5.07.2007

(re)make up your mind

i’ve ranted before about customers who hold up the line while they spend twenty minutes figuring out whatever it is they want to order. what’s worse is when they decide what they ordered isn’t what they really wanted after all.
this morning a woman asked the register partner to describe every drink on the menu. and when she’d finally narrowed down her choices she wanted a sample of each of them “so i can be sure i like what I’m ordering!”.

she decided on a grande soy mocha (after trying it with whole, nonfat, percent and organic milk). i made her drink in record time (so that she’d finally leave our store) and after two sips she decided she wanted something else.

“i don’t think this is right.” she wrinkled her nose and pushed the drink back towards me.
“you ordered a grande soy mocha, yeah?” i asked her – a bit defensively since i’d been the one to make the samples for her.
“yes, but i don’t think i like it. i think i want to try it with white mocha instead.”

i wasn’t thrilled about remaking the drink for her, but i figured the quicker she got it the quicker she would leave. so after expediting her soy white mocha i bid her a good day.

“excuse me, but i don’t think i like this.” she said after another two sips.
“what’s wrong with it?” i asked, pissed because i knew she was going to want me to remake it yet again.
“i think i want it iced instead. it’s so hot out there today!” she said with a smile, as if that would make everything better.

so i made her wait until i finished the three drinks i already had on bar, which ended up being a good thing because right as i pulled the shots for her new drink she informed me that she wanted it blended instead. i didn’t take the time to explain that we can’t blend soy drinks. instead i threw together a frappuccino and slid it to her as soon as it was done.

“thank y-”
“bye.” i interrupted her and went back to making drinks.

before she left our store she turned around and began to say something to me, but i shot her a look that let her know she wasn’t going to get another remake. finally she left and i said a prayer to the bean gods so she’ll never come back to our bux again.

partner rant: don’t get upset if i remind you how to make a drink. don’t yell at a newbie because she told you to reset the timers every time you brew coffee. and don’t bad mouth the manager because he asked you to come to work in proper dress code. if you can’t handle the job then you should find another one.

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great as always, Brat.
Missed you!

6th Floor blog said...

Picky Picky. It seems that the not knowing what drinks are what happens a lot. It'd be cool if the menu was more descriptive, or if there was some sort of paper menu more descriptive for inquisitive Java'ers.

Anonymous said...

Even better is when they snatch a drink without listening to what it is (or bothering to read the name written on it) then complain that it isn't their drink. "No miss, you took HIS drink, and he was three people ahead of you in line. I'm working on yours now. I'm sorry for the wait, sir, I'll just remake that for you."

Anonymous said...

Our first Bux just opened up in town. Where do ya'll get those oatmeal cookies from ? They're really good!

Anonymous said...

I can't believe she got away with it.
Firstly I would never think about asking to sample the menu if there was amy form of queue behind me.
And then to ask for a remake because I didn't like it. My tough luck - choose better next time.

Well done for putting up with her!

theinspector said...

THAT BITCH NEEDED TO DIE!!!!

Anonymous said...

my favorites in the restaurant are the people who ask for detailed descriptions of every item on the menu, listen to ten minutes of me reading the menu to them complete with accompanying ingredients, preparation techniques and possible allergy issues (nuts, milk, etc.) then order something simple that's the same at any restaurant you go to (bacon and eggs, club sandwich, cobb salad, etc.) and finally, when you deliver their food, wrinkle their nose and ask, 'oh, is this what I ordered?'

Asshattery should be outlawed.
Capitol punishment should be legal for extreme cases of douchebaggetry.
But that's just my opinion.

Anonymous said...

There's such a thing as taking good customer service TOO far. If she had already sampled several different kinds of drinks, she should have had to pay full price for each drink that she requested and then rejected. Can I order a burger from McDonalds, take a bite, decide that a burger's not really what I wanted and trade it back in without paying for it? Of course not, and there's no reason that Starbucks should put up with that crap either.

Now if we just stop them from burning all the coffee . . .

Anonymous said...

All I could think reading this was OMG and what compels some people to think they can just continue to get free ANYTHING just because they didn't like it?
Like someone else pointed out, she needed to die!

Plain(s)feminist said...

Brat, you realize what you've done, right? Now she's going to be one of those people who insist on a blended soy "because the last time I asked for one, they made it for me!"

Magnolia said...

nate has a point. I really wonder how and why the unique style of coffeeshop coddling has emerged. Is it because there are so many different customizations available? Like he said, you wouldn't try food at a fast-food place and expect to get a new sandwich because you changed your mind. You wouldn't open a package of M&Ms, eat a couple, and bring them back to a gas station and expect a replacement because you decided you wanted peanut instead of plain.

I hate to say it, but as a fellow barista, I'm disappointed that you had so much patience with her. Now she's going to go into other places (or maybe your store again) and do the same thing. Other customers in line will get mad, and the other baristas will probably not tolerate her whims for as long as you did. Maybe she'll start telling her friends that they can do this same thing ("they'll let you try anything on the menu!"), as I've found customers are likely to do.

In my humble opinion, customers should be entitled to ONE do-over per visit, if the drink is made as they ordered and they suddenly decide they want something else.

Andrew said...

Nice to see you back. :-) Remakers suck, but it sounds like she was trying to be so nice!!! hahaha

RandomlyAccessedMemories said...

This is why I could never run a restaurant. I would have asked her to leave after she asked for a detailed description of the entire menu. How about you tell me what you would like, and I can give you some choices. Dumb people are...dumb.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Nate as well. I'm from South Africa, so I was wondering if it's a US thing to be THAT polite to customers? There is no such thing as a refund or exchange because you don't like the taste, if it was a case of sour milk, or something like that then yes, but because you don't like the taste? Kick her out! Love your blog though, very entertaining!

Steve said...

We occasionally allowed returns on wine that people claimed "went bad" or was "corked" even though we knew they just didn't like it (my favorite was when someone told me their wine with a twist-off top was corked). I guess it just depended on how busy we were and how generous we were feeling.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not above giving someone a mulligan on a bottle of wine or liquor, but they definitely don't get more than one.

Anonymous said...

By making posts like these, don't you think you might be teaching other people to act similarly? I have never acted this way in the past, because this behavior wasn't modeled by my parents. But now that I know you can act like that and get away with it, who knows what I may do next time I walk into a bux????

Manuel said...

BB You clearly have some patience. I woulda lost it after one remake.

Anonymous said...

again with the stupid customers. you can't get away from them either. I swear they are everywhere. I used to walk around the plaza that I used to work at sampling (casue it got me out of the store) and people would sometimes come in and say "hey I want that drink that person is sampling outside" and then as you have said they change it several times cause they didn't acually know what I was sampling just that it was FREE. Yeah there are day's I miss the bux.

Anonymous said...

Sure, you could've said "no" the first time she went too far, but then the story would have ended and we wouldn't have been able to get all worked up. Well done.

Elisabethany said...

just discovered your blog and it makes me so happy - as a fellow barista in a smallish town, I can definitely relate to your rants! thanks for saying what we're all thinking :)

Bread Ranger Alpha said...

Your tales of starbucks woe have inspired me to start my own blog about life at a competing "bakery cafe" (Panera Bread...I don't know if they have them where you are but they're the starbucks of overpriced delis). Anyway...read it. Or not. But I just wanted to give credit where credit is due, since it's basicly a pale "Barista Brat" imitation. (I didn't realize I had stolen your layout until I finished setting it up. Sorry)

http://sandwicheer.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

Hmmmm....I'm not sure I liked this post. I think you need to remake it for me please...

Traveling Matt said...

My first reaction would be to think you were making this chick up. Sadly I know better.

mellowlee said...

Whew! Your back :O) I was getting a bit worried! I can't even imagine behaving that badly. I hope that woman never comes back!

Br. Jonathan said...

When I'm feeling adventurous, I've ordered things at a bux that I may or may not like. But I would NEVER think of returning it and expect something else in its place. Bux rocks.

Ya Looblue said...

at least you have a good story from it.

http://yalooblue.blogspot.com

FB @ FabulouslyBroke.com said...

If only you could pelt really annoying and bad customers with soft, mushy, rotten tomatoes...

I felt that way when I worked at fastfood places and people would complain to me about the prices or yell at me and tell me to tell my parents to drop the prices down.

Ignorant b*stards.

Just because the store owner and I were the same ethnicity, didn't mean we were related!!

Anonymous said...

I would have talked with the manager after making the second drink! Let him/her deal with the customer otherwise bux would lose a lot of profit not to mention the customer is being absolutely rediculous.