Crazy Customers 4th of July Edition: "You guys don't do a 4th of July discount? All airports in the US do, I want a discount on my coffee!"
From u/CallMePetardu, Tales From Retail:
I work in a European airport.
This morning, I had a very irate lady order a coffee. I small talked with her, she told me she'd taken a red eye and that she'd read her book the whole way. Fairly standard transaction.
... Until I asked her to pay. I told her that the total came to €2.50. She then insisted that I gave her a discount, because she was "an American citizen on the 4th of July" and that "every airport in the US would give me a discount". She then started waving her passport at me.
Eventually, she left and still refused to pay for the coffee.
This is not an ideal exchange at 6am.
Posted by Freddy on Tuesday, July 03, 2018 | Permalink
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Comments (9)
It must not have been the Heathrow Airport. €5.00 then.
Posted by: Jofur | Wednesday, July 04, 2018 at 05:27 AM
Of course, coffee has to be extra-special imported into that tea drinking country by special heavily caffeinated ninjas. :D
Posted by: TechTyger | Wednesday, July 04, 2018 at 06:29 AM
Damn it Americans! We are not the center of the world! No one but us gives a shit about our made-up holidays!
Also, I thought Britain stuck with the pound?
Posted by: Carhop | Wednesday, July 04, 2018 at 08:25 AM
The official government currency is the pound. Retailers can accept any currency they wish and you can find places to spend a Euro in spite of the government maintaining the pound as their standard. It always ends in what the retailers take and the consumers use, not what's official. Let me remind you of the oh so hardly used Sacajawea dollar in the USA. The one that was too close to a quarter, so pissed people off. Oops the vending machine just took my Sacajawea and credited me with a quarter. Next time at the store keep your Sacajawea give me quarters or a $1 bill that works in the vending machines.
Posted by: Jofur | Wednesday, July 04, 2018 at 09:00 AM
The Sacajawea was larger than a quarter and gold, so machines generally didn't have problems with it. You're thinking of the Susan B Anthony, whose portrait on the dollar coin even looked like Washington...
Carhop, because it's not relevant to them doesn't make it a 'made up' holiday. It was an important time to the country, quite literally its birthday. Pretty much every country that broke off another one has an independence day of its own, are those made up too?
Posted by: TechTyger | Wednesday, July 04, 2018 at 03:01 PM
Meh, technically every holiday is made up for one reason or another. But my point is more, I was born and raised in the US and couldn't tell you the independence day of, let's say, India if you put a gun to my head. Why would some poor European retail slave know our independence day? And even more so, why would they celebrate it?
I hate the fact we're basically that loud, braggart, doesn't know how dumb he is character on the international stage.
Posted by: Carhop | Wednesday, July 04, 2018 at 07:53 PM
Susan B Anthony it was.
Sacajaweas I heated up until they changed to a blue heated steal color. Took them back to the stores that slipped me some and paid them all back first thing
Posted by: Jofur | Wednesday, July 04, 2018 at 08:34 PM
Jofur: Heh, cool. The ren faire around here (probably others, but this is the only one I've been to) likes them because they can pretend they're gold coins.
Carhop; all countries are like that. How often have yo useen stories of middle easterners wanting to haggle in a walmart, or Asians talking crap about the server thinking they can't understand them because 'americans are stupid' or shit like that? There are just more Americans than most other countries have people, and it's trendy to hate / blame Americans for everything.
Posted by: TechTyger | Thursday, July 05, 2018 at 04:44 AM
"every airport in the US would give me a discount"
Um no, not every store in the US suddenly gives out discounts on the 4th. I mean plenty of large places probably have sales, but they don't suddenly go "Oh you are American like 90% of our customers, you get an extra discount." That part of her logic just made no sense to me.
Posted by: LadyBelle | Thursday, July 05, 2018 at 08:47 AM