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This Coffee Shop Employee Found A Genius Way To Deal With Jerk Customers, Asks People If She’s Mean For Doing So
They’re shouting at the top of their voice. Their spit is flying everywhere. Their faces are red like a ripe tomato. And they’re angry beyond belief. Rude customers are the bane of anyone who’s ever worked in the service industry as a waiter, a server, or a cashier. Most of us have our personal favorite ways of dealing with angry people, but sometimes it takes some originality to stop them complaining.
Having decided that she’s had enough of rude customers pushing her around, one high schooler who works weekends at a coffee shop came up with a cunning plan. With her shift manager James’ help, she now pretends to get fired each time a customer loses their temper. The best part is—it works.
However, the high schooler was worried that she may have overstepped some boundaries. So she turned to Reddit’s AITA community to ask them their opinion about the situation.
RELATED:
A coffee shop employee asked Reddit whether how they deal with rude customers is alright
Image credits: throwRA-fhfsveyary
Reactions to the coffee shop employee’s series of pranks were mixed on the AITA subreddit. While some exclaimed that the customers were the jerks for being rude, others said that even though the high schooler’s actions were justified, she and the customers were all jerks.
There were even some Redditors who said the employee was the biggest jerk of all because she was disturbing all the other coffee shop’s customers with her dramatic prank.
Barista Training Academy has some friendly suggestions that can help coffee shop employees and baristas deal with those caffeine-lovers who can’t keep a leash on their temper. For example, if a customer shouts at you, you shouldn’t shout back! Stay calm, cool, and professional. Like from that one awesome song in ‘Mulan’ that everyone remembers, be “tranquil as a forest but on fire within.”
There’s also a chance that rude customers, no matter how impolite they might be, have some criticism for you that’s worth hearing out. After all, you want to be the best barista in the world, so you should take every chance to up your game and improve yourself.
Whatever happens, don’t take it personally. Maybe the person who ordered the triple-syrup, no-foam, quadruple-espresso, decaf cappuccino and yelled at you for not adding any sugar, has had a very bad day and doesn’t know how to deal with their stress. Sometimes, people don’t know how to deal with their problems and lash out at strangers. It’s all a part of being human and maturing as individuals.
Dear Pandas, have any of you worked at a coffee shop or the service industry? How do you deal with rude customers? We can’t wait to hear from you, so drop us a line in the comments!
Here’s how some Redditors reacted to the story
What do you think ?
WilvanderHeijden 5 years ago (edited)
What baffles me is that there are people saying "Having to deal with rude people is part of the job." I hear it when they are talking about almost any job including first responders and it gets me furious. NO, it's not part of the job to accept rudeness, threats and insults when people are trying to help people. I'm lucky that my boss agreed with me when I refused service to rude people. But a lot of workers have to put up with it just because people think that "it's part of their job."
K. Blanchette 5 years ago
Right?! How about you just don't be rude and not feed into the problem? People look for excuses to be a******s. After working in fast food and retail I do my best to stand up for associates that are getting berated.
Load More Replies...
Didon Zenith 5 years ago
Repeat after me: customer service does not mean that you have to take abuse from clients! The idea that dealing with people taking out their anger and rage on you is false. I'm sorry but we aren't paid therapist for you to unload on. We are people providing a service for you and unless you have an actual complaint like it's the wrong order and still then you need to remember that you are dealing with actual human beings and that respect should be included. People treating customer service employees as garbage are the real a******s here!! Yes, managers are there to mediate issues but again, most things are out of their control. The coffee is not hot enough? The manager can clearly do nothing about it since op said themselves that it comes from a machine. As much as we laugh and hate them, I've been a manager and had some great ones and we all had one thing in common: the notion that the customer isn't always right. I even had a manager with a cane take a super long time to come whenever we had impossible clients because he wanted to p**s them off and he knew that the second they saw his cane none of them would complain about it. And I'm talking about people trying to return worn underwear here!!
Didon Zenith 5 years ago
Forgot to say this since it was early but most coffee chains actually have a limit for the coffee's heat nowadays because of too many people sueing them because they burned themselves so it would make sense if coffee machines also had a safety feature to avoid coffee being so hot that users receive second or third degree burns
Load More Replies...
Phil Boswell 5 years ago
I'd love to know how the voting correlates with how the voters act themselves: I'll bet most of those saying the OP is the A-hole are the type who want to be able to shout at wait-staff without consequences to themselves >_<
WilvanderHeijden 5 years ago (edited)
What baffles me is that there are people saying "Having to deal with rude people is part of the job." I hear it when they are talking about almost any job including first responders and it gets me furious. NO, it's not part of the job to accept rudeness, threats and insults when people are trying to help people. I'm lucky that my boss agreed with me when I refused service to rude people. But a lot of workers have to put up with it just because people think that "it's part of their job."
K. Blanchette 5 years ago
Right?! How about you just don't be rude and not feed into the problem? People look for excuses to be a******s. After working in fast food and retail I do my best to stand up for associates that are getting berated.
Load More Replies... Didon Zenith 5 years ago
Repeat after me: customer service does not mean that you have to take abuse from clients! The idea that dealing with people taking out their anger and rage on you is false. I'm sorry but we aren't paid therapist for you to unload on. We are people providing a service for you and unless you have an actual complaint like it's the wrong order and still then you need to remember that you are dealing with actual human beings and that respect should be included. People treating customer service employees as garbage are the real a******s here!! Yes, managers are there to mediate issues but again, most things are out of their control. The coffee is not hot enough? The manager can clearly do nothing about it since op said themselves that it comes from a machine. As much as we laugh and hate them, I've been a manager and had some great ones and we all had one thing in common: the notion that the customer isn't always right. I even had a manager with a cane take a super long time to come whenever we had impossible clients because he wanted to p**s them off and he knew that the second they saw his cane none of them would complain about it. And I'm talking about people trying to return worn underwear here!!
Didon Zenith 5 years ago
Forgot to say this since it was early but most coffee chains actually have a limit for the coffee's heat nowadays because of too many people sueing them because they burned themselves so it would make sense if coffee machines also had a safety feature to avoid coffee being so hot that users receive second or third degree burns
Load More Replies... Phil Boswell 5 years ago
I'd love to know how the voting correlates with how the voters act themselves: I'll bet most of those saying the OP is the A-hole are the type who want to be able to shout at wait-staff without consequences to themselves >_<
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