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It is just over a year since I gave up my 'proper' job and the world of 9 to 5 in an office to travel. Obviously since then I have spent an inordinate amount of time sat on my arse doing absolutely nothing (no different to when I was working I hear some of you cry!), although thankfully in much warmer and more beautiful surroundings. However on arriving in Australia my pockets were empty and gainful employment once again beckoned. I had vowed not to get trapped in an office during my time away so I drew on my teenage work experience and opted for a hospitality job instead. So twelve months and about twelve thousand miles down the line I am now working twice as hard for twice as many hours for what would be half the pay if it wasn't for the abysmal state of the pound. And yet I am also probably twice as happy. (I would actually not be that bad off either, thanks to the strong Aussie dollar I'm earning the same waitressing here as I was in my 'professional career' back home, but paying Sydney prices for everything means I feel like a poor scabby
backpacker still!)
Sure I ache in body parts I thought I regularly used anyway, and also in a few I never even knew I posessed. Every morning when I get out of bed my feet protest almost as much as my sleepy brain. But at least i'm fitting exercise into my daily routine and being active throughout the day rather than sitting glued to a computer screen for seven hours straight.
So I stink of rancid milk (or chip fat, or stale beer in the case of previous jobs). Nothing a nice hot shower won't get rid of on me. Ok, so no amount of washing stops my uniform stinking, but that's the great part, it's my work uniform not my favourite dress that I've ruined because I've run out of suitable clean office clothes for the week.
Yes it's frustrating smelling and looking at food all day and only being able to eat on your meagre break, but then it's delicious, free food – FREE CHOCOLATE even – on tap. Of course I built in copious tea and biscuit breaks into my office routine, but the biscuits were just Sainsbury's own brand ginger nuts and I still had
Chocolate vats
yes they contain real chocolate, no it does run through the pipes onto your plate!to sit in front of my computer screen pretending to be working. Did I mention I now get free chocolate on my break! And free tea! The only downside is I can't chose when to have my break and so Sod's Law means the busier and more in need of a breather and a sugar boost I am, the more unlikely I am to have time for either.
Oh my you do get more stupid customers in cafes and restaurants than even at the local council though. Now bear in mind this is coming from someone who worked for the transport department – not in a receptionist roll - and I still used to field calls from disgruntled OAPs enquiring as to why there was a lack of Doctor's Surgeries in their neighbourhood! The place I just finished working for is even worse than most; the fantasy atmosphere, sugar rush and heady aroma of chocolate all seem to combine to cloud even the most sensible customer's judgement.
As a cleansing purge here are just some of the ridiculous and extremely annoying things customers do (if you are guilty of any of the below beware what the wait staff are
Hug Mugs
to keep your hands warm while you drink your hot chocolate saying and doing about you behind your back!!!):
1. Sitting at the only dirty table in the entire room. This is my number one gripe. I have absolutely no idea why people would ever do this and yet they always do. Imagine, you walk into a restaurant of say, twenty tables. It is mid morning, the place is quiet. There is only one other table of customers. A couple of families have just left as you walked in though so two tables still have plates and cups to be cleared.
Do you:
a) pick any of the other 17 tables that are sparkling clean and waiting to be used, or do you:
b) sit at one of the two tables smeared with food remains, spilt drinks and used tissues and then signal to the waitress with a glare and a point to clean the table immediately?
I have observed this behaviour again and again over the past six months and it still bewilders me. It's not even like they're picking the nicest table, the table with the best view or most space or most privacy. It just seems to be an inexplicable law of the universe that
Kangaroo Cup
With a pouch for your Kangaroo Joey chocolate cube and designed so the chocolate slowly melts into your capaccino! a customer walking into a near empty restaurant will voluntarily choose to sit at the messiest table they can find! On several busy night shifts I have observed the same couple move to three different dirty tables in the 10 minutes it took for their food to come out, and demanded we clean each table they moved to immediately - you are lucky to have a seat, in fact you are lucky you're not still in the queue stretching out the door, do I look like I have time to run around after you and you alone?
Almost equally annoying are the people who clear their table for you. I'm sure you think you're being incredibly kind and helpful by dumping a pile of plates in front of me at counter while I'm serving a line of customers. Now what am I supposed to do? Keep serving people with this pile of filth between us, great impression that would give. No, I now have to break from what I was doing, apologise to a line of customers for keeping them waiting, and then take it all out the back. If you could have waited two minutes I'd have finished
serving and cleared your table for you. I still have to go round and wipe it for you anyway, as you helpfully reminded me when you dumped the plates. I know, better still: sit at an empty table!!
2. Ordering the wrong thing. I know, I know, I have this weird, nondescript, mild Southern-English accent. It must be very strange and difficult for everyone over here in Australia to tune into. But I have gone to great lengths to repeat everything you order back to you to double, and sometimes even triple check that I have taken your order correctly. So when I say, 'so you'd like three
milk hot chocolates?' and you say 'yes', why do you then turn around once I've made and taken over your hot chocolates and say, 'what's this, I wanted the pots of melted dark chocolate'. You could have said that when I read your order back! Or maybe alarm bells rang when you paid more than double the price? No, you mention it ten minutes later once I've wasted stock and then expect me to remake your reorder in seven seconds flat.
The classic one is when you take something over and the girl - it's always a girl - says: 'I wanted dark chocolate not white chocolate.'
Me:
'Well on the receipt it clearly says white was ordered.' Girl:
'Well it's wrong, why would my boyfriend order white, he knows I hate white chocolate, you must have got it wrong!' Oh how I wish I got a dollar for every time this happens. Girls, your boyfriends don't know shit about you, certainly not what colour chocolate you like or how you take your coffee! When I was at the counter taking the order from your beloved boyfriend he couldn't be arsed to run back and check with you so he just guessed and now he's keeping sheepishly silent in the corner. So of course it's my job to apologise and run back and make another one and then run back again with it because of your boyfriend's incompetence.
3. Not listening. Customer:
'Can you get us a jug of water'. Me:
'Of course sir, how many glasses would you like?' 'No I want a jug'.
'Yes I'll get you a bottle of water but how many glasses would you like with that?'
'No I want a jug of water'.
'We have bottles of tap water but I need to know how many glasses you need to go with it'. Grrrrrr!
4. Drunk customers. Just because the word 'bar' appears on our hoarding does not mean you can come in for a schooner, middy, pint or indeed anything more intoxicating than a caffeine and sugar rush. Running through a long list requesting every alcoholic beverage you can slur will not change the fact that all I can serve you is chocolate!
5. Not getting the hint when we're closed. There's a sign in the window with opening times. You were the last person to order before the queue was cut off for the night. We've turned up all the lights to retina burning brightness. The music is turned off. The chairs are stacked on tables all around yours and the staff have been milling around giving you deathly glares for fifteen minutes and yet you still insist on chatting over the dregs of your tap water....please, GO HOME so we can too!
6. Insisting on dining in a chocolate bar when you don't like chocolate. ...Or you're on a diet.
...Or worse, you're allergic to chocolate.
It's happened...surprisingly regularly...need I say more?
You have to remember that wait staff are paid the basic minimum wage or near as. This gives a person very little incentive to go above and beyond their job description. Where I worked it's not really the kind of place that people tip either so I'm really not going to be arsed to suck up to you just for the sake of it. Therefore if you are rude to me I will almost certainly take a long time to do whatever you ask me. Be nice and it will put a smile on my face and make me very accommodating. Sure I agreed to a job in customer service, I did not apply for a job dealing with rude idiots.
The ridiculousness of customers was made most obvious a few weeks ago after Cyclone Yasi destroyed 75%!o(MISSING)f Queensland's banana crop and pushed the price of bananas to $7-8 a kilo overnight, and now it's over $13 a kilo. Now this was a well documented event in the national and international media. And yet when the company decided bananas were no longer financially viable and introduced a replacement menu with new non-banana dishes on it, customers were actually outraged! So outraged that after eight days we had to suck up the costs and buy bananas again at more than five times the normal wholesale price.
A couple of particularly ridiculous orders went a little like this:
Customer 1:
'I'd like the Tutti Frutti waffles please.' Me:
'I'm very sorry, due to the flooding and cyclone we are unable to stock bananas at the moment, but we can do the waffles with strawberries and ice cream still and charge you less.' Customer 1:
'Ok, I'll have that but with bananas too'. Me:
'I'm sorry we don't have any bananas, like I said, because of the cyclone.' Customer 1:
'Ok'. Take food out. Customer:
'Where are the bananas?' Me:
'There are none because of Cyclone Yasi, as I explained when you ordered' Customer 1:
'Ok, so can I pay for bananas to be added now?' Me (trying desperately to keep the pitch of my voice level):
'Madam, no, the entire country's crop has been destroyed, there are NO bananas!!' Customer 2:
'I'd like the Banana Praline Crepes please'. Me:
'I'm very sorry we have none because of the cyclone, we have a new menu though and I can recommend the Cinnamon Apple Crepes instead.' Customer 2:
'But I want Banana Crepes! Have you told your headquarters you have no bananas?' Me:
'The decision was made by head office, that's why they've bought in new menu items.' Customer 2:
'Well that's preposterous. What if I want the old menu stuff with bananas?' Me:
'Sir, Queensland's banana crop was wiped out by an extreme weather event, basically an Act of God. All of our stores and indeed all of Australia is experiencing a banana shortage, there is nothing I can do about it, sorry!' Customer 2:
'OK, no need to get dramatic about it' Me: !?!?!?!?!
And yet - despite all the stupid things customers do, the fact that I have blisters and callouses and broken finger nails and cuts from stabbing myself on fondue forks, my ridiculous sleep pattern and dreadful diet from working random shifts, and the battle to have time off the same time as anyone else does - I actually really enjoy working in hospitality!
I may come across as a grumpy bugger but actually it's nice to be nice to people throughout your day. I love when new customers come in and their eyes light up and they get excited about treating themselves to something decadent. In fact I actually like most of the customers, despite the odd stupid one! If it's quiet you get to chat to them and pass the time, rather than twiddle your thumbs and count the minutes until home time. Or if it's really quiet I clean, which feels distinctly more productive and satisfying than clandestinely browsing the internet and finding no one new has posted on your Facebook wall since you last checked sixteen minutes ago.
I appreciate the camaraderie of working in a customer services team, which is far stronger than between office workers all busy on their own tasks on the screen in front of them. I may hate the fact it's really hard to get time off to do things with your friends who all work completely different times to you; but I love the fact I get lie-ins and can go to the shops and post office before work, or go to the beach when it's not heaving with weekend families.
All this is probably a very good thing considering my life ambition is to run my own tea shop!
...Oh, and did I mention I get free chocolate at work?!
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
You made me laugh this morning.
Ah, the joys and pleasures of the working world. Sounds like you are enjoying it for the most part but time to time the idiot patrol rides in. Sounds like you handle them pretty well. It comes down to there isn't a free lunch and you must work a bit to support your travel habit. Good luck and hopefully you will be on the road again soon. If you make it to the states look us up and we will buy you a nice dinner. Always enjoy your blogging.