A Famous Game Show is in town. Apparently there is a traveling show (sans the usual host) and it travelled to our town right across the street from my store.
I was working in the cafe part of the store which sells the type of fancy coffee drinks you've all heard about plus some food included 5 different sandwiches that we heat up in our oven and sell for half off on Tuesdays. (Today's Tuesday.)
You see where this is going, right? It started as a trickle, a few people getting supplies before standing in line. No one (we're not surprised by this fellow retailers, are we?), no one told us this event was going to happen. To be fair, even if they did, we wouldn't have known the way it would go down.
After people stood in line at the theatre, they were interviewed by Famous Game Show staffers and issued their official Famous Game Show name tags. Then, they could exit the theatre and do what they liked for the 2 or 3 hours before the show started. So they did. We are one of two places that these people, unfamiliar with the neighborhood, could see to get food. One is a small, gourmet, overpriced, hipster pizza place, the other is us, big, shiny, retail chain store they all know and trust. OMG.
Normally two of us can handle the whole cafe no problem. Not tonight. We had the two regularly scheduled people (including me), the manager of the cafe, two staffers from the other part of the store and the general manager of the whole store.
All in all, it was pretty okay. It was a happy crowd. One of the baristas really got into the spirit and called out things like "Medium coffee for Hazel. Come on down!"
It would probably have gone without a hitch at all except for, remember what I told you earlier, half price sandwich day. My theory is that if it hadn't been half price day people would have been more likely to choose the already wrapped sandwiches in the cold case, beep boop, that'll be $6.75, thank you and have a great time at the show. Those 5 special sandwiches must be fetched from the back room refrigerator, heated in our single oven for 2 or 3 minutes, put in a container, walked clear across the bar and called out to the customer.
So, I'm on the register screaming out orders for the people running around behind me getting food and screaming out drinks and I'm into it. My feet were hurting earlier in the evening but I'm not feeling anything now.
A gentleman with a Famous Game Show name tag looks at our sample sandwiches displayed in the case and orders a particular sandwich. I scream it out and hear back, "We're out of that one."
Me: I'm sorry, sir, We're out of that particular sandwich. Would you like a different one.
FGSG (Famous Game Show Guy): <sigh, hip check> (he's definitely too old to be pulling that one. I mean, this man is a grown up, not a teenager, all due respect to the teenagers out there.) Why is it out here? (pointing to the sample sandwiches in the case) It shouldn't be out here.
Me: <pulling the sandwich from the case and setting it on the back counter> You're absolutely right, sir. Things got busy and we've run out unexpectedly. Can I get you a different sandwich?
FGSG: But that one was there? <whine>
Me: Oh, you don't want that one, it's just a sample, it's been sitting there for a week.
FGSG: Well, it shouldn't have been there.
Me, losing a little bit of my temper and gesturing to the line that disappears into the horizon: You're right, sir, but as you see we've been extremely busy, running around here with a big crowd of people.
So, finally he orders another sandwich. Fine, good, thank you, have a good night.
Actually ran into him later in the night when I got a second and was out among the tables cleaning things up.
FGSG, slight look of disgust on his face: Where's the mayonnaise? The cashier said there was mayonnaise over here.
I look up. Indeed, the little cups that hold the mayonnaise packets are empty.
Me: No problem, sir, I've got more right here.
I reach under the cabinet and get the box of packets out. He takes some and goes on his less than merry way.
And I'm thinking: Hey, look. I get that you'd like things to be right. I like it, too. In fact, I'm a bit rigid about things being right as anyone who knows me would say. But, I refuse to fault any of the 6 people who were working their behinds off trying to get everyone's orders out right and quickly with smiles on their faces that they missed refilling the mayonnaise packets or didn't adjust the sandwich choices the nanosecond it changed.
And what gets me is the mar that this man's attitude put on the exhilaration of working a really challenging shift, all of us pulling together, that I still remember it and am telling the tale to you fine people.
Anyway, thanks for listening and anytime you're in town, come on down!
Submitted April 23, 2015 at 02:59AM by Hazcat3 http://ift.tt/1G8MKuT TalesFromRetail
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