Friday Amusement, Pt. 2
[guest post by Dana]
A man walks into a Burger King and gets in line, a long line. In walks a mom and her son, and they stand behind the man. In the long line. The child was behaving badly:
“This kid was out of control, screaming, punching his mother throwing around a gameboy whenever something didn’t go right in the game. The mother didn’t seem to pay any attention to him and his continued yelling of ‘I want a f***ing PIE’. After about 5 minutes of the line with these people behind me, I had gone from a headache to a full on migraine…”
The man with the headache migraine politely asked the mom to control her child:
“I calmly turn and ask her nicely if she can please calm or quiet her child down. Immediately she gets up in my face telling me I can’t tell her nothing about raising her child and to mind my own business. I nod and turn around, she’s still yelling at the back of my head when the child cries out again how he wants a pie, the mother consoles him, calling him sweety and ensuring they’ll get pies for lunch because she loves him so much.”
Don’t mess with a man whose head is throbbing and needs peace and quiet while waiting for his burger order because he just might take matters into his own hands:
“All I can think of is how the people behind me ruined my splurge and gave me this headache. I then decide to ruin their day. I order every pie they have left in addition to my burgers. Turned out to be 23 pies in total, I take my order and walk towards the exit. Moments later I hear the woman yelling, what do you mean you don’t have any pies left, who bought them all? I turn around and see the cashier pointing me out with the woman shooting me a death glare. I stand there and pull out a pie and slowly start eating eat as I stare back at her. She starts running towards me but can’t get to me because of other lineups in the food court. I turn and slowly walk away.”
–Dana
Hello.
Dana (4dbf62) — 8/8/2014 @ 8:37 pmI’m calling fake on that one, for the usual reasons (too good to be true, no independent confirmation), but another reason is that that trainee would have to be too stupid to live or completely clueless to agree to sell all the pies to that man and invite the rage of that mother (and that spoiled little spawn of hers) with no protection in sight (and a supervisor probably would have intervened before the fact or fired the trainee after the fact for bad judgment that made a mess).
M. Scott Eiland (8d3966) — 8/8/2014 @ 9:02 pmI don’t know, M. Scott Eiland, maybe that trainee (and everyone else behind the counter, as well as in front of it) wanted to teach the bratty kid a lesson, too.
Dana (4dbf62) — 8/8/2014 @ 9:07 pmIts one of those stories that fits the “if this isn’t true, it should be” mold.
Gramps, the original (fb52f1) — 8/8/2014 @ 9:14 pmI see your point, Dana–but there are a lot of people who deserve misery for bad behavior, and very few that I’d be willing to endanger my job (particularly while presumably on promotion, increasing the risk) in order to make sure it happened. Of course, it’s amusing to picture the (probably scared for his job) trainee looking to his supervisor for guidance after receiving the request, and seeing him/her give him a slight nod of approval with an evil glint in the eye. 🙂
M. Scott Eiland (8d3966) — 8/8/2014 @ 9:24 pmM.Scott Eiland,
I am so choosing to believe it really happened because it makes me happy to think that a smart-ass irresponsible “mom” and her savage spawn were publicly and most deservedly shamed for their deplorable behavior!
Dana (4dbf62) — 8/8/2014 @ 9:30 pmI’m in the business of selling pies. The man wants all my pies? “You got’em sir. Will that be for here or to go?”
Funeral Guy (afbf7b) — 8/8/2014 @ 11:38 pmIt does seem a bit passive-aggressive.
Kevin M (b357ee) — 8/8/2014 @ 11:57 pmIf true, this would have been hilarious to witness. But i more suspect the story is apocryphal.
David (6f3506) — 8/9/2014 @ 12:36 amAngelo (89bc04) — 8/9/2014 @ 7:27 am
http://www.wistv.com/story/26222137/man-buys-23-burger-king-pies-to-spite-a-small-child
looks like it happened in Canada
Angelo (89bc04) — 8/9/2014 @ 7:28 amIf it isn’t true, it should be.
askeptic (efcf22) — 8/9/2014 @ 10:31 amToo many brats, and spineless parents who ‘raise’ them.
I’m sorry. I’m in the restaurant business. I didn’t know I was supposed to be in the rationing business. I guess I didn’t get the email.
I tell people we’re out of something all the time. Especially on a Saturday night, when the next run to the store won’t be possible until Monday and the next delivery isn’t scheduled until Tuesday. We try to have enough to meet demand but it’s an inexact science.
This supervisor (owner) wouldn’t have intervened. I would have gleefully encouraged the trainee to sell all the pies she could to the guy, and then I would have happily dealt with the mom. But then, I run a more upscale sushi place and my customer base doesn’t consist of obnoxious moms and out of control brats. Nor do I want it to. I want my customers (I treat them like guests, but I hate using the term because guests don’t pay) to have an enjoyable dining experience. Not just to enjoy the food, which is excellent, but the service and overall atmosphere.
There have been a couple of times when I have asked people to leave because they were ruining things for others. I was at Olive Garden the other day (I make better Italian food, but it was convenient and it won’t kill you) for lunch and some kid was throwing around his hotwheels cars. Mom was ignoring it. I mean, hurling them to the far ends of the restaurant. Sorry, but I’m not putting up with that at my place. My chefs didn’t craft that Ishiyaki Kobe Beef to have a hotwheels car land in it. My customers didn’t order the Ishiyaki Kobe Beef to have a hotwheels land in it and have the sizzling juices splash all over their faces.
Control your kid or go somewhere else.
In reality, though, kids at my place have never been the problem. On the very rare occasions we’ve had problems it’s been the adults, and they tended to be drunk or high. I don’t want to make even that sound like a regular occurrence. I’ve had the place for going on ten years, and I’ve only been reluctantly forced to conclude the customer was wrong twice if memory serves. One time particularly sticks out as I required the guy to write a letter of apology and promise never to return in exchange for dropping the charges.
Steve57 (ba12a7) — 8/9/2014 @ 11:22 amO/T
This is a public service announcement in case anyone’s in the market for archery tackle, most especially in Tejas. A couple of weeks ago I made what was at the time a good deal on a Vista Sage take-down recurve bow.
Now I feel like an idiot.
http://www.cabelas.com/product/Vista-Sage-Take-Down-Bow/1202681.uts
$119, plus it’s Texas tax-free weekend. Had I known I wouldn’t have paid $139 plus shipping and handling.
This is why you don’t research a product after you’ve bought it. No good will come of it. But maybe someone else can profit from my misery.
Steve57 (ba12a7) — 8/9/2014 @ 11:36 amNot the way I would go, but a bold choice.
Sacramento (f51089) — 8/9/2014 @ 12:00 pmSacramento, how would you go?
Steve57 (ba12a7) — 8/9/2014 @ 12:07 pmI’m not laying a trap. I’m genuinely curious.
Steve57 (ba12a7) — 8/9/2014 @ 1:38 pmyou can take your spite pies home, layer them with wax paper in tupperwares, and freeze them for later
i do this with boreks cause of my borek place only takes cash so this way it’s just easier
and easier is better
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/9/2014 @ 1:44 pmTo be honest, Steve57, I would have turned around and spoken to the child directly.
I’ll buy you a pie! Would you like that? All you have to do is mind your mother and be quite.
I’ve done it before in long movie lines. All the women love it, because, motherhood.
The mother herself never reacts the same way, but she rarely responds in anger. It boils down to two responses. 1. Only embarrassment and gratitude if married. 2. Everything else and “so you like kids? If unmarried. 😉
felipe (40f0f0) — 8/9/2014 @ 1:50 pmSteve57 (ba12a7) — 8/9/2014 @ 11:22 am
Tough Love!…and well played.
askeptic (efcf22) — 8/9/2014 @ 2:51 pmThanks for the insight, Steve57. From what you said, am I correct in assuming that if confronted with the scenario presented by the Reddit poster, your probable reaction would have been to tell the woman to shut her kid up or leave, then follow up on that threat if she failed to comply? Though the poster didn’t say so directly, the management of the restaurant itself was IMO somewhat unkind to its customers by putting up with that disturbance for as long as they did.
M. Scott Eiland (8d3966) — 8/9/2014 @ 3:28 pmDid I neglect to mention that children are not the problem?
Steve57 (ba12a7) — 8/9/2014 @ 4:22 pmI don’t run the place like a barracks. I hope nobody gets that idea. I don’t think even my employees would say that considering we take care to give significant bonuses and otherwise reward outstanding service. Still, perhaps they saved up to eat at my place. Dunno, it’s not he cheapest place around. It should be special. If it were me, if I had saved my pennies to go to a certain someplace, it ought to be special. I tend to be protective of that.
Steve57 (ba12a7) — 8/9/2014 @ 4:38 pmOh, speaking of my employees, I don’t want to lose them. The servers make up like 50% of the success of the place. At least. Again, when push comes to shove the customer is not always right. I am not going to insult a good man or a good woman just to make some person I’ve never seen before happy. The thing is I know them, the employees, I don’t know you.
Steve57 (ba12a7) — 8/9/2014 @ 4:49 pmThat sounds like a good approach, Steve57. I’m still of the mind that this incident probably didn’t actually happen, but IMO your approach to how it *should* have been handled by management if it did indeed happen is a good one.
Thank you for your time–have a nice evening. 🙂
M. Scott Eiland (8d3966) — 8/9/2014 @ 5:36 pmM. Scott Eiland @25, thank you. It’s a balancing act, management is.
Steve57 (ba12a7) — 8/9/2014 @ 8:21 pmIt only takes a few minutes to make more pies.
Denver Todd (797e95) — 8/10/2014 @ 6:49 amThere was a time when, if this woman refused to discipline her child, or seemed incapable of it, this fellow would have done it himself, and everyone in the room would have thought it obviously right.
Milhouse (9d71c3) — 8/10/2014 @ 7:52 amI totally agree that children are not the problem. They are simply the symptom. My approach at best deals with the symptom, which shines a light on the problem. It’s the soft-sell approach.
I learned this approach from my father when one of his most popular waiters was seriously neglecting certain duties. My father took a busboy who just happened to be near the waiter and reprimanded him loudly but gently for the neglect in question. The busboy, who was very well trained (by my father) said “yes, sir”, then proceeded to do the waiter’s work.
I, also, was a busboy when I witnessed this. On my break I went to my father to defend a fellow busboy by informing him that it was the waiters fault. That was when my father explained to me about “popular” wait-staff who brought in many loyal, repeat, customers. He knew it was not the busboy’s fault, just as the waiter, the customers, and the busboy knew. Then he asked me if I had noticed what the waiter did afterwards. I said “he stopped the busboy after you left and did his own work”. “That’s right”, he said, “he was embarrassed in front of everyone, but not insulted”.
felipe (40f0f0) — 8/10/2014 @ 1:05 pmMilhouse, I have so many stories of strange women “spanking” me for my mischief. Once, I even told my mother about it. But only once! Because she spanked me again!
This, of course, occurred a long time ago, not recently.
felipe (40f0f0) — 8/10/2014 @ 1:09 pm