The customer is NEVER right!

No doubt some of you, if not many of you, will have passed through the work-force having heard a particular phrase. A phrase your employer will have forced down your throat and stuffed so far up your noise, so that once it reaches what brain you have left after the torture of having to agree with it, there is nothing more for you to think! That phrase me mates be the belly of the beast... "The customer is always right". Well to this I say, jog on! Introducing my first post ever for "What Grinds My Gears"... "The customer is NEVER right!"

I'm currently a barista. Where I work will remain unknown. On the average working day (Monday to Friday - 8am to 5pm), I make from anywhere up to 300 coffees in the space 3 hours. I'll admit, the coffees aren't meant to be perfect or outstanding, just fast because of the amount of people that pass through.

Let me set the scene for you...

It's 9:30am, RUSH HOUR. My assistant was on the register, while I was making coffees. It started out as usual; a group of regulars comes in at once with a few members of the public to start with. Nothing hard, a long black here, a cappuccino there, then... someone wants soy. Any other barista may agree with me that when a customer asks for soy it does hold the line up a little. When you have 4 or 5 customers waiting and say another 15 to 20 still ordering, it causes some delays.
No problems, no complaints; all the regular customers that come and go understand we do get quite busy at this point in the morning and remain patient. Except for one...

I've just handed out three hot chocolates; the customers take their drinks, add sugar, make it to their liking and begin to drink. Head down, concentrating, I hear a woman speaking with my assistant.
Woman: "Excuse me. There's no milk in this drink. It's lite and frothy. Please fix it."

I ignore the drink which has been handed back to me for maybe a minute while I heat milk for more coffees. Standing there waiting, I grab the so called "empty cup" to discover it's got a decent bit of weight behind it; not to mention it appears to have had a good two mouth-fulls swigged from it. Asking my assistant who handed this to her, she points to some blond, snotty, up-herself bimbo standing in front of the machine. Try to be calm and polite, I look up to her and say "I'm sorry, there is nothing wrong with this drink. It feels quite heavy to me. I'm not sure what the problem is."
Sticking her figure in the drink and stirring, "See this? It's froth."
Myself: "IT'S A HOT CHOCOLATE YOU STUPID WOMAN! IT'S MEANT TO HAVE FROTH!" is what I would have said if I had lost my cool. Instead I simply said "It's a hot chocolate. It's meant to be a frothy drink."
Woman: "No it's not. Don't argue with me! You're wrong!"
I put my head back down. Finished frothing/heating the milk in the jug I was meant to be concentrating on, bite my tongue and top the up the "mistake".

Fixing the problem and moving along, brushing the dust off my shoulders, all was thought to be well; apart from the volcano of anger that was ready to erupt from my head!
Woman: "That's right; milk, not froth."

What customer knows more about a computer than someone in IT? What customer knows how a pie was made better than the baker who made it? What customer knows more about a car than the mechanic? What customer knows more about a coffee than a barista? What customer knows better than the professionals in any working environment, who have been trained to specialize in their field of work for the benefit of customers themselves?
NONE!

The customer is NEVER, I repeat, NEVER right!

I have no doubt many of you have shared similar experiences in the work force, so please, feel free to share those experiences here.

Until next time,

Flash