Customers Suck: “Yes, I Can Read, Which Is Why You Can’t Use Your Coupon.”
We have this coupon in circulation, for our restaurant. The coupon reads, “Buy one Big Tex (our name-brand Italian steak sandwich), get a second one of equal or lesser value free”. (The coupon is valued up to $3.99, because there are lots of add-ons to the Big Tex which make it more expensive.) Some assholes like to try and pretend to “misunderstand” this easily-readable and clearly stated coupon, to try and get one Big Tex for half-price out of us.
I’d also like to note that I have been dealing with far more than my fair share of angry, cranky, attitude-laden entitled asshats of late, and I Have Had Enough Of It. (We’re currently blaming the craptacular economy in Michigan. It’s making everyone depressed and pissed off.)
It’s about 6:30pm and dead empty in the restaurant. It’s been a nice day, and wherever the people are, it ain’t here. You could have fired a cannon through the place, no worries, mate. A nicely-dressed gentleman in his later 30’s or early 40’s wanders in, sits, and orders to his waitress. His waitress trots his food out and continues on with her business, doing her two-bite check-back like a good little waitress. She checks back a couple of more times, and soon enough, the gentleman is done and ready to leave.
He proceeds up to the counter, and I approach, smiling. “Hi! How was every –”
He flips his bill and the coupon at me, and they almost float off the counter. I snatch them up and look up, to find the “gentleman” replaced by his true persona of glowering, fuming asshat. “I want to use this coupon.”
“Okay.” I say, inspecting his bill. Of course, there being only one of him, he’s only ordered one Big Tex. You may recall that I said to use the coupon, you needed to buy two Big Texes. “I’m sorry, sir. This coupon is only good if you buy two Big Texes.”
“I told your waitress that I wanted to use this coupon. She only brought me one Big Tex.” He glares at me, his tone skipping gaily from annoyed to out-right angry.
My smile had already dissolved after having the bill and the coupon thrown at me, and now I purse my lips and arc an eyebrow at him. “Did you order two Big Texes?”
“I told her I wanted to use that coupon.”
“But you only ordered one Big Tex.”
“It’s not my fault your waitress is too stupid to read. You need to accomodate me.”
In the long silence that follows this arrogant pronouncement, the quiet but audible sound of my temper snapping is clearly heard. “You didn’t notice that she only brought you one sandwich?” I ask, tone chilling rapidly.
“That’s not my problem. I didn’t get what I wanted.” He snaps at me, apparently unaware of how terribly close he is to getting slapped at this moment.
“You didn’t think to correct her when she brought you your Big Tex, or when she checked back on you?” I ask. The temperature in my immediate vicinity has now dropped by roughly fifty degrees. There are icicles hanging off my words.
“I don’t have time for this crap. I had to be somewhere at 7:15. Just take the damn coupon off the sandwich.” He dismisses me with a pompous wave of his hand.
“I’m sorry, sir, ” I say in a voice that could carve stone, “this coupon is only valid when you buy two Big Texes. Did you want another Big Tex to go? If not, your bill will be $6.67 [full price].”
“I can’t believe this shit. Your waitress screwed this up. You just get that off my bill, right now.”
“I’m sorry, I’ve misunderstood. So you did order two Big Texes, and she only brought you one?”
His voice rises, because as every asshole is raised to believe, volume is directly correlated to correctness in a disagreement. “I told her I wanted to use the damn coupon! Can’t you read?! It says two on the coupon!”
The restaurant becomes still. Crickets chirp. In the distance, one can hear the stereotypical Old Western gunfight whistle.
“And yet, you didn’t bother to correct her when she only brought out one sandwich? Or when she checked back on you several times?”
“I didn’t have time!”
“Big Texes cook quickly, sir. If you’d corrected her when she brought out your sandwich, you’d be leaving with a second sandwich now, having used your coupon. Since you didn’t, this coupon isn’t valid. Would you like to order another sandwich to go now, or pay full price?”
A Mexican standoff ensues as he attempts to stare me down and force me to acceed to his wishes by the sheer power of his anger and assholery alone. I stare back with the sort of pleasant Wednesday Addams smile that portends a bloody murder, about to take place.
He breaks first, looking down. “Fine!” He snaps. “Order me another one to go, and I’ll be back in forty-five minutes for it!”
“I’ll be happy to, sir. Would you like to pay for it first, or when you pick it up?” I ask in a tone which indicates that the second option is not really available.
Grudgingly, he pays me. I finish cashing him out, put his order back, and tell him I’ll see him in a little bit. He leaves, only to return in half an hour — instead of forty-five minutes — with a look on his face that shows he is clearly relishing the opportunity to bitch me out for not having his Big Tex ready to go yet. However, I have already defeated him. I’d told the cook to have the sandwich ready in a half-hour, anticipating him. (And, had he shown up on time, his Big Tex would have been sitting, growing slowly colder and more disgusting, for fifteen minutes, which he only deserved.)
I hand him his take-out box silently, with my Wednesday Addams smile, and he scuttles out, properly cowed.
After he left, I questioned his waitress. He’d had only ordered one Big Tex, and hadn’t mentioned a coupon at all.
Take that, you pompous bastard.
