

A friend of mine is a teacher and was placed at an impoverished school known for its disciplinary problems and violence. Kids weren't given the right kind of home training, and a teacher trying to intervene was always "overstepping".

On her first day with a FOURTH GRADE class in a room with no windows, the kids turned off the lights, locked the door, and tried to assault her with chairs. They actually picked up chairs and threw them at her, trying to hurt her. She grew up in inner city schools, so she had none of that and put them all in their place ... but the parents blamed HER for the incident and didn't want to hear that their precious angels were little demons.
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Comments ->thirties girl posted:

I work in public education for one of the largest public school districts in SoCal. If we expelled kids for pulling the fire alarm, we'd have 2 or 3 expulsions per day, at least 3 times a week. That's crazy.

I'll also share this story: my ex-boyfriend has two tween-age kids, a 14 year old son and 12 year old daughter. His ex-wife, a very troubled soul, had primary custody of his daughter for the past 2 years and was sending her to a tiny, very religious private school that makes girls dress almost like the women you see in certain LDS enclaves, with the long skirts, high necklines, and hair they never cut. His daughter hated it, but she put up with it and got to dress like a typical pre-teen during her monthly weekends with dad and when she saw him over the summer. ...Well, 2 months ago, she got expelled from her uber-religious school for bringing one of dad's CDs with her to school. Her dad, like me, is into morose indie pop and art-punk from the '80s and '90s, including the Pixies. So when his daughter wanted to borrow one of his Pixies' CDs, specifically, their last album, "Trompe Le Monde," dad had no issue with it. Yeah, ok, it has sheeps' eyeballs in sugar on the cover... but you wouldn't know they're sheeps' eyeballs (or sugar) unless someone told you. And there's nothing offensive or misogynistic about the lyrics, unlike a lot of popular hip hop music so many kids are into. It's just loud, jarring, weird surf-pop-punk, and she was EXPELLED for bringing it to school. It wasn't booze, drugs or a weapon. It was a CD. And she was expelled for it.

Now, I could understand school administration being unhappy that she brought the CD to school, having a talk with her, explaining why it's against their rules and telling her to never do it again. But expelling her?? That's just ridiculous, as ridiculous as expelling a kid for pulling the fire alarm at school.

Thank goodness I don't have kids of my own. I don't think I could put up with that kind of b.s. from the school system without showing up the next day with some serious weaponry in hand.

Fark comments thread true confessions of a sex shop worker -> praise cheesus posted:

Not his call to make. If it appeared to be any illegal activity on the pictures, call the cops. Otherwise ignore what you see.

Praise Cheesus
2014-06-29 04:12:31 PM
I worked the "weekend" shift at an adult book, video and novelties store. This shift was basically 4 PM to midnight on Friday night, 8 AM to midnight on Saturdays and Sundays. The town I worked in had 1 adult store for every 30,000 residents. There was one "discreet" store; wood paneled interior, no windows, off on a side street from the main retail area and if you didn't know the address, you'd walk past without realizing what was there. A second store was located on a brightly lit corner of a busy intersection, with large signs and window mannequins displaying lingerie and a third was located in a part of town where you took your life in your hands if you ventured there after dark. I worked at the discreet store.

Our customers were anything but discreet.

Some of the highlights (or low lights, depending on your view) of my term of employment started with what I was initially hired to do: review every tape in inventory for playback defects. A total of 750 hours, at a rate of 50 hours a week, of watching porn tapes for video drops and noting what titles needed to be replaced, prior to the "grand reopening" of the store. Thirty years later, I cannot watch even soft core porn without laughing hysterically.

The evening when my former church choir director came in, claimed he'd forgotten his glasses and requested I read him the plot descriptions from the back of every gay port tape in the case. After the third tape, he recognized my voice.

The day a couple of guys were repairing the water lines outside the store came in on a lark during a break. They took a look at the largest dildo we had in the case and joked "If we could get that mounted on a plaque, we'd buy it for the boss". Without missing a beat, I said "Mounting, spray painting in gold and a brass plate reading 'For the biggest prick on the planet' would add $20 to the price and requires two days lead time". They put down a 50% deposit and picked it up two days later. I included a presentation box, just because - acquired by trading the florist across the street a free upcoming titles preview tape for a box used for long stem rose deliveries.

A group of bikers being run off by the store's resident poltergeist throwing magazines at them. The entity was traced back to a former clerk that had committed suicide in the storeroom of the shop. I would leave a joint in an ashtray at the end of the night on Friday (procured from the pizza guy down the block in exchange for a 20% discount card), the joint would be gone on Saturday morning (only one set of keys to the store - and I had possession of them on weekends).

Some random events: the nose tackle for the college football team asking if I thought he'd look better in the black or the red French maid outfit we sold ("Black is classic, trust me"), the reporter for one of the local TV stations buying a blow up doll and asking if I could get normal "street clothes" in the doll's size (sold him several outfits I could no longer fit into after two pregnancies) so he could use it as a car pool lane decoy, the lady that wanted us to demonstrate "which battery powered vibrator had the best bang for the buck" so we put batteries in several devices and raced them across the display case (she bought the winner). The mop and bucket sitting next to viewing booths under the sign reading "You spill it, you mop it. Your mom doesn't work here."

However, the most memorable was the city councilman that left his limo parked curbside (in the no parking lane, I saw it when he opened the door) while he ran in to rent some tapes. He put 3 boxes and a tub of cherry scented cream on the counter, cutting in front of 3 customers, demanded I hurry up and when I asked if the tape deposit was going to be cash or credit card, played the "Do you know who I am?" card.

"Mister, I don't care if you are Jesus Christ himself, come down from heaven to make my life perfect. If He doesn't put down a deposit, He doesn't get to rent the tapes either. Cash or credit card?" As he pitched his fit at the register, I noticed our resident cop walk out - probably to ticket the limo. He tossed his Visa across the counter at me and plunked down a twenty for the lube. Once processed (we would run a manual charge slip and it would only hit the bank if the tapes were not returned) and bagged, he stormed out in a huff and immediately began arguing with the cop as soon as he stepped out the door, but before it fully closed. The customers applauded, I took a bow and continued on.

jodai posted:

fun to read like 50 ft Ant

Khazar-khum posted:

But it should be kept with the 'abysmal poetry' and fiction.

quote:

I also wrote a lot of fiction. I have always wanted to be a writer, and I joined up with communities that allowed me to share my stories and have them critiqued. Some of those stories were true, some were exaggerated, and some were just downright made up.

trickybiscuits posted:

What is "self-insured"? Is it like "not having insurance"?

Bobby Digital posted:

You told a strange man to shoot it in your rear end?

hallo spacedog posted:

To be fair my friends just bought a house and discovered (also through a fake electrical socket) that their downstairs had wood walls that were completely covered over by about 3 inches of drywall, but... not nice wood and fireplaces and poo poo. Just crappy '70s style paneling.

I would maybe have doubted it but I saw it, and it was hilarious.

Das Boo posted:

Out in Montana, there's a "town" near my folks that has 320 people and four churches and another that consists of a single paved road and it has two. Between these, there's another church and some kind of bible camp. And all these are within 14 miles of one another.

They all also hate each other, which is hilarious.

CannonFodder posted:

*really wants to slap you, but hands are encased in protective glass*

monny posted:

Three Olives has pets?

Double Plus Good posted:

So, basically the plot of Crazy Stupid Love, minus the best man stuff.

some douche posted:

This really brings back some old, tough memories. Back when I was 22 or 23, I forget which, it was so long ago, I was supposed to get married to this girl. We were high school sweethearts and we maintained a long distance relationship for the 4 years I was away at college and she worked in her parents' shop in our hometown.

So I was working in the city and we had been planning our wedding. We'd have a small ceremony at our church, then we'd use up my two weeks vacation for an all-inclusive non-refundable trip to Cancun. We'd take the limo to our hotel and just have the best honeymoon anyone's ever had.

But when I showed up at the church she wasn't there. Her best friend told me the bad news. My fiancee had been seeing some other guy for a while and couldn't get up the courage to break it off with me. I was none the wiser the entire time. It crushed me. It wasn't like I could suddenly drop all my feelings for her, but I just couldn't believe what was happening.

The tickets were, as I mentioned earlier, non-refundable, so I just got on the plane by myself. I taped her picture to the next seat. That got some stares. I bought a box of little bottles of liquor at the gift shop and lined them up on the tables in front of my seats and just started drinking.

After a while I was feeling a little bit better. I started buying drinks for the people next to me, then for everyone on the plane. Eventually, we were having a party. A bunch of Americans drunk, flying down to Cancun, dancing and drinking and carrying on. I told the stewardess what happened and she gave me some "sympathy" in the galley. It was probably the only time I've ever really been drunk on a plane.

Turtlicious posted:

Nostalgia4Butts posted:

it was creepy as gently caress

also its fuckin disgusting to not flush a goddamn toilet

Paladinus posted:

A miscarriage is definitely not a joke, and I have no intention of making light of it. And it can be a tough and emotional thing for couples to go through, speaking from personal experience. And I know that it's often much harder on the woman than on the man. However, I also know that it doesn't necessarily turn you into a sad, depressed sack of tears for the rest of your life. People can move past it, and heal.

Khazar-khum posted:

I always leave my stuff on the lawn. And where's Mom in all of this?

EmmyOk posted:

You can have a good time at a bar with friends and not drink for example if you are the designated driver or a soldier.

e: or just you know if you don't feel like drinking

quote:

This just got posted anonymously on one of the mums pages that I am on:
NO NAMES PLEASE
ATTENTION ATTENTION ATTENTION....
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT....
DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES PUT CHILLI OIL OR VICKS (YEAH THE SMELLY STUFF) ANYWHERE I REPEAT ANYWHERE NEAR YOUR VAGINA!
THIS COMES TO YOU VIA ME THE POOR SUCKER.... SITTING IN THE MATERNITY UNIT WITH MY A$$ AND SAID VAGINA BOILING THE ICE BUCKET IM SITTING IN...
I WANT TO GO BACK TO PEELING MY RAW EGGS (THAT WAS YESTERDAYS BABY BRAIN) NOW....
Im actually laughing.... could be the pain.... could be the stupidity.... could even be the pain relief.... but anyways... just DONT DO IT....
34 weeks pregnant...
DAY ONE OF THE GREAT BURNT BADGER...
Ok soooooooooo i hate chilli HATE IT.... but we have a chilli plant (HAD A PLANT.... I AM BURNING THAT EVIL DEMONIC BASTARD THING IF IF I EVER RECOVER) Im picking the poxy little things for the MR to pickle (he just looooooooooves the rear end in a top hat to burn APPARENTLY well thats what i think) i picked these tiny pathetic little lava suckers.... get in the house and sneeze.... poo poo poo poo poo poo waddle waddle waddle i need to peeeeeeeee waddle waddle DONT LEAK DONT LEAK.... yes made it... omg soooooooooo good..... and wipe.... holy freaking poo poo balls mother fooker god drat im seeing stars the pains intense.... i scream.... hubby comes and gets me and puts me onto the bed.... im screaming and frashing about begging for something anything to stop the burn..... he gets a cold flannel.... it helps.... then Mr says ill put some vaseline on it.... in his rush he grabbed vicks.... he smoothers it on.... the poo poo just slides off as its too hot down stairs to stick BUT it does mat into my nice little mound of lady flufff the stuffs like superglue in cotton wool.....
I am now laying/tossing/thrashing about in bed and have a twat that is burned to the buggery, matted lady fluff thats like a little bush on fire (wish chilli bush was on fire) and i am too scared to pee.... mind due it would probably be cooler than i think.... my bumhole is just as hot.... Ever tried walking to a car with the demonic hell fire pits raging through your groin????!!!!! My legs were spread that drat wide trying to get a cool breeze the neighbours and all saw me wheeled out via the ambulance men again suprised they fitted me through the door as my legs still spread.... mind due the neighbours know my vag was on fire... i was quite vocal about it.... im going to have to move i think.....
The rate i am going i could probably write a book....
Im calling it
Baby brain fook ups and burnt badger
the MR says to me as i am sitting in my god drat ice bucket "honey arent you afraid the ice might i dont know slip in your bum or somewhere........"
No asswipe no fooking way in hell would they do that as the fooking things fooking melt before they get anywhere fooking near it....
The nurses have asked him to go for a walk....
But yes i must admit hairs not a issue anymore(was trying to decided waxed shaved or trimmed for birth).. all smooth.... not sure whether it self combusted and burnt off... or they shaved me or it melted.... fantastic for hair removal....
Now....
I wonder if it will grow BACK.....
Its ok dinner at maternity has arrived...
Chilli con carne....
Can i possibly scream any louder?
I can hear Frozen's "let it go" from the nursery....
Well hopefully tomorrow is better....
DAY 2....
Ok so the badger is recovered not as hot as it was.... farted though and the warm air set my butthole alight.... to scared to poo poo.... mind due the frozen condom ice pops are fantastic but everytime i walk it sounds like fanny farts.... still havent been game to look.... from the feel of things my poor flaps are hanging and feel like bubblewrap.... went for a checkup today.... they saw me and took all their strength not to laugh.... mind due im walking with my legs spread that far the baby will probably fall out.... one wrong move and i will do the splits... was laying down watching a cooking show with the MR hes still not game to come near me.... they were cooking clams.... he smiled adoringly at me.... i threw my coffee cup at his head rear end in a top hat....
Day 3....
BURNT BADGER UPDATE....
MUST MOVE TOWNS STATES EVEN....
NEIGHBOURS LAUGH AND WAVE IF THEY SEE ME....
MATERNITY IS IN HYSTERICS AND BABIES ARE POPPING OUT FROM MUMS LAUGHING....
MY BADGER FEELS LIKE DRIED UP OLD LEATHER....
ALL OF THESE I CAN LIVE WITH....
MY FOOKING CONDOM ICE POLE BADGER COOLER.... WAIT FOR IT....
FELL OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF WOOLIES FRUIT AND VEG....
FELL
OUT
IN
FRONT
OF
MASS
AMOUNTS
OF
PEOPLE
A DELIGHTFUL LITTLE poo poo HEAD OF A TEENAGER SCREAMED HER DILDO FELL OUT...
YEP
WORSE STILL IM HOLDING A.... CUCUMBER....
MY FACIAL CHEEKS ARE NOW JUST AS RED AS THE BADGER.....
Now someone asked if i was wearing knickers.....
Yes i was wearing knickers....
Oh course i was wearing freaking undies did you miss my post about NASA searching my back yard for a ufo which turned out to be my massive loving granny knickers blowing in the wind on the line?
I may be a little out there and all but i do NOT make a habit of running around knicker less....
But there again i also dont make a habit of rubbing chillis on my flange either.....
Nor screaming MY VAG IS ON FIRE....
But this last week i have burnt my badger.... i walk like i have a pineapple up my rear end and freeze condoms full of slush and wedge it in my crack.... gently caress it might as well go all out and just go naked....

My Lovely Horse posted:

Pearl mining's gotta be a pretty hard job, the overhead for canaries alone has got to be staggering

Crow Jane posted:

Here's a b-side from the Murder Ballads era to throw into the mix. It's one of my favorites, if you don't have the b-sides comp I strongly, strongly recommend it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrjmcyaBYoY

quote:

Thought I’d drop a line about what transpired during the worst trip I ever had to a GameStop…

It was back before the release of the PS4. I had placed my full deposit towards the console months before and was eagerly awaiting launch day so I could swing through and pick mine up. Pre-order receipt in hand, I walked into the store and stood in the half-hour line until I got to the counter and was told that they didn’t have a pre-order for me. I laughed and presented my receipt (printed and highlighted at the very store I was in). They ran the numbers and said that, nope, sorry, they don’t have a reservation under my name.

Confused, I mentioned the receipt and they said they just don’t have record of it in the system and they couldn’t release it without that. I figured, okay, I’ll go and get all the physical proof I could. I took my receipt and went home, printed up my bank statement from the time of the transaction, made sure to link all the numbers to the right place and returned to the store. Still nothing they can do, according to the front desk attendant. I ask to see the manager, which of course irritates the person who wasn’t helping me. Which of course irritates me, I’m SO SORRY that I don’t want to just walk away from a 400-dollar-or-so investment because YOU hosed up!

After some confusion, the manager, who in all fairness did his absolute best to locate my reservation, said that due to some internal error my reservation had been overwritten. Done at this point after 4 hours, I just said “Fine” and asked for a refund. THEN the manager said that he could return the money in store credit for the full amount or 80% of the amount in cash. My jaw dropped. Not only had they hosed me out of the console I had been waiting months for, but I also had the privilege of losing 80 bucks in the process.

I took the cash and went to the Walmart in the shopping block. Got a PS4 in 20 minutes.

gently caress Gamestop.

End.

quote:

I very vividly [remember] when I was treated poorly when I went into a GameStop because it was the last time I stepped foot into one. I remember walking in on launch day for Bioshock Infinite and asking to purchase a copy, and the manager asked me if I had preordered it. I kindly responded that I did not but I would like to purchase it anyway. The manager and the other employee looked at each other for a few seconds and then replied with “Are you an idiot?”

I froze and I didn’t actually know how to respond and I just kind of starred at him. He then proceeded “Why would you buy a game on launch day without pre ordering it?” To that I responded “I didn’t really think anything of it I just figured I’d see if you had a copy.” He replied to me “It’s stupid to buy a game on launch day without preordering it.”

At this point I was getting kind of agitated as I replied “You mentioned that already but do you have it?” And so he blankly stared at me for a few seconds then without saying a word just walked into the back of the store. I didn’t know if at this point he was getting the game or just waiting back there till I lost interest and went away.

More than ten minutes later he comes back out and just tosses the game on the counter and goes “Yeah we have it.” At that point I was flat out pissed off and I responded with “So you’re saying you do have it in stock despite me not preordering it.... So the point of me preordering it would be?...” He just blankly looked at me and said “If you preorder it, it guarantees we have a copy for you and you get pre order bonuses now do you want it or not?” I looked at him and paused for a second and just said “Nope” and walked out and bought the game at Best Buy which was in the same mall.

The clerks at Best Buy gave me no hassle and got the game for me quickly and I have not been back into a GameStop since. I realize this probably isn’t even half as bad as other stories but I was just so enraged after it happened that he actually asked if I was an idiot for not preordering something that they had in stock anyway!

quote:

Three years ago I would go to a Gamestop in LA every other week. The people who worked there were smart and all around good employees. That was, UNTIL STEVE CAME. The store had a change in management and this guy named Steve took over the store. He was one of those nerdy, gross, all around unhygienic special snowflakes who had to have everything his way. He unnecessarily yelled at customers and employees for things that were perfectly okay.

One time I was in the store and he yelled at a couple of kids around the age of 8, because they were “fogging up the Gameboy games case” by breathing on it. He was also the Gamestop equivalent of selling drugs to kids. He forced people who worked at the store to charge kids under 17 10 bucks if they wanted to buy M rated games (which is punishable by jail time here in California, but hey, Steve gets what Steve wants). A friend of mine worked there during the time Steve was in charge, and he told me half the employees had quit, and store sales went down 70%.

Steve just never came in on weekends so luckily Saturdays were a safe haven for the store. Sadly, even with no-Steve-Sundays, the store’s lease ran out a year and a half ago. Steve and my friend were transferred to work at the register in another mall in LA. Steve was fired and banned from every Gamestop in California within 3 days.

Why was he fired? He threw a game case at an irate mother trying to return an unopened game an HOUR after its 2 week warranty was up. Whose mother was that? My mother. gently caress Steve.

quote:

I have always had a baby face. At 27, I look like I’m a teenager, and I’m pretty sure I’ll be carded well into my thirties.

That being said.

Last year was my first year teaching high school English. We were in pre-service training for three weeks before school started, so I thought that I was fairly well known among the faculty and that I knew all of them. On the first day, I wore a long dress and heavy makeup in an attempt to make myself look older than my sophomores, and I thought it worked pretty well.

Until lunch.

I took a well-deserved break in the staff lounge and an older teacher proceeded to yell at me for five minutes about how students weren’t allowed in the staff areas and how had I gotten in and who was my dean before he noticed the big, shiny badge on my chest that said TEACHER.

The funny thing is that the exact same teacher did the exact same thing when I was trying to finalize my grades during finals week in may.

jezebel's behind closed ovens commenter Katie Jefferson posted:

For a brief time in college, I worked as a cashier at a small Mexican take-out restaurant. The owner of the restaurant had very specific things he looked for in a cashier. We must be young, blonde, have an inability to speak Spanish, and be willing to work under the table. Looking back on it now, I wonder why on earth I ever took this job. I must have been blinded by the prospect of free burritos.

Then one shift I was told I wouldn’t be working the cash register, but instead doing the owner a favor that day. He asked me, “You read English, right?” to which I said “Yeah...” He replied, “Good, then you can program our video cameras.” Now I am not technically savvy, so the fact that I can read English was not going to help me program anything. But it was a day away from actual customers, so I said I would do it. I then followed him behind the building to where the dumpster was, and he indicated for me to open a door (which I had never seen before) into what I lovingly refer to as “ the cum dungeon”.

Before me was the most terrifying room I had ever seen, and I was pretty sure I was going to die in there. It was a concrete room with no windows and hundreds of Playboy/Hustler pictures taped to the wall. On the floor was a bare, stained mattress and a single La-Z-boy sitting in front of a TV. I was in such shock that I don’t even remember how I ended up sitting on that La-Z-Boy and starting to program his video cameras for him. My fingers were like lighting on that remote control, and I programmed like no one had ever programmed before! The last thing I wanted was for him to open the door and find me not done.

Finally after four hours, the owner opened the door to see my progress. I told him I was sick and had to leave, and raced out of there as quick as possible, never to return. Now, as a mature adult I would have called the police to investigate, but at the time I was more worried about the pay I was losing by never going back. Sometimes free burritos aren’t worth it.

Elblanco posted:

The f plus did an amazing episode on her.

http://thefpl.us/episode/97

Postal Parcel posted:

Today on the fplus, we have as our special guest 69Maggots69 to talk with us on the logistics and efficacy of receiving fellatio from maggots and other insects. Then we'll have a discussion on how sticking a bad dragon(TM) dildo into your anal orifice may lead to undesired results.

quote:

""Culture" is a tricky word, but it best describes our modern popular arts and entertainment, regardless of quality. When it comes to music, the disposable profit-motivated pop music released over the past 60 years has done far more to influence our way of life than the hundreds of years of finely crafted art before it. Maybe this is a condemnation of the direction humanity has taken, or maybe it's that it's way more fun to listen to "Shoop" than it is to read Leaves of Grass. But have you ever taken a moment to consider who was really responsible for all of this? Because it turns out it's just some lady with a blog. This week, we're writing the definitive Nirvana biopic."

quote:

So maybe 10 years ago, my best friends, my brother, and myself all got into Warcraft 3. Well, my brother wanted the battle chest for it, so my dad and my brother and I went to good ol’ Walmart to get it.

Go back to electronics, find it, pay for it back there, get receipt but no bag as it was too big.

As we head for the exit, the greeter person sees my little brother holding the battle chest and starts screaming at him that he stole it, while my dad is right there. He calmly shows her the receipt that shows it is paid for, but she will not listen and threatens to get her manager.

Meanwhile, my 10 year old brother is almost in tears because this random lady has been screaming at him in public.

Manager comes over, sees the receipt, tells us we can go, and gives the greeter a hard look and tells her to come to the office.

quote:

The last year I went to Comic-con, I had gone to a little press event thing where Bioware was demonstrating a preview build for Dragon Age 2, where I bought a Mass Effect N7 hoodie.

Some time after coming home from the con, I wore this hoodie to Gamestop, and a few of the clerks said “hey, cool” and that was that. One clerk, though, just would not let it go.

He asked me where I got it, and I told him about Comic-Con, but that Bioware sells these hoodies on their website. He asked if I would sell him the one I’m currently wearing. I told him “no thank you,” but he continued to belabor the point. While processing my preorder for something, he asked me three more times if I would sell it to him.

Not only that, but this guy remembered me. I decided to never wear that hoodie to the Gamestop again, but this guy remembered my face. The other two times I showed up at that store, he asked again, and even started getting more pushy with it.

And to top it all off, turns out this guy went to the same college as me, and he saw me at school one day wearing the hoodie and once again ASKED ME TO SELL IT TO HIM. At this time, I was getting really tired of telling him “go to the website” or “leave me alone,” so I just ignored him and walked away. I’ve never gone back to that Gamestop since then, and thankfully I never saw him at school after that.

quote:

(via Keil)

My friends and I would often go to Gamestop together to pick up pre-ordered games. I decided not to pre-order GTA 4, lying to myself that I could wait for the price to come down or for a used copy. Still, I went with my friends who did pre order it after work.

We were in Alaska so by lunch I had seen video posted from East Coast players and knew it was worth buying immediately (nobody posted about the loving cousin yet).

Despite not having a preorder I figured a game as big as GTA 4 would certainly not be understocked, so I asked the manager if they had any for non-preorder customers.

He looked at me like I asked to eat the flesh of newborns.

Manager- “Why wouldn’t you preorder, that’s so stupid! Why would we have any extra?”

Me- “Well I figured that since this is probably going to be the best selling game of the year you would want extra on hand to sell, make money?”

Manager- “Well, here at Gamestop we respect games enough to only allow those who would appreciate them to have them.”

Me- “What? How does that make sense? So Gamestop is always about the money unless there is an opportunity to screw the customer by not taking theirs?”

Manager- “You just don’t understand how the games industry works. Not that I’d expect someone like you would!” And this oval office sneers at my uniform, my ARMY uniform I was wearing because I was in the GOD DAMNED ARMY and this shitwizard had the stones to try to mock me for that even though there were at least 8 other soldiers or airmen in the shop.

My friends who were also Army demanded a refund and we went to a grocery store. Not only did a drat grocery store have the game, they had an entire PALLET of them behind the counter. The nice old manager there who saw us troops buying the game gave us all a 20% managers discount as long as we promised that we stopped playing in time to get a good night’s rest.

We continued to go back to that grocery store for games and continued to get great service. I haven’t purchased anything from a Gamestop since.

quote:

So this story happened back when I was twelve years old, a couple weeks before the release of Halo 2. The Gamestop I always went to with my family was having a tournament to celebrate, and my older brother and I were so excited that we even made our own shirts.

So we get in line to enter and already the worker keeps asking me if I’m sure I want to. He doesn’t do this for any other customer but me. At first I thought maybe it was because I was the youngest one there. The employee next to him gave me the sign-in sheet and I was entered.

Already there seems to be tension from the first employee, Ryan. I will not forget that guy’s name for as long as I live. The competition starts and everyone is having fun and fangirling about Halo, it was great! Then it was my turn and I was nervous but excited. Everyone else was a lot older so no one really expected me to do well. And I won my first round, I was able to go to the finals. That’s when Ryan shows up and tells me it isn’t right to cheat. To clarify, I played Halo like crazy with my brother before the tournament so I’d be ready. I worked extremely hard to be a good player. He drops it and everyone else gets to play.

Now it’s the finals, three other guys and me. I went for the same controller as I had last time and the worker unplugs it and tells me it is broken. Multiple people, including myself, keep telling him we know it isn’t yet he changes it anyway. We start the competition and the new controller is broken. I can’t play. So it ends and everyone is curious what happened. I go to talk to Ryan and he tells me that since I’m a young girl I must have cheated, so he didn’t want me to ruin the fun for everyone else. That I should know my place and know not to be playing video games since I’m a girl.

Now remember, I was only twelve, so I didn’t understand the issue of girls gaming. Ryan, a full grown adult, told me that a girl can’t be that good, that a girl can’t beat men at a game. He then yelled at me and said, “YOU CAN’T BE THAT GOOD! YOU’RE A LYING LITTLE CHEATER!! GET OUT!!”

There is a happy ending however. I found out two years after this incident that Ryan was fired for bullying every female customer that went to that store.

Matt Hardin posted:

This took place several years ago in the town of Fayetteville, AR, at a restaurant known as ROTC (The Restaurant on the Corner). The waiter in question, we’ll call him Simon, was a waiter who earned the favor of regulars by being efficient and direct but made no attempt to be pleasant just to fish for tips or, frankly, for any reason whatsoever. Curt, typically scowling, and on weekend mornings and afternoons and almost invariably severely hung over, he could be a nightmare for newcomers not prepared for the no-nonsense approach he took to the job.

One Sunday brunch, I and some friends were dining there when the table besides us, a family of five or six people, flagged him down. Now, they weren’t especially rude, but it was a very busy morning and they weren’t his customers (their waiter had been gone for several minutes). “Young man,” the matron of the group said to him, indicating the baked potato on her plate, “I’m afraid there’s been a mistake. I ordered hash browns. That is a baked potato.”

Simon stood there for a few silent seconds with a blank expression, like he was only slowly able to process the events taking place before him. Then with a look of genuine confusion, he leaned over and eyeballed the potato. Slowly, gently, he reached over and lifted it from her plate. He stood again and inspected it, holding it above his head to check the underside, turning it around to investigate every angle. Then, seemingly satisfied with his evaluation, he returned it to her plate, turned to her and replied, “You’re absolutely right, ma’am, that IS a baked potato!” Then, leaning down in an almost conspiratorial fashion, he pointed towards the kitchen and said, “Don’t let them fool you!”

With that, and before the shocked and confused customers could immediately respond, he made off to the back, leaving them speechless and our table trying to suppress muffled giggles.

Dani Taylor posted:

I was working in a confectionery stand/bar in a small theater. It was opening night for Rocky Horror and we had these flashing daiquiri cups that we used to serve, well, daiquiris. We served them in all our previous shows too, and the amount of parents who would get upset when we said their children couldn’t have them because they were not “slushies” was disturbing. “But little Johnny wants it.” “Yes, but I can’t serve a child alcohol.” “But he wants it!” “I can put coke in it if you like, and he can have the cup.” “No, he wants a slushy!” “We don’t serve slushies. You can buy the cup and go to 7-11 afterwards?” *entitled parental rage rant* And so it would go.

This night was particularly special. Post-show, we didn’t serve drinks, and the tills were already packed up, so I was closing down the bar. I was usually always so polite, but I had become a broken woman from years of daiquiri-slushy meltdowns—and I had been screamed at twice that day by D-grade ‘celebrities’ who were attending the opening. Being an opening, champagne, beer, wine and soft drinks were free. Our infamous machine-made daiquiris, however, were not, since management wanted to try and make some money out of all these nobodies.

A severely drunk man approached the bar and grabbed a cup.

“I’m just going to take this.”

“Cool, but then I’m going to call the cops straight after.”

“Oh no, it’s fine, I’m friends with the owner.”

“Great, I hear he buys his friends expensive gifts, so you can ask him for this cheap cup instead when you next see him then.”

“Do you know who I–”

“No. Have we met?”

“You’re really cheeky.”

“You’re really entitled.”

“Excuse me? I’ll have you fired.”

I handed him my phone. “OK. Why don’t you call (owner’s name) now since you’re such great friends and ask for the cup and get me fired because I’m doing my job and not letting someone I don’t know steal his stock?”

Long pause.

I called security over, got my cup back and the guy got thrown out. Turns out the cup was broken anyway so I ended up just throwing the loving thing out.

I worked there two more years and got several promotions, so I guess they were best friends.

(Editor’s Note: Holy poo poo, Dani is my loving hero.)

John Carp posted:

I was working drive-thru at a charming Mexican cantina chain with a talking Chihuahua for a mascot (we affectionately called it Toxic Hell), when a man sporting the local Tennessee drawl pulls up and asks, “‘scuze me...? Do y’all have burr-ee-toes?” I recall clearly that we had more varieties of burrito on the menu than any other kind of fake-rear end TexMex “cuisine” (even more than the namesake product). Further, note that, in the drive-thru, there’s a board that spells all that crap out.

I don’t know where my response came from, but it made me believe in angels or the collective subconscious or whatever.

“No, sir. You want Burrito Bell. They’re right down the street.”

He paused, said “Okay,” and drove off.[/Quote=Carly Werth]

I worked for a very small, independent coffee house throughout my undergrad. The place was well known in the city where I lived; employees and customers alike were quite fond of it. We were in a wealthier part of the city, so I dealt with a lot of upper-class white ladies in expensive yoga pants who ordered really complicated drinks, but I wasn’t bothered by them. The obnoxious customers were the coffee snobs who would want to huff and chew the beans to make sure they were “fresh enough” (we roasted all our beans a few blocks away), or guys who would stand over us while we did a pour-over, timing it on their iPhones.

One day I had an middle-aged gentleman come in who liked to think of himself as an expert on all things beverage-related. He had recently decided to become an expert on teas. He was testing my knowledge with a lot of questions that led me to believe he didn’t actually know much. I didn’t mind him too much at first and went along with it, trying to gently explain the difference between white, black, green, and other teas and how they all aren’t the stuff that comes in a bag from Lipton. He made a comment about how he liked their tea; “it’s clean tasting.” and I said something like, “It’s funny you mention that, because I just read this article on black teas in The Economist—”

And before I can even finish, the guy is throwing back his head and belly-laughing. “Oh!” He says, fake-wiping a tear from his eye, and in a really condescending tone goes on, “Did you accidentally pick up your husband’s magazine?”

In an equally lovely tone, I just responded, “Would it make you feel better if I said I’d read it in Cosmo?”

Ian Summers posted:

I don’t know what came over me, but this loud, obnoxious jerk (who was in a rush, of course) came running into my restaurant, he kept asking me questions, then interrupting when I tried to answer...and I just lost a little self control.

Guy: I’ll take a burger with lettuce and tomato.

Me: We don’t have lettuce or toma—

Guy: YOU’RE A HOT DOG AND BURGER PLACE AND YOU DON’T HAVE LETTUCE AND TOMATO???

Me: (fed up) No, we’re an alligator and party hat place, and today we’re giving away KAZOOOOOS!

...and then we just stand there staring at each other, because neither one of us knows what the gently caress just came out of my mouth. Then the girl standing behind him just starts LOSING it. Like, laughing so hard she can’t breathe, so I start laughing, and now we’re just laughing in this guy’s face.

Guy: .........I guess i’ll have a hot dog.

quote:

When I was playing at Gen-Con this year, I was sitting next to a heavyset guy whose pants were way down low. Thankfully, the chairs didn't have those little portholes in the back, but when he got up from his chair, everyone on God's green earth saw the poor man's arse. There was a mother and a little girl walking past when he got up, and the little girl turned to look at him, and she squealed and pointed at him, saying "Mommy, look! Mommy, look!"

Her mother hushed her and hurried them on, and I don't know if our man was aware of what had really happened. He just looked around with a confused expression on his face.

I'll never forget the flushed, gleeful expression on that kid's face. It's like she had just seen an albino deer for the first time in her life or something. It didn't traumatize her in the least, but it sure embarassed Mom, lol. She probably took her off somewhere to explain to her why we don't point and yell at people, even if their butts are falling out of their pants. I hope she didn't have a sour opinion of the game because of the incident, though. That's what really upset me about it all, if anything did.

You guys are unlucky. A lot of you don't have waists, so it makes it hard for you to keep your pants up, even with a belt. Us ladies generally have more curvature there, and it's easier for us to find pants that fit, too. I feel bad when I see a guy with his butt hanging out. I doubt they always realize it's happening, and I'd love to let them know so they can fix it, but I don't dare, because I don't want to embarrass them.

13Pandora13 posted:

And out of fairness, you must scream, "I don't know you!" immediately preceding said kick.

bryce jamison posted:

My place of work happens to be very close to a Subway, so I often grab a quick sandwich from there for lunch, and over the past year I’ve gotten to know the people who work there. I recently went in and found a new employee working behind the counter, wearing the trainee badge and all. She made my sandwich, and being a trainee, it took a little longer than usual. I’m not here to judge her for lack of sandwich perfection, she was new to it. However, I will judge her for something else.

When we got to the condiment section, I requested mustard. She took the bottle out and squeezed, and I noticed that rather than mustard coming out of the bottom as is normally the case, a little bit of mustard oozed out of the top. No big deal, she had grabbed the bottle upside-dow]n.

However, she hadn’t noticed her mistake, and became determined to get the mustard out. She squeezed the bottle significantly harder, and this time mustard shot out of the top of the bottle and smeared all over her hand and arm (she was wearing short sleeves).

She still did not notice her mistake, despite her arm dripping with mustard. Her brow furrowed in frustration and she now used two hands to squeeze the bottle with the force of a thousand suns, thus creating what future historians will call The Great Mustard Geyser of ‘15. It shot out of the top and splattered all over her arm, her hand, the counter, the sandwich next to mine, the vegetables, it was a mess. There was more mustard in the room than there was oxygen.

And the most insane thing is that she was so razor-focused on getting the mustard on the sandwich that she STILL HAD NOT NOTICED. She reared up for another go at it and started to squeeze.This time I stepped in and muttered “Um, I think it’s upside-down.” She finally, finally looked at the mustard apocalypse that she had created...and just shrugged, flipped the bottle over, and applied the mustard. When she was done she went to the next customer, completely ignoring the mess that her mustard adventure had created.

Strangely enough, not a single drop of mustard got on my sandwich before she flipped the bottle.

Zoe leventhal posted:

I spent a good twelve years of my life working for Fazoli’s. Now, for those who haven’t heard of it, Fazoli’s is essentially the fast food variant of Olive Garden. Crappy Italian food, served by underpaid, overworked, underappreciated people. The original goal of Fazoli’s was to provide “upscale quality Italian food at fast food speed and prices”—which it actually did when Kuni Toyoda was still in charge, until Sun Capital bought it out and proceeded to try to turn it into Italian McDonald’s, only without wanting to spend all the money McDonald’s has to make it the way it is. (Editor’s Note: If you guys remember Dustin Hucks’ Breadsticks story, that was at a Fazoli’s, though he never explicitly stated such)

The first GM I worked with had quit, and it was the first week of our brand new GM (I will refer to him as “Charles”). Now, we had another gentleman who worked there (who I will refer to as “Buddy”). Buddy was a really nice guy, but he was rather...unbalanced. As such, he was on medication to control his mood.

So, it’s a Friday night and we’re packed to the gills, I’m on the register, we’ve got a line to the door, and buddy is out delivering breadsticks to the tables. That’s when Buddy completely flips.

It turns out his new doctor had decided to tinker with his medication and the changes had a rather bad effect on him. Buddy starts screaming, throws his breadstick basket to the ground, and tries to shove over the soda machine. By the grace of god, he didn’t manage to tip it (although he almost managed to). So he grabs the lid off the soda machine, and, using it like a Frisbee, hurls it at some kids in a nearby booth. Charles, in what can only be described as luck granted to him by the Lady herself, manages to catch it in MID-AIR, right before it slammed into those kids.

Buddy still isn’t done, though. Still in a Hulk-like rampage, he plows into the line of people, grabbing these various decorative bottles that were glued to the shelves on the other side of the soda machines. He RIPS THE BOTTLES OFF THE SHELVES, before hurling them onto the floor. At this point, Charles and two other managers tackle him, trying to get him under control. He actually manages to throw them off of him, before running for the door, kicking it open (and shattering the glass in the process) and running off into the night (presumably to climb the nearest skyscraper and swat at planes).

Amazingly enough, they gave him another chance—only to fire him about a month later after another freakout. As for Charles? He stopped showing up to work a couple of weeks later. That probably should have been my clue that I should have done the same thing.

Ella creegan posted:

The summer after my senior year of high school, I was dating a very good looking boy. He was very tall and broad shouldered and looked like he was in his 20’s, while I was very short and looked younger than 17 (this has benefited me in the 13 years since). We went out to dinner, a lot, because his parents gave him a huge allowance and were never home. It was great.

I mention that he was good looking because a lot of waitresses would flirt with him. Most would figure out relatively quickly that we were on a date; they’d notice us hold hands, or that I was wearing his class ring on a necklace, or maybe we’d say something; whatever it was, the flirting usually didn’t go past the drink orders.

One time, however, we were at a TGIFriday’s or some place like that and the waitress did not get the message. It was late, like 10:30 or so. We were waiting to order our food when our waitress came back with our drinks - we were holding hands, so obviously on a date, but she didn’t notice. She plopped my soda in front of me, then leaned over to place his soda near his left arm. She leaned in, as if she wanted to brush her breasts across his chiseled jaw. It was weird.

Then she took our order: she barely acknowledged me, but touched his arm when he ordered (meatballs) and giggled, like meatballs are the funniest word in the world. She actually winked at him as she walked to the back to put in our order. We were cracking up at this point, because we were obviously together.

She came back with our food a little later and after again, plopping mine down, she leaned over and gently placed his plate in front of him. “If you want more *meatballs*,” she said, channeling her inner Marilyn Monroe, “just ask. It’ll be...my...pleasure.” She winked again and walked away.

By now I was starting to get uncomfortable, so I decided to say something when she came back. But, when she did, she has 3 meatballs on a small plate, which she delicately added to my boyfriend’s food, WITH HER FINGERS. “I thought you might like some extra...meatballs.” she said.

At this point I was enraged and about to say something, but before I can my boyfriend said, “Excuse me, we’re on a date. And I don’t want your meatballs.”

WELL. She was in utter disbelief that he could be on a date with me (!!!) so laughed and said, “You’re making GBS threads me, right? I thought she was your little sister!” then starts laughing maniacally, as if it’s the funniest thing in the world. My boyfriend asked for the check. She stopped laughing immediately and stomped off towards the server station. We just sat there in complete disbelief and try to ignore the patrons around us who have, at this point, all noticed what was going on.

She came back with the check, flung it down in front of me and says (no lie), “Well if you’re old enough to date HIM, you’re old enough to pay!” She then gave him the saddest puppy dog face and flounced off.

On the check was her phone number and a little heart.

Jenna Carmine posted:

Years ago I used to work in Human Resources. Our department was made up of about 6 women at the time, and we all got along pretty well. On Fridays we would often order in lunch and all eat together. The head of our department kept Kosher, but this wasn’t generally an issue, as long as she didn’t mix milk and meat, or eat non-Kosher cheese, she was happy to join in and eat with us.

One Friday we ordered from a catch-all kind of restaurant we’d ordered from before, one of those places who specialize in either pizza, fried chicken, or salads and sandwiches, depending on which delivery menu you happened to pick up. I wouldn’t bother hiding the name except I can’t remember it anyways, a local place, not a chain.

So we’ve got the guy on the phone and the rest of us give in our orders, and then we hand the phone to my boss. “Hi,” she says, “I’d like to order a tuna sub, no cheese.”

“No.” We cai kn all hear it through the phone. “No substitutions.”

My boss looks up, confused. “No, no, I’m not asking for anything extra, I just don’t want the cheese.”

“No,” the guy repeats, “no extra, no substitutions.”

“I know,” my boss says again, “I don’t want you to substitute anything FOR the cheese. I just don’t want it. I can’t eat it. Leave everything else the way it is, a normal tuna sub. Just hold the cheese.”

“No substitutions!”

Now we’re all looking at each other like we were being punked. My boss looks baffled and speaks slowly into the phone: “you can keep the cheese. Can’t you just make me a tuna sub and keep the cheese? Save it for someone else?”

Again the guy was adamant. No way was this crazy lady gonna talk him into making any substitutions on his menu.

At this point we were starting to fidget. If he wouldn’t fill her order, we’d have to all agree on a new place, and hurry to get the order in before it got too late, since we all had assorted meetings and things later in the afternoon. It had already taken us long enough just to agree on this place...

Suddenly my boss had an idea. “What if,” she asked into the phone, “you make me a tuna sub...and put the cheese...on the side?”

“No problem,” the man’s voice rang out, “Delivery will be about 40 minutes.”

Carly ballantino posted:

Here’s what happened to me many years ago at a soup-and-sandwich shop in downtown Philadelphia.

ME: Hi! What’s your soup du jour?

GIRL BEHIND THE COUNTER: It’s the soup of the day.

ME: Yes, I know. But what is it?

GBTC: It’s a soup we make special—it’s different every day.

ME: Yes…and what is today’s special soup?

GBTC: Gestapo soup.

ME: I beg your pardon?

GBTC: Gestapo soup. You know, the cold stuff.

Judging from her sighs and eye-rolls, the girl behind the counter clearly thought I was an idiot.

Caroline Akers posted:

I was attending a play at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts in Houston. There are several fully stocked cash bars set up in the lobby and during intermission I ordered what I assumed was a simple drink. It turns out I was wrong. I’d like to point out that these are professional bartenders and the guy in question was clearly in his thirties. The following conversation followed almost verbatim after I asked for a whiskey neat.

Him: “Do you mean whiskey with ice?”

Me: “No, neat.”

Him: “Like on the rocks?”

Me: “No, neat means no ice.”

Him: “So like, just whiskey?”

Me: “Yes, just whiskey.”

Him: “Like a shot of whiskey?”

Me: “Kind of, only in a regular glass, not a shot glass.”

Him: “With nothing else?”

Me (growing exasperated but trying not to sound condescending): “Nothing else. You just pour the whiskey in a glass and hand it to me.”

He picks up a bottle of Jim Beam and shows it to me.

Me: “No, that’s bourbon.”

He picks up a bottle of Johnny Walker and shows that to me.

Me: “No. (pause) Never mind, sure.”

He pours about four fingers of scotch into a highball glass and hands it to me like it’s a glass full of warm spit.

Him: “Is that what you want?”

Me: “It’s[ close enough. “

The best part was that the elderly couple who was standing next to me was so amused by the exchange that they paid for my drink and covered the tip as well. The lady said it was funnier than the show.

greg morris posted:

Years ago I worked in a hotel in a sleazy seaside town that hosted every kind of lovely event, from disappointing weddings to soul-numbing trade shows. One time, we hosted a meeting for a notorious animal testing company who’d been exposed a few years before for horrific animal abuse, including vivisection.

The guy responsible for making the coffee for this event was the most clueless, unhygienic piece of crap I’ve ever worked with (outside of academia). The coffee goes out and straightaway our manager gets a call complaining that the milk is bad. He goes to check it out, and sure enough, the milk’s turning into cottage cheese in the coffee. Because the coffee isn’t coffee.

Turns out dumb co-worker ignored a whole bunch of massive red barriers and yellow DO NOT USE warning signs, and made coffee from the water boilers that were being de-scaled with industrial-strength hydrochloric acid. The manager ran back to the meeting room in a panic and pretty much grabbed the cups out of people’s hands, then destroyed the evidence before anybody twigged what was going on. And that’s how [Hotel Chain] nearly killed the entire senior management of [Evil Company].

(Editor’s Note: And somehow, improbably, there’s still a better story this week.)

Austin hargrave posted:

During my junior year at Tennessee, I worked at a place in Knoxville called the “Silver Spoon Café.” Silver Spoon’s allure was Five-fold: Sunday Brunch, a boursin butter so addicting I often saw customers “covertly” emptying ramekins into plastic bags under the table, Baked Pastas (that always came double-bowled and with the warning “Careful, that top bowl’s hot”), a peanut-butter pie which could’ve held over the Donner party, and, oddly enough, the $3 margarita.

Now, I’ll remind you that this is not a Mexican restaurant, so apparently the $3 margarita was the perfect gambit to get Knoxvillians who wanted to eat incredibly unhealthy food, but also get their drink on to the white-trash-tune of a $3 18oz margarita. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for us to stand scratching our heads as multiple $3 margaritas stacked up on a table that had just eaten enough food to feed a small country.

(Editor’s Note: Stick with this one. Trust me)

One particularly busy night, we were all slammed and margaritas kept flying out of the bar faster than normal. Manager calls a quick team meeting to tell us all how good of a job we were doing and realizes one of my co-workers is bouncing around to his tables still. He finally shows up from a table with the most odd request of the night: “Hey...so table X wants to know if we can make a “Kid’s Margarita...”

We all were laughing our asses off thinking they wanted a kid-sized margarita as if $3 wasn’t cheap enough, but apparently the kid was throwing a fit because both of his parents were drinking margaritas and he felt left out. Our bartender, the quick-thinker she was, said “sure, i’ll just throw some margarita mix in some sprite.” Drink made, taken to table, happy kid, crisis averted.

But it stuck in our heads: “Kid Margarita”...

For the rest of the night, the running joke was to come into the bar, and yell out “kid” drink orders...

- “I need a KID SCREWDRIVER”

- “Hey can we get a Kid Mudslide?

- “We need 4 Kid Pina Coladas”

- “Where are we on that Kid’s Martini?’

- “I need a Kid’s Bloody Mary!”

Duplicates got punches, so you had to pay attention. It was a riot, and helped bust-up the craziness of the shift...until the moment I was ringing-in an order at the bar POS when one co-worker had to put in a drink order and shouted it at the top of his lungs:

“HEY, CAN I GET A KID BLOW-JOB?!”

Deafening. Silence.

(Editor’s Note: Told you)

To make matters worse, our bar was full of regulars who, seeing the wait times, had opted to sit in the bar instead of waiting for a table in the main dining room. When I looked over my shoulder, one such regular; a sweet 60-something-year-old lady and her husband looked as mortified to hear those words as if the act itself was taking place in front of them.

I’d never seen my manager comp a meal faster in my life. If we hadn’t been so busy, I’m sure we’d have ended up with one less coworker, too. He kept his job, but also an unfortunate nickname: BJ, which customers who were there that shift continued to call him for as long as I could remember.

fucker compiling this poo poo: posted:

Do you have a crazy restaurant or other food-industry story you’d like to see appear in Behind Closed Ovens (on ANY subject, not just this one)? Please e-mail WilyUbertrout@gmail.com with “Behind Closed Ovens” in the subject line (or you can find me on Twitter @EyePatchGuy). Submissions are always welcome!

Note: I do not want poop/vomit stories. Please stop sending me poop/vomit stories. Also, if your stories are not food-related in some way, I am unable to do anything with them. Sorry.

Also, note that for this subject in particular, the employee really has to have screwed up in a unique and interesting way for anyone to have a reason to care about the story. If you specifically requested a sandwich with no mayo, and a server then brought you a sandwich with mayo on it, well, I’m very sad for you, but that is not an interesting story.

dustin hucks posted:

I worked in food service for three long, awful months in my mid-teens, and I would happily cabbage patch into traffic with a sparkler hanging out of my rear end if that were the only other option outside of serving other human beings a meal for money.

I was kitchen staff at an Italian fast food chain in West Texas, which is exactly as lovely and depressing as that sounds. Horrible, greasy pizzas that tasted like they were sauced with Pixy Stix, baked ziti that came out of the tray in one rubbery piece if you forked it, super jizzy-looking Fettucine Alfredo. Everything, so gross, except for the breadsticks. They were pretty alright, because how hard is it to not gently caress up breadsticks?

I did a few things at the restaurant, including pizza-making, dishwashing and general prep if I did mornings, but my main thing was making the breadsticks, which consisted of drowning a tray of two dozen frozen sticks in a mixture of melted butter, garlic powder, and salt with a paint brush, and shoving them in an oven. I did this for eight to ten hours.

We had the same policy of unlimited breadsticks with your meal as Olive Garden, with the wonky twist that these came no matter what you ordered. Come in for a piece of our freezer-burned cheesecake? Have all of the breadsticks. Order a side salad and nothing else? Breadsticks! Maybe a slice of cheese pizza from the kid's menu because that's a thing management allowed dickhead adults to do? Put these breadsticks inside of you until you can't do that thing anymore. Just wanna fountain drink? Sit down! Breadsticks. For the mouth part of your face. As long as you were dining in, there would be some poor, hollow-eyed teenager hovering nearby with a giant basket full of breadsticks and a pair of tongs silently wishing you death as soon as it was evident the breadstick rule was going to be abused. And man, did customers ever, and gleefully.

I'd always simply been a supplier for those poor kids, and after a few weeks of absorbing garlic butter in my shirt, apron, pants, shoes and invariably my skin, I could hardly stomach the thought of eating one, much less walking around with a basket of piping hot ones wafting in my face. So, I was legit horrified when one of our approximately three hundred and forty one associate managers walked into the kitchen fifteen minutes to closing and was all, "Hey D, we need you on breadstick duty. We've got a church crowd just walked in."

Our other policy, no matter how slow the night, was if a customer walked in the door even thirty seconds before someone had the presence of mind to lock it, we're not shutting down shop until they're satisfied and out the door. People also took advantage of this. Associate manager bro-guy gave me a spare shirt (seriously, you get so gross in the kitchen) and told me to snag a new apron so I'd look semi-presentable, and stuck a visor in my hand, because handing people food in restaurants often means outdoor headwear indoors for no reason ever logically explained in the history of ever.

I peek out of the kitchen through the little window we stick finished pizzas through to the cashier folk and saw three dozen people, all of which I knew. See, in West Texas, at least where I grew up, if you want to interact with your peer group in any significant way, you go to church. For me, church was youth group every Wednesday night (I picked up work shifts every other Wednesday), which was basically church with minor supervision in the form of a cooOoOOoooky youth pastor that was totally down and hip to our jive and cooly fresh yo, and understood our young feels, and, "...word, dog. I get you. I GET you, and Jesus gets you. Isn't that so dope and slammin'? Let's pray."

Even though many of the guys my age that went were legitimately way stoked about god and stuff, even the most devout couldn't pretend the fact that we were all teenagers, our world was boners, and the healthy ratio of girls to dudes there was rather high wasn't a major factor in going. I was pretty much out the door on believing already, so I was attending on the futile hope that maybe someone cute wouldn't notice how debilitatingly awkward I was and would maybe let me touch their butt in the hall or something.

Nope.

So, Super-Relatable Friend-Guy Youth Pastor™ and a couple of adults had packed up the church vans and taken everyone out for horrible Italian at my poopy chain restaurant, and I was about to serve breadsticks to everyone I knew for however long thirty people can handle consuming sticks of bread. I looked like a barely presentable grease monster after nine hours in a dirty kitchen, which coupled with the fact that I was über-greasy by design because sixteen, and suddenly stink-sweating because of anxiety, and just...gently caress, man. I was pretty close to peak gross.

I spent the next two hours not only serving breadsticks while they ate their meals, but due to our associate manager being a leaking canoe full of emulsified dick-meats and refusing to actually do any work, pulling double-duty prepping frozen trays in the back (my colleagues helped, but they still had end-of-night prep to deal with so they could go home) and putting them in the oven.

The youth pastor wanted to chat me up every time I approached his table, my friends were jackasses because that's what teenage boys are, as I'm almost positive some of them absolutely made themselves sick eating breadsticks simply to experience the power of making another human being do their bidding. Every single girl I thought was cute was there, and thus I remained perpetually mortified every second I was in their sight, and thus increasingly stinky and nervous.

And again, two hours. Two. Exactly one hour and fifteen minutes longer than people that aren't evil would have stayed, as anyone that truly believed in our Lord and Savior Jesus Heffernan Christ and his teachings would have looked at our hours on the door, and been all, "Let's order to go," or, "Let's go bother the nice people at Olive Garden." Instead, because they were all collectively the devil, they pretty much killed their meals in thirty minutes and spent the rest of the time casually chatting, pushing me closer to my inevitable atheism, and eating almost forty trays of breadsticks before they called it a night.

And there was nothing to show for the trouble either. Being breadstick guy isn't being a server, and even then most meals are picked up at the counter. Fast food, remember? Youth pastor gave me an awkward side-hug (it was awkward because he hugged me at all, but also because it was clear he didn't want to get any of my labors on their behalf on him), said something something Jesus something something god bless something something bad old white guy joke, and left.

I quit that night. Both youth group, and my job. (Editor's Note: This is the most entertainingly-written story I've ever received)

Nostalgia4Butts posted:

realtalk this could be 100% true

i met some really fuckin weird people when i was in basic

Nostalgia4Butts posted:

there were a couple people that had to write thousand word essays for loving up

one dude in AIT had to give a 10 minute speech about teamwork for loving up during an inspection

a7m2 posted:

a ten minute presentation or writing 1000 words is only harder if you're literally retarded

Sam Lin posted:

My friend worked at a bar in close proximity to a church a few years back, so they got a decent amount of the church crowd coming in to grab a few drinks, especially wedding guests killing time or people slipping away during funerals. One busy Saturday night, a crowd of about 20-30 people suddenly came in. My friend thought one of his coworkers was kidding when he said a woman in a wedding dress was among them. Then he looked up, and sure enough, there’s a woman in a wedding dress, a groom, bridesmaids, groomsmen, and a bunch of well-dressed people. Yep, it was a wedding party.

Needless to say, the bar was crowded and all the seats taken. Somehow, the wedding party seemed surprised by this, and one older man (father of the bride, maybe) came to complain to the manager, basically telling him he should make some of the customers move so that they could get enough tables for the wedding party. The manager refused, saying he could not/would not make paying customers move, and asked why the wedding party hadn’t made a reservation. The guy’s response? “Who makes a reservation at a bar?!”

Of course by now the whole place was staring at the wedding party in disbelief and amusement. Some of the men in the wedding party headed over to some of the tables in what my friend guessed was an effort to guilt them into moving, which failed, as most of the tables proceeded to order rounds of drinks or more food.

Up next comes the angry bride, who demanded to know why they were still serving “those people” when it was her wedding day. The manager explained that they are paying customers, and he would not force them to move. The bride then accused the staff of “ruining her wedding.” The manager again asked about why they didn’t make a reservation. The bride started crying, saying that “it’s not fair,” yadda yadda yadda.

Finally, the groom walked her away and they left to find another place to eat, but not before one of the bridesmaids stormed over and snapped at the staff that she didn’t know how we could sleep at night after what we did. Of course by then half the bar was laughing at them.

Diana Trayan posted:

I worked a good 6+ years at a family owned Italian bakery in the heart of Surrey (BC, Canada). I was working front of staff on a slightly less than busy Friday afternoon when the precious came in. She was looking at our display trying to pick out a cake for a dinner party and pointed to one of the cakes (a cheesecake). I took the cake out and got my notebook ready for what she wanted written on it, when she scrunched up her face and makes a face like she’d just discovered the cake was made of calories or something.

She sidled up to me next to our counter and asks me in a very conspiratorial tone “What is cheesecake?” I give her the spark notes on it (cream cheese, eggs, sugar, flavor, Graham crackers, baked). “Oh, ok, but is there any dairy in that?”

I looked at her, then at my manager who was stifling a laugh. I turned back to her and said, “Ma’am, as I said it’s a cheese...cake. It’s made of cheese...which is a dairy product.”

She made the most disgusted face and said, “Eww, why would you make a cake taste like cheese and crackers?! Besides, I can’t have dairy.”

Then she bought a cream puff cake that had “real whipping cream” signage.

Aaron Kitteridge posted:

I bartend at a burger bar on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The bar carries more than 50 American craft beers (draft/bottles/cans), and is generally more well known for their beer/whiskey than any cocktails—although we do have a cocktail menu and the majority of our bartenders are fairly knowledgeable of the full scope of bartending.

During one particular dinner rush, I had a ticket come in from a server for a dirty vodka martini. OK, fair enough. A few minutes, later the server returned to the side station with martini in hand saying the customer sent it back. I asked why, a little taken aback—which is when I was informed that it had been sent back because the drink was “too cold.” For those who may not be bar savvy, this would be the equivalent of sending a bowl of soup back to the kitchen for being too hot.

I looked at the server, rubbed my hands together for a few seconds, then placed them around the glass and said, “send it back.” The server didn’t think I was serious, so I told her to go take care of another table and come back a few minutes later and just bring back the same drink.

The drink did not come back a second time.

Jasmine Laviolette posted:

I work at a bar that is inside an old theatre. We show movies, have concerts, comedy, private events, and are open for big sports games. We have a full menu and do kitchen service from the concessions in the front. They also serve popcorn, pastries that we make in house, and fountain drinks.

One day during a football game, a woman walked down the ramp holding a brownie on a plate, paused and asked me “There isn’t anything...special...in this brownie, is there?”

“Uh, no.” Yes, we totally sell brownies with illegal drugs in them unmarked, and often to children, and yet are not shut down. Definitely.

Craig Ballantine posted:

For four summers I worked waiting a little seafood shack on a small New England island, pretty much your idyllic teenage summer experience. Early one Tuesday evening, when we were all standing around dead slow, this dude comes in, grabs a menu on his own, then saunters into our smoking section, and sits alone. After a minute, he waves me over and says with an oily grin, “Dude, you take care of me today, and I’ll take care of you.”

No customer who says “I’m going to take care of you” ever takes care of you. The very fact that they think it means they’ll get something extra instantly proves that their view of the world is cracked.

Anyway, the guy has his entire order ready: “Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do. See this chef’s side salad you have? Yeah, to start I want two of those and I want you to mix them together in a big bowl and I want you to just DROWN them in ranch dressing.” He did say “drown.” “And then for my main course I want the surf and turf.”

We don’t have surf and turf. It’s not on the menu. We have good steaks, we have large lobsters alive in tanks ready to go, but we’re not Long John Silver or Olive Garden, and we don’t have surf and turf. I tell him I’m sorry, but we don’t have surf and turf.

“And here I thought we were getting along!” he says. “I don’t care what you call it, I want that 2-pound lobster you show there, and I want that piece of filet mignon you have there, and I want you to bring me them both at the same time. POW! Surf and turf!” I’m remembering him with a Matthew McConaughey drawl, but I’m 90% sure that’s because he had one. He also orders his second dirty martini, rocks, extra olives.

I go back into the kitchen and put the order through and tell the cooks to just go with it. I take the already-prepped chef’s side salads, dump them into a punchbowl, pour about a pint of ranch on them, toss them, and bring them out to Not-McConaughey.

“Now see, this is what I’m talking about!” he says with a grin. He digs in, and five minutes later he orders his third dirty martini. His check is now over $165. Two-pound lobsters are freaking enormous, and not cheap.

His lobster and steak is ready about twenty minutes later, when he’s kicking off martini number four. I bring out the food and he’s again over the moon. I start wondering if maybe I actually like the guy, at least a little.

The restaurant starts filling up. Eventually, I head back to High Roller’s table.

And it’s empty. He’s destroyed the lobster, steak, and fourth martini; remnants of the carnage are strewn across the table. Thinking he’s in the bathroom, I start to walk away, but then notice a torn scrap of paper stuck under his steak plate. I pull it out and there’s also two $20 bills there. Unfolding the paper, I read “Please charge to Dave Simski. Keep the tip, guy.”

Dave Simski is a local islander who owns a landscaping business and two takeaway restaurants. I run for the shift manager, who’s also the owner, who calls the cops. The local sergeant on duty comes down and I tell the story. He phones Dave Simski, talks to him for a minute, nods, chats with the owner for a minute, and leaves.

Turns out High-Roller had worked for Dave Simski for all the previous month mowing lawns and painting, and had just been fired earlier that day for doing absolutely no work and being permanently stoned. After walking out on us, he then walked directly across the parking lot to get on the one-hour ferry back to the mainland.

One hour was more than enough time for the island police to call the state police, and then plenty of time for the state police to come down to the dock and wait for the ferry to arrive and arrest High Roller as he strolled off the boat.

The owner let me keep the tip.

Candace Creeland posted:

When I was in college, I worked in a local pizza shop that did gourmet pizzas by the pie and by the slice. We had a lot of cool gourmet pizzas and also did a lot of custom pizzas, so I was used to taking down a lot of weird requests about toppings.

One afternoon, a particularly rushed and rude sounded woman called the restaurant to order our Philly cheesesteak pizza, with “no mayonnaise.” We never, EVER put mayonnaise on any of our pizzas, and didn’t even have any in stock, so I assured her that mayo wouldn’t be a problem.

SIDE NOTE: Most of our white pizzas (including the Philly cheesesteak) had a crème fraîche and cheese sauce instead of the classic tomato. It was delicious and we used to make it fresh in the back.

(Editor’s Note: To everyone who sees where this is headed and is about to make some dumb comment about “why didn’t she just tell the lady the pizza didn’t have mayo on it,” I hate you more deeply than I am able to express in mere human language.

...but still not quite as much as I hate the people about to smugly, snobbishly insist “ANY PIZZA THAT DOESN’T HAVE TOMATO SAUCE IS AN ABOMINATION AND IS NOT PIZZA, LOOK AT ME I’M SO CLEVER AND IMPORTANT WITH MY TERRIBLE PIZZA OPINIONS.”)

This lady’s boyfriend or husband or whatever comes to pick the pizza up, and is super nice and leaves a tip in the tip jar (maybe he was aware of what a harpy this lady was on the phone). I go about my business of folding pizza boxes and watching daytime television. About 20 minutes later, this red-faced, Oompa Loompa-looking woman storms through the door shrieking about mayonnaise.

I tried to reason with this lady, and explain that the white stuff she is having a coronary about is crème fraîche, not mayo, but the spit flecks kept flying as she got in my face telling me how stupid I am and how she “ASKED FOR NO loving MAYONNAISE, DON’T YOU KNOW HOW DISGUSTING THAT IS.” I even showed her the goddamned menu that listed all of the toppings, but she wouldn’t budge. She just kept telling me how gross it was that we put mayo on pizza and how dare we put something unhealthy on her pizza that she specifically asked us not to include, didn’t I know she was trying to lose weight? Why would she want mayo on her pizza?

I calmly looked at her and told her that pizza wasn’t a good choice if she was trying to eat healthy, and if she would like her pizza replaced with a salad, it would be no problem.

Jenna Crane posted:

I worked as a bartender/server while in college. One night, I was serving on the floor and waited on a table of two older gentlemen. They were nice at first, but as the night went on, they got progressively drunker and more difficult to control. It was getting towards the end of the night and I was bussing nearby tables, clearing off the piles of empty beer bottles. While doing this, one of the men called me over to their table and began to slur their next beer order at me. Since my hands were full, I put down one of the beer bottles to pull out my notepad (just to be clear, I put the bottle pretty far away from him, close to the end of the table and myself).

Well, the other gentleman thought I had brought it for him and reached for the bottle. At the same time I realized what was happening and, realizing that the bottle was half full of old beer with a ton of used cigarette butts in it, reached for the bottle as well. I told him it wasn’t his beer, it was garbage, and we both grabbed it at the same time. He had the top end and was trying to put it to his mouth, and I had the back end trying to stop him from making a terrible mistake of drinking cigarette butts. We proceeded to play tug of war with the bottle while I tried to explain to his intoxicated self that it was not his beer, it was garbage, you don’t want to drink this.

Finally, I realized he was an rear end in a top hat and I’d done my due diligence to prevent him from drinking it, and let go. He took a big chug out of the bottle, realized something was wrong and spat it all over himself. Then looked at me and said, “what did you do to my beer?” Then the bouncer came over after seeing the tug of war and kicked the guy out.

Erica Ogando posted:

I worked at a high end ice cream store. One day, this lady comes in asking for a vanilla ice cream cone with rainbow sprinkles. Before I can finish placing her order, she asks what color they are. I’m a little confused, but I told her different colors, like blue, red, pink, green. She says, “Oooh, I don’t like those colors,” and leaves.

This is still better than the teen who asked me if chocolate chip ice cream had chocolate chips inside it.

Annie Overton posted:

I worked at one of “New York City’s Hottest New Restaurants!” for awhile last year, and it was a pretty legit gig. Well-known chef, restauranteur-mogul owner, and “California-Italian Fusion cuisine designed for sharing” (translation: “Whatever the gently caress Chef thinks tastes good and wants to cook”). Being that the restaurant was part of a Corporate AF restaurant group, they took allergies REALLY SERIOUSLY, GUYS. I’ve never punched in more convoluted loving orders than at this restaurant. This situation was encouraged by the fact that the question “are there any allergies or dietary restrictions we should be aware of?” was part of our required server spiel when taking an order.

This one night I was assigned to turn-and-burn “vacation station,” a section of eight two-tops at the front of the restaurant. One of my first tables is a Very Jersey Couple, the female half of which is wearing a dress that only barely counts as “clothing” along with eight thousand Gold Jangly Things on her neck and wrists. They seem friendly enough, though, so okay. We chat for a few minutes and I get to the allergen part of my spiel, at which point the woman interrupts me—

“I have very serious dietary restrictions. It’s a diet I’ve been on for a week and a half, but I’m SUPER committed to it.”

“Okay, great, we’re more than happy to accommodate whatever you need. What are your dietary restrictions?”

“Well. I don’t eat meat, gluten, dairy, or ‘fish that swim.’” When she says the “fish that swim” part, she makes a motion with her hand indicating the swimming pattern of a dolphin—like a fish that leaps up and down in and out of the water. I stare at her and blink furiously, hoping that somehow using my face muscles in this way will prevent me from snort-laughing at this comment or, at minimum, inquire as to why she is dining at a restaurant where they serve Food, usually containing the aforementioned in some combination.

I remark that her diet is admirably strict and ask her to clarify what constitutes “fish that swim.”

“I mean, like, shrimp and crabs and lobster and stuff...that’s fine. They, like, walk on the ocean floor, right? Or swim like this?” [makes swimming motion with hand]

“So...shellfish are okay? Mollusks—like, mussels and clams—they’re fine?”

“Oh, totally! Just no fish that swim!” [repeats swimming hand motion]

I thanked them and bolted from the table to the barista station in the back as quickly as I could to die of laughter. We ended up serving her some uber-shellfished version of our bouillabaisse, removing all the “fish that swim” [makes swimming hand motion]. CRISIS AVERTED.

Matt Parker posted:

Stopping at a Subway on our way home from vacation, I overhear the following conversation from the couple in line in front of us:

Couple walks up to the counter and is staring at the menu for at least two minutes. As if in deep thought, the lady asks the sandwich maker, in all seriousness, “What’s the difference between the chicken and the turkey?”

The sandwich maker immediately deadpans, “Well, one is made of turkey...”

The lady, pauses a beat to consider that statement, and then replies with, “Oh, OK. I’ll have the chicken, then.”

I always wonder what response would have made her choose the turkey.

Nathan Tragan posted:

I work at a build-your-own taco place in Cleveland, Ohio. We specialize in whiskey and tequila as well and offer a great craft beer selection. Here are my favorite dumb customer tendencies:

1. Even though it says tacos on the door, we always have people that ask for burritos. When you tell people that we only do tacos, most will continue with their order. Most of those people will still be confused when they get a taco and not a burrito.

2. Customer: “What’s this pineapple guac?”

Me: “It has fresh pineapple and peppers and a Chipotle honey sauce drizzled over our homemade guac.”

Customer: “Does it have avocado in it?”

Me: “....”

3. Customer: “I would like an IPA.”

Me: “We have this amazing brew kettle white rajah IPA.”

Customer: “But is it an IPA?”

Jackson Niles posted:

I assume most people in the food industry know that tax season for a restaurant can be a magical time. One may only hear the tales of turds come to life and taking human form, but I’m here to say: it’s true! It occurs naturally. Just sprinkle tax return money on top of some turds and soon entire families of them will wobble alive, arise from the dark assholes they live in, and quickly blow every dollar they’ve received because turds can’t have extra money laying around. They fear what they do not understand.

Clearly, I am a scientist.

Anyway. A family, two parents and two kids, come in and get seated in my section. At first sight, yes, they looked like people who’d go out of their way to behold a cow carved from butter at a State Fair. But, whatever, the city was surrounded by a lot of rural areas—poorer folks were a part of the landscape, no big deal. Despite my facetiousness thus far, I recognize that plenty of people who don’t have a lot of money deserve to treat themselves when they can afford to, even at some mid-tier chain. But in this story we’re talking about turds, not people.

Things start off well enough. The dad was doing most of the “talking”, giving very short, vowel-sound answers in happy tones or unhappy tones. I bring their drinks and he then orders our chips and queso.

Shortly thereafter, I bring out the queso and the entire family gawks at it as if I’ve murdered their dog with farts and served it to them; The horror, the confusion. No one was immediately saying anything so I walked away, figuring I’d give it about 10-15 seconds before I headed back. Long enough for queso shock to wear off, as any expert will tell you. Upon my return, I’m greeted with baffled anger vowel noises. I ask if there is anything wrong with the queso.

“What is this poo poo?”

“Chips and queso, sir.”

“NO. This GREEN poo poo!”

“Those are tiny bits of spinach.”

The look on his face was as if I’d answered, “Those are your mother.”

“NO! No. Nuh-huh.” He shook his head in that out of control way a toddler would. “No. That won’t do. No. Bullshit.”

“If you’re unhappy with the appetizer, I can take it away.”

“TAKE IT AWAY! That poo poo is NOT queso.” He looked at his wife (who had said nothing so far), giving a dismissive laugh.

The cook sees me walk into back with untouched queso and is giving me the universal look for “Really?” I inform him: “It’s not queso. Apparently.”

I go back out to take their order. The turd man informs me that he doesn’t know what the gently caress it is I’m trying to pull.

“Sir?”

He explains that all queso, everywhere, is white. Our poo poo is yellow. Queso is white, he says. Queso has never been yellow, ever. It’s impossible to be yellow because it’s made from mozzarella cheese. He knows this because he used to wash dishes in a Mexican restaurant. We are liars. We’re full of poo poo. That green poo poo is stupid. The restaurant is a joke.

He was too clever for us. He figured out our whole faux queso scam almost immediately. A truly seasoned queso detective.

“I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy it.”

The queso issue was then abruptly tabled and they ordered burgers all around. Okay.

Food comes out, they start eating like a family of Kirbys, inhaling everything in sight (Editor’s Note: THIS SENTENCE.). Not long after, I get flagged over and turd dad is furious that there’s a tomato on his wife’s burger, insisting that they’d said no tomato. Of course, they had not at any point said anything about tomatoes, just lots of interesting things about cheese dip. I look down at her 3/4 eaten burger (tomato and all) and her French fries drowning in ketchup. He assures me she’s DEATHLY allergic to them. Substantial proof that you can’t kill a turd, only flush them off to the next person.

Anyway, they get a new burger minus tomato, because chain restaurant corporate stupidity mandates such things. She eats it, too. All the while turd dad makes a demonstration of how upset he is or laughs dismissively anytime I come by.

The bill comes, he insists they shouldn’t have to pay anything. We lied to them about queso. We tomato’d their burger. I pointed out I did not charge them for the queso, and we remade the burger to their liking. Turd Turdington erupts into such a fit, grabbing his hat, fidgeting, slamming his fists, grunting but not really saying anything. It was the angriest, most violent quantum leap I’ve ever seen.

Dude got a one free burger, but had to pay the rest. The only tip I received was the knowledge that true queso is a marriage of Italian and Mexican cultures, and that spinach is some stupid bullshit.

Turds have poo poo for brains.

James Slatin posted:

It was a busy lunch at the Mom and Pop restaurant I worked at, and I walked over to a new four top. After introducing myself, my usual line went something like, “Can I get you folks started with something to drink? Water, pop, iced tea, or coffee?”

I got 3 of the lady’s drink orders, then looked at the last woman of the 4, waiting for her beverage choice. After several beats, I suggested “Just water?” She looks back at me mortified, and says in a panicked tone, “DON’T YOU KNOW WHAT FISH DO IN WATER?!” like I’m going to bring her water that has fish excrement/bits in it. Stunned, I look to the other women for confirmation of what she just said, but they are all sheepishly looking down at the table or out the window. Keeping a smile on my face, I suggest one of our other beverage options. She ended up asking for a root beer.

I wanted to say, “You know there is water in root beer, right?” I still wonder what she would have said.

Cara Sloane posted:

I was out with some friends and my long-suffering boyfriend. The night was winding down, so we thought we’d grab a bite at the all night diner. We all got seated and discussed what we were having. Grilled cheese is what I settled on, with fries. The waitress asked me for my order and then asked me what type of bread I’d like. I’m generally super health conscious, so I said “no bread, thanks.” She replied, without skipping a beat, “that would be a puddle of cheese, and we don’t do that.”

I ordered pumpernickel.

Norman Minear posted:

I work in a diner-style restaurant very similar to Denny’s or IHOP. I’ve dealt with my share of idiotic, unnecessarily needy, and downright annoying tables that will complain about anything and everything possible, and plenty of tables that—despite being in a diner-style restaurant—have absolutely no understanding of even the most basic of foods.

One night, near the end of a double shift, my final table of the night consisted of two ladies. Without trying to sound like a judgmental douche, they were basically white-trash; their white tank tops both looked dirty, one wasn’t wearing a bra and they had that overly bleached blonde look to them. Whatever. It’s well within our normal range of customers.

So, I approach the table, “Ladies, can I start the two of you off with a Coke or coffee?” One of them asks, “Do you have Mountain Dew?” I suppose it’s a fair question; some people colloquially call all soda “coke” despite it being an actual type and brand of soda. (Editor’s Note: These people are terrible, and you should never trust them.) “No, I’m sorry, we only have Coke products.”

“I’ll take a Pepsi,” she says.

I pause for a second. “So, is Coke OK, then?”

She looks at me, confused. “No, a Pepsi.”

“Ma’am, we have Coke products. Coke and Pepsi are competitors.” It finally dawns on her, so she takes the Coke. A moment later, I bring their beverages out and ask them if they are ready to order. Miss I-want-a-Pepsi asks another question I simply wasn’t prepared for, “What are the fish and chips?”

I had thought it was a fair assumption that the vast majority of people knew what fish and chips where, but I was very clearly wrong here. After a brief pause, I explain it in detail: “It’s three panko breaded cod filets that are deep-fried and served with french fries and a side salad.” She seems quite confused by this, and asks about the portion size which I clarify in detail, “Well, there are three filets, each of them breaded and fried, probably about two to three ounces each, with a side of fries and a garden salad.”

“So, it’s not real fish?” ...what?

“The type of fish is cod.”

“But, you don’t have any, like, fish, though?”

At this point, I don’t quite follow and reiterate that it is indeed fish. I then explain that we also offer grilled Salmon and Tilapia if she’d prefer either of those, which she shakes her head at quite quickly and goes back to the fish and chips, “And instead of the chips, can I get, like, fries or something?”

“... the chips are fries.” I tell her, feeling slightly at a loss for words, since I had just described this in detail twice.

“Oh. Duh,” she says, echoing my thoughts entirely, “Okay, I’ll take the crispy chicken salad with extra extra ranch” she concludes out of nowhere. Her friend—who had been laughing at her partner’s inability to comprehend that chips are fries and that we do not have Pepsi—then proceeds to order the fish and chips.

Free from the table, I go put their order in trying to process if all of that had actually happened. I promptly went back to the kitchen to do precisely what all waitstaff do: make fun of them. My coworkers laugh a bit and it’s work as usual. About ten minutes later, their food comes up and I take it out to them, naming each entree as I place it in front of the ladies. I ask how everything looks, “Good,” they say, and if they need anything else, and make my way through the rest of my section. About a minute later, I do the standard check-up to ensure they’re satisfied. I can tell that confusion has overtaken them.

“What sort of fish is this?” the lady asks.

“It’s cod,” I say. “Is there something wrong?”

“I thought you had real fish.” Now, Pepsi-girl is fingering her friends fish and picking it apart with a look of a deer in headlights in her eyes.

“Miss, it is real fish—it is cod, a type of fish, battered and deep fried.” I get a hesitant “okay” from them and quickly disappear to the kitchen where, yes, I begin making fun of them again because I’m just blown away by their inability to comprehend fish and chips.

About five minutes later, a coworker who said I had been exaggerating everything comes up to me, “So, your table stopped me and asked what kind of fish they had was because they thought you were lying to them; I told them it was cod and they asked why we didn’t have real fish.”

MariusLecter posted:

Solice Kirsk posted:

My roommate almost hit a 20 something year old guy with his car when he was parallel parking the other day. Dude walked right in between our car and the one we were slowly backing up to. My roommate honked and the kid flicked us off. I got out, grabbed the phone he was texting on, and threw it into the park. He called me mean names as I walked away.

Screaming Idiot posted:

I had to "take some time off" in a psychiatric ward for a while and I got lumped in with some recovering drug addicts, and because I was the most coherent person there I had to officiate the AA meeting. So I did it in the most overwrought preacher voice I could, and it changed from a depressing "oh poor pitiful me save me Jesus" fest into a good laugh from everyone involved. And then we all watched How To Train Your Dragon and had dinner. AA is awesome as long as you're surrounded by a bunch of bored druggies with time to kill until dinner.

Kim Sanders posted:

The summer after I finished High School I got a job at our local Taco Bell. While I was working there I was the only white employee, the rest were Hispanic, though most spoke English (this is an important detail). Despite my horrible attempts at learning Spanish (I wanted to be able to talk to the employees we had who didn’t speak English, but I had taken Latin in high school and had a bad habit of switching between the two when I was trying to say something in Spanish, something we eventually dubbed ‘Spatin’), I managed to get very friendly with pretty much everyone who worked at the store. I normally worked the drive-thru during the lunch rush, but if someone on one of the other shifts asked me to switch I’d do it, especially if it was the night shift, because I liked messing with the stoners that came through late at night.

One day I was working the night shift. I was running the drive-thru, there were two people on the food line, and a manager who was doing some prep for the next day. I got the beep in my ear, indicating a car was in the drive thru, and started with the familiar spiel, “Welcome to Taco Bell, my name is Katy, how are you today?”

What I got back: “Thank GOD you speak American! I’m sick of having those loving Mexicans take my order. I can’t understand a goddamn word out of their mouths, and those retards always gently caress up my order!”

I sighed but said nothing as he ordered two “tay-cos,” a “que-sah-diller,” and a drink. I’ll mention now that this was my second to last shift. I had put up with this kind of customer before, mostly the ones who came into the store and demanded to have their order taken by “the white girl” even though I was working the drive thru, not the front registers. I would grit my teeth and do it, it just wasn’t worth the trouble to fight, but this guy had pressed all my buttons.

So when he pulled up and handed me his card to pay I started speaking ‘Spatin.’ It was enough that my co-workers knew I was calling him an idiot, but I also managed to throw in some of the more creative insults I remembered from my Latin class. The customer got red in the face and shouted, “Goddamn it, speak English! I know you know how!”

At which point, my manager leaned into view and said, “Oh, no, she only knows how to say hello and repeat the food orders.” (Editor’s Note: This is the best manager.) The customer shouted something about our company hiring “loving Polacks” (WTF?). I dropped the food in his lap and sent him off with the Latin equivalent of “screw you.”

The next day, I got called into the manager’s office. Apparently, the guy had called and complained, so I got my only write-up of the summer...and a $30 gift card from the night crew, with a thanks for the laughs.

Carol Jones posted:

A few nights a week, after my legal services job, I head over to the small French bistro I work at in DC, where I serve, bartend and manage. The place is super laid back and far better known for its parties than its food.

One Tuesday at the office, my boss asked me if I wouldn’t mind volunteering to help with registration for an event being put on by one of our pro bono clients, a high-profile ethics-focused non-profit (whatever that means). I happily agreed, logged off my computer and headed to the restaurant to manage a dinner shift.

About halfway through the shift one of our new servers, a sweet kid in his first serving job (it’s so fun to watch newbies figure out how much people suck), heads over to me with a “loving kill me” look on his face and tells me that the two men at his table are complaining about the salad. I tell him not to worry about it, just tell them we’ll take it off the bill.

Everything seems fine until about 30 minutes later. The same server comes up to me again and says that now, after consuming the entire steak, one of the guests is complaining about the steak, that it was too tough to cut and cold. Upon noting that the man had consumed the entire steak, I told the server to apologize, but we had already comp’ed the appetizer and the guy had eaten the whole steak, so weren’t going to comp it. In retrospect, I should have gone over myself but, I was distracted with something and this honestly happens so often where people are just hoping to get something for free, I really didn’t think anything of it.

After they finish, my server comes over with the bill and hands it to me. At this point he just looks amused. I pull out the receipt and see that the customer has written a lengthy note on the back. It reads, verbatim: “It is extremely disconcerting when a bill arrives with the overcooked, reheated, can’t even cut with a knife, half spit out (because you can’t chew it), cold “steak” is still left on the bill. Get it the gently caress together, Carol! So disappointing.” Then I flip the check over to see that he has left a $3.35 tip on a $45 bill (after the salad discount). I’d like to point out that I know this server, and he would NEVER be rude or snarky with a customer. He’s still in that new, un-jaded, eager-to-please phase.

In awe, I snap a picture of both sides of the receipt. I should note here that this guy had a very distinctive name, which I now have photographed next to his insulting tip and ridiculous note. The server is pissed, but mostly just glad the guys are gone.

The next day, I get into my office to find an email from the pro bono client I am volunteering with that evening, introducing me to my supervisor for the event. I look at the name and am wondering why it looks so familiar…oh, poo poo. I pull out my phone and my supervisor is THE SAME GUY who left the whiny little manboy note on the receipt from last night. This guy’s name isn’t John Smith; it’s a very unique name and there’s no way it’s not the same person. I go to my boss with the photograph, tell him I’m sorry but there’s no way in hell I’m taking orders from this prick all night and he’ll have to find someone else to cover the event. He couldn’t believe the note and was completely understanding.

About twenty minutes later, I get a call from my boss’ higher-up, who is directly involved with the non-profit. He asks me to please recount everything from the evening and read him what this guy wrote. I tell him about how the guy was nasty to my young server, how we had already taken things off the bill, how the man had eaten all the steak, and that I thought it was absurd that someone from an ethics-focused non-profit would curse out a server and still him on the tip, especially when his full name was attached to it. The pro bono coordinator is horrified, completely agrees, tells me that it was incredibly unacceptable for this guy to behave so inappropriately when he’s in town on business associated with their organization. He also tells me that if I want to go to the event and tell the guy off he completely supports anything I have to say (I declined). He tells me that he has already alerted the guy’s supervisor, he’ll have a sit down with this guy and his boss to discuss his behavior, the guy will offer an apology to the server, and they will give me money to tip the server appropriately.

We never heard from the guy himself, but I did get $25 from the organization about a week later to give to the server. When I gave it to him, he said he didn’t even care about the money. He was just happy the guy got his.