Saturday, 22 December 2007

Fight!

Well as it is supposed to be busy because people are Christmas shopping...the 'crème de la crème' of staff are put on the front counter to clear queues. Well it has not been busy, not much more than a normal week. But because me and a few of the people who are normally tucked away in the kitchen have been on the front, it's been reasonably amusing.

The first customer of any interest, was the one who was shocked when I told him that, no, fries aren't 30p. Fries for 30p !?

The next was very funny I thought. A man bought a Margherita pizza, which as it has no toppings on, you can see all the cheese clearly. We cut the pizzas into slices and then mark the box with the topping and time it needs to be discarded (those numbers from 0 to 12 you'll see on most fast food, or in the case of McDonalds those numbered flags they have in their holds). We use a food safe pen for this marking, which is black - but if it gets wet it goes blue. And the blades for cutting pizza are kept near the pen, as the pizza is taken from the oven, put into a box, cut, then marked.

So, occasionally the pen can come into contact with the pizza. The man bought the pizza back as it had a blue stain right on the cut line. It was from a dough pen. I replaced the pizza and apologised. A minute later he came back and said "Is it my unlucky day or something...?" he had another pizza with a blue stain! What had happened was - that the blade had a pen mark so was making each pizza blue. So the blade was cleaned and another pizza given to him. Well, I was about to give him his pizza when he walked back to his table - because his bags of shopping and the rest of his meal was gone!!! The cleaners had been very efficient and taken it away while he was at the counter!

So overall, I'd say it was his unlucky day!

Another good thing about the front counter is you can be very nosey and watch the world go by (well, the centre) and I saw two men having a "disagreement". Three large security officers later, they'd been separated and put as far away from each other as possible. I asked later what it was about, and apparently it was an arguement over who had "spotted" the table first (in a similar fashion to car park space wars).

Happy Christmas if I don't see you before!

9 comments:

James (UK) said...

That sounds very much like the "table wars" that happen in my beloved Starbucks... and incidentally, there was a "row" of sorts in there today; The bloke with the big dogs that I mentioned a while back was there, and was blocking the entrance with his beasts.

Don't know what happened, but he was exchanging words with a woman who was remonstrating with the crowd by saying "...should get them out of the way!" before he came into the store himself, and branded her a "bitch", before walking back out.

He then assumed his "throne" outside like he always does, with his charges slumping down by his feet, surrounded by a huge (I kid you not) audience of around 10(!) people looking at his dogs.

She ended up getting someone from Starbucks to come outside with her, but it just appeared she wanted someone to "watch" whilst she left.

Thought for the day: The captcha I've had to type for this comment was "xenugzu"... isn't that a place in China?

Al said...

Could you not have explained what it was on maybe the second time? I would be concerned if I found that sort of thing but if it was explained then it wouldn't bother me. Perhaps you could have explained and made it clear that he could have another if he wanted it. Or is it policy that they have to be replaced?

Anonymous said...

Yet another daily lesson for you that the general public are wankers (especially the pizza eating ones).

Anonymous said...

Although I like to read your blogs I'm beginning to find them somewhat depressing. I’m sure there are jobs for you out there that:

Are better paid
Will get you out more
Are more intellectually rewarding
Will enable you to meet more interesting people than you get to meet in Pizza Hut.

You are clearly literate and probably numerate. You may lack formal qualifications therefore you won’t be practicing brain surgery next week but you probably have youth on your side. It’s all out there and within your grasp.

cogidubnus said...

I think anyones life in retail or public service these days is going to seem depressing at times...

I think there's a growing segment of the public latterly who are consistently and rudely aware of their "rights", as they term them, but sadly ignorant of their obligations.

Happy Christmas Pizza Pusher!

Anonymous said...

Hope you have a good new year. have only just found your blog and am enjoying reading it.

Had a couple of customers last night that REALLY did things that pee me off.

As I deliver in a fairly affluent town a lot of our customers have rather large houses and lots of money, these are the ones that are more unlikely to tip, anyway, delivered this womans pizzas which came to a grand total of £18.98, ok, that's £1.02 pence change from the £20 she gave me which I duly handed over upon which she gave me the 2p back, I mean, come on, I don't mind if they just say don't worry about the tuppence but to give me it back is just insulting, she then did one of the other annoying things (having had a large italian based pizza and a stuffed crust) `Are these both large?' I know they are in differeny sized boxes but look FFS the smaller box is large and the other is extra large, aaaaagh!.

Something that is a first also happened last night that REALLY Pee'd me off, having accepted a cheque for delivery I checked the cheque guarantee amount on her card as we are meant to do, a little while later she phoned up and spoke to a collegue to ask whether this is normal practice as she was worried that I was trying to steal her card details! Needless to say, I won't be wanting to deliver her anything again very soon or she may get a comment.

Anonymous said...

One of the reasons I love this site is it's consistency...nothing ever changes (heh heh heh)

David said...

I once had two "ladies" fighting over a seat set aside for disabled passengers both claiming to be more disabled than the other. Judging by the way they were going at each other I wouldn't have said either was very disabled. And there were only 3 other people on the bus.

Tim said...

Sorry you're not keeping your blog up lately. Everything OK? Will keep checking from Canada. Tim