I Spit in Your Food

Have you met a blind person? They carry a cane, sometimes have a guide dog and are some of the coolest people you will meet.
The blind people you meet when working at my job are not those people.
Usually once a week our cafeteria will have the line be self-serve. So we do everything possible to inform the customer of this fact. We write on the chalkboard “Self serve today!” and print out four pieces of paper saying “Self serve today, entire line” in size 48 font, then tape them onto the sneeze guard. We then show very little interest in the customer when they come, by taking up to two minutes to get over to them to see if they need help. After all, it is entirely self serve and the menu is written on the board. What more could the customer want?
Customer: “Yes, I’ll have a rice bowl with noodles, rice, and chicken.”
Ah-ha! Apparently they want me to give them food.
Me: “Today the entire line is self serve, so you can serve yourself.” *Points out the sign they looked at for 30 seconds before talking to me.*
Customer: “Oh! So that is what that meant!”
I kid you not, a customer has said that.
This intrigues me. Have we trained some of our customers so well that even when they see several messages informing them to take all the food they can fit on a plate that they still will not? Perhaps this is a conditioned reflex similar to what Ivan Pavlov discovered. If so, I am rather proud of that fact. (Don’t know about Ivan Pavlov and his dogs? Read up on it here.)
Of course, there are folks that come through mid-week and try to serve themselves. That event shocks me the most. There are three servers dishing up food for the customers in line. The tools of the trade (a serving spoon) are facing away from the customer. Yet they walk up and begin to dish themselves. When one of us corrects the customer they usually respond by saying “Oh, sorry. I thought it was self-serve.”
Those are the times I wish slapping a customer was allowed.

Tired of reading? I have a video for you.

Now, I don’t work for tips, but the same idea remains. I will remember you if you are nice to me, and I will remember you if you piss me off. So be careful about pissing off the people who handle your food. You never know what might happen to it.