a thing I learned a long time ago about Patron Hygiene is to Never complain about something you don't like at a business unless you actually intend to lodge a formal complaint (which of course you better not be doing unless you found a roach in your hamburger or something.)
By this I mean that if you don't like something that you chose and want to replace it, you need to blame yourself immediately, because otherwise you are about to give that employee a heart attack. Unfortunately there are so many varied ways in which customers can be awful that you can stumble on one without even realizing it.
This stems from the time I was at a restaurant about 6 years ago and they had a whole bunch of beers on tap, and I got one that really sucked by the standards of my palate. I drank about half of it before I realized I didn't like it, then when the bartender came by I said "yeah this one just isn't doing it for me, I'd like to try tap 11," and for about 5 very weird seconds, she had the strangest look on her face.
Then she says, "Just so you know, once you've had that much, you can't send it back."
It took me a moment to process what she was saying. My jaw literally dropped, I gasped. She was saying that there are people who think that if you order a craft beer - famously one of the most varied and individual products in basically the entire world - and then decide you don't like it, the bar should give you a refund.
I told her I was incredibly sorry for giving that impression and that I thought anybody who would demand that was a monster, and then filed this experience in my memory banks. The correct presentation should have been some shit like, "My tongue isn't liking me today so I'm having trouble finishing this one, but I'd like to try tap 11", or some other nonsense that makes it clear up front that I consider this a personal failing and not, through some inconceivably batshit line of reasoning, the fault of the establishment, who simply gave me exactly the thing that I ordered, sight unseen, without ever having tasted it. Why should they pay??? It makes no sense??
If everyone had to spend atleast 1 year working in food service
I like the person who left a lengthy bad review about me in particular at the coffee shop/deli I was working at for a while saying, among many other things,(like I was rude, I wasn’t chipper, found out my great grandmother had Alzheimer’s the night prior) “I didn’t know the menu very well” when the conversation went like this for a WHILE
Customer: can I get seasonal item, clearly marked seasonal
Me: sorry we don’t have that at the moment as it’s not in season recommends something
Customer: no thank you can I get seasonal item, clearly marked seasonal
Me: sorry we don’t have that at the moment, as it’s not in season 🙂
Repeat until customer gives up and orders some concoction they made up that’s not even on the menu whatsoever which I then make and they hate it
Complainging about how their cheese platter didnt have fancy enough cheese, and one of the cheeses smelled terrible and had clearly gone bad so they had to throw it out.
That cheese was an imported cave-aged blue. It was probably about $150 worth of cheese, it was meant as the highlight of the platter.





