Kissing in the line, searching for your debit a little late in the game, finally making up your mind when you get to the cash register… Do you hate these habits? Or do you have them? As the busiest time of year comes upon us, it’s time for some reflection. Christmas isn’t approaching: it’s here! Yes, this means that as of now, Christmas music will, whether you like it or not, be the soundtrack to your life.
It also means that Starbucks will be doling out gingerbread lattes, just in case your cold, winter heart needed an extra warm dose of adrenaline (read: sugar), and Second Cup has whipped out the old Christmas-shaped specialty cookies, which definitely don’t look like they’ve been hiding in the Christmas cabinet since last season, and definitely DO look like sleigh bells or Rudolph or whatever.
More importantly, Christmas means the busiest time of year for retail and service industries. Probable fact: did you know Christmas time is the most beloved season for shareholders, company owners, and secretly managers, but most HATED by their employees?
Anyone who has ever worked a retail or customer service job knows Christmas time is the absolute worst… largely because of the customers.
I took it upon myself to investigate this at York Lanes, snagging quick interviews with employees, searching of customer service horror stories.
I want to educate York students on how to be the best-behaved customer they can to make things a little easier on everyone this season. With the results of my investigation, I’ve compiled a list of the FIVE WORST KINDS OF CUSTOMER. Read carefully, York student, because this could be you.
The following information is based on the experiences of employees, all of whom asked to remain anonymous, as well as personal experience of the avid York-Lanes-goer.
5. You, the first-year
This one’s tricky, because sometimes it’s hard to tell if you’re a first-year, or just a rude man-boy with a baby-face and Phat-farms. (Do people still wear those?)
An employee at Great Canadian Bagel says since they’ve been around for so long, “[their] customers are all regulars; people we see every day, and we get to know their faces. It’s rare that we get difficult customers, but when we do get them, they’re usually people who don’t really know how things go here; they’re newbies, usually first-years.”
Just in case you, reader, are one of these people, here are a couple of quick tips to help ease the transition to college: the barista doesn’t want your phone number, the other people in line don’t care about what you did last night, and if you want to be treated with respect, drop the curt, apathetic attitude, and say “please” and “thank you.”
4. You, with trust issues.
If an employee tells you they don’t have something, like bagels at the Tim Hortons near Curtis Lecture Hall, just believe them. They are probably not lying to you. If they could sell you more over-priced baked goods, they would.
You should not ask an employee a question, get an answer you don’t like, and then ask the same question to a different employee. Definitely, you should at least make sure the first employee is out of earshot when you ask his or her co-worker the same question.
This kind of trust issue is unwarranted, and makes you look like a spoiled little brat. An acceptable kind of trust issue is if you don’t want to buy a burger at Hero Burger anymore because someone may or may not have spotted a roach somewhere in the vicinity, Excalibur published it, and everyone freaked out.
When speaking with the nice young lady at Hero Burger, she had nothing but great things to say about the customers. “All of our customers here are great. The students aren’t difficult, they’re not picky: they don’t really care what’s on their food, as long as it’s food.” That’s nice. I guess that explains the roaches. (Bada-ping!)
3. You, on the phone.
This one also includes “you, listening to music” or “you, glued to your Nintendo DS.”
This customer is really easy to single out, because they have a phone or electronic device glued to the side of their face, or to their hands, and are consequently too distracted to place their order. If you are a customer, waiting in line and talking to someone on the phone, or listening to music on your headphones, or something, stop it. Just stop it.
This happens at Second Cup all the time. And there’s a limit to the number of times a barista can ask you what your order is before they explode. There’s a spectrum of rudeness here too, because sometimes, you on the phone, CONTINUE your phone conversation even after the barista has gotten your attention.
Are you kidding me?
2. You, who thinks you’re the only one in line.
I have noticed that this happens more often in places where you have a lot of choice, like Berries and Blooms. There’s always a lineup at Berries and Blooms, and you with your huge school bags, blocking three rows of food, need to be more aware of your surroundings. Especially when all I want to do is pay for my banana and get out.
But this is besides the point. Here it is: when you are one of many in line, do NOT hold up the line because you don’t know what you want yet. That is really annoying. You’re like that chick on Jeopardy who hits her buzzer first just for the sake of being first and then doesn’t know the answer and looks like a huge moron.
You are in line, congratulations: you have taken the first step in fulfilling your responsibilities as a functioning, paying customer. The real work is in choosing. When you get in line, you are accepting that very soon, you will be asked what you want, and when that time comes, you must have an answer.
An employee at La Prep in York Lanes admits that their “most annoying customers are those who hold up the lines asking for the individual prices of everything in the window. It holds up the line and wastes our time.” There is a solution, students of York: you can read the menu. Wait, you can read… right?
1. You, who can’t order off a menu.
Most of us are particular about our coffee. I am. And I will admit that I have gotten pissed off at the people at Starbucks in CFT for adding water to my macchiato. But Starbucks is not the Build-a-Bear of cafés.
“The most difficult customer is the one who doesn’t know how to order off a menu,” a Starbucks barista comments. “We customize drinks for people, and that’s no problem, but you have to order it customized, and not shout out orders while we’re making you the thing, because then we have to restart each time, and it holds up the line.”
The barista even informed me of a young customer who once threw his lid on the counter and stormed off the second he received his drink because it didn’t fit his last-minute specifications.
Please, don’t shout out custom orders as the barista is carefully crafting your concoction. Not only is that rude, but it makes their job unnecessarily difficult.
How would you like to be doing whatever it is that you do, being a student, and while you’re trying to do a good job at that, having someone yell at you, “WAIT, now you need to be a cat, quick! Now you need to catch this metaphorical ball! Is there a line behind me? Doesn’t matter!”
I bet you wouldn’t like that. Starbucks is the only place on campus where everyone in line always looks as angry as the people serving you behind the counter, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t practice basic, respectful human behavior.
“Be the change you want to see in the world.” – Ghandi.
This top five list was numbered five to one, because that’s what a top five list should do, but the ratings are interchangeable. All of these types of customer suck.
What links them all are rudeness, indecisiveness, and pickiness. You might be thinking this sounds terrible, and it does. But there is a silver lining for all you undergrads: there was a general consensus among the York Lanes food and service industry employees that “young students” aren’t always the biggest culprits, and that the age group of 30 – 40 years old is in fact, the worst.
So, mature students, or grad students, or moms and dads of university students: better shape up, because Santa’s watching.
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