A Night Of Crazy Hell Drives A Slave To The Breaking Point: Crusty Gets Told

In honor of keeping your cool and not taking any guff from a Crusty, we are pleased to present to you the honored Retail Balls Award!

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From: Girl of Many Hats

Hey there, RHU! I'm another long time reader, first time poster. Last night was completely ridiculous and I need to vent.

Some basic info about me: I'm a full time student who works part time at a gas station/convenience store/fast food place chain. We have 500 or so stores spread across the Eastern Coast of the US. For anyone familiar, we're the one with a name that sounds like bedding where "the kitchen is always open". Everyone who works here is cross trained to work the registers, make the specialty drinks, and work in the kitchen as well as keeping the store clean and stocked. My particular store is in a college town and we can get pretty busy on weekend nights with drunk students looking for cheap food before they crash for the night.

So, onto last night. Corporate has been on my store manager's case to keep hours down. As such, there were only two people working on a night there should have been 3 or 4. Last night was also the "spring ahead" of daylight savings time which meant we had an hour less to do everything on graveyard shift. When I pulled in a few minutes before 10, there was a bus unloading. Of course they all ordered food and the girl who was supposed to leave at 10 ended up staying an extra hour to help me. The rest of the night didn't slow down a bit. I got none of my duties done because I was making orders the entire night. I have screens that can hold 4 orders at a time and had 20+ orders off the screen at a time, which of course caused longer than usual wait times.

The night was complete chaos, but it comes with the job sometimes. This post isn't about that, but about one customer in particular. I'm used to the drunks asking every 2 minutes when their food will be ready. (Of course they never stop to think that interrupting me to ask so often makes their food take longer).

However, there was one girl who, after a 10 minute wait, demanded a discount on her food because she had to be at practice at 6 AM. This was at 4:15 AM. My shift manager told her no. She then started harassing me about it. By this point in the night, I'd hit my breaking point.

I stopped what I was doing and went to talk to her. I told her that she came to my store 2 hours before she had to be somewhere of her own free will and that she wasn't getting a damn discount. She could either wait for her food like everyone else or get the fuck out. Apparently she didn't realize that I would talk back and quickly shut her mouth and moved further away to wait. She ended up leaving about 5 minutes later, when her order was the next one up.

I can deal with a lot, but this girl really got under my skin. My shift manager said she would back me up if the bitch called in to complain. On top of this incident, the schedule for next week still isn't up when we're supposed to get it 2 weeks in advance so I have no idea when I work next. I also got to stay an hour late because one of my coworkers decided to get drunk last night and forgot that daylight savings time is a thing. At this point, I don't even care if I lose my job. I told the assistant manager when he came in that if I was ever faced with a night like that again I would walk out.

I'm sorry this has been such a long rambling post. I just needed to get some of this off my chest. I guess I should name myself...call me Girl of Many Hats. Well, RHU, thanks for being a place I can let this all go. My boyfriend's tired of hearing me complain.

--Girl of Many Hats

Comments

[PicEdit]

I don't think you'll lose your job over this. Your one manager did say they would back you up. I applaud you for that. That brat deserved it.

[The Last Archimedean]

Honestly, a day like that would drive me a bit loopy too. RHU is always a good place to blow off some steam.

[NC Tony]

Unfortunately we see it all the time. Customers demanding discounts for their own stupidity. What's the old saying? "Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part".

[Copy Center Dude]

"I'd be glad to give you a 10% discount, but I will have to charge you both the whining and the bitching surcharges first. Your order is $5, with whining it is $10, add in bitching and we are at $20, with your discount the total comes to $18."