If a business puts a sign on their door that isn’t a promotional poster of some kind, chances are they’re trying to let you know something that will affect your shopping experience. For example, when a fast food restaurant has a sign on the door that says “No beef, only chicken and fish”, that means they aren’t selling beef products. Maybe if you would actually read the sign before placing an order for hamburgers, you wouldn’t need to waste everyone’s time asking for what isn’t available. Seriously, it takes three seconds, less even, to read most notices of this sort. How lazy, unobservant, or just fucking stupid are you to not be able to see the note, read the note, and either fuck off or change your plans accordingly? I know fewer people read for pleasure than in the past, but come on. How hard is it to read 10 words meant to inform you? Smarten up Halifax!
—Sometimes I feel like the only literate person in this damn city
This article appears in Jan 3-9, 2019.
Some other suggestions….
1) Make your signage better, so that people actually read it and don’t ignore it! The onus on me wanting to read a sign you put up is on YOU not me as a customer.
2) Maybe, calmly explain you don’t sell beef, so no burgers, as soon as the customer walks up, instead of being passive aggressive, and waiting for them to order it so you can get super upset and feel justified calling potential paying customers of your business “lazy, unobservant, or just fucking stupid are you to not be able to see the note, read the note, and either fuck off or change your plans accordingly”
3) Take a look in the mirror and think about what other pro-active steps you can take to give your customers, as well as staff, a better experience. From what you write, the staff sound bitter and probably hate their job, and I’m sure customers can sense that and also sense that you would like them to “fuck off or change their plans” to eat at wherever you work.
4) OR just keep on keeping on and I’m sure these thoughts in your head, combined with what I’m sure is perfect customer service that doesn’t betray these feelings you have at all, and we can all look forward to whatever establishment you work at failing and closing so that no customer has to go deal with such an attitude!
ps when in the hell did fast food workers get so entitled? There are plenty of jobs, from min wage, to people making over 100k a year, that have to answer (and the answer is always the same) the same question over and over and over all the time as well? At this point they want people to come in and order like the Soup N*zi episode of Seinfeld, “walk in the door and proceed through lineup area, order by using menu number item and not the name of item or NO FOOD FOR YOU. Any special requests for your sandwich must be made immediately after ordering sandwich, so if you try and say “oh and please no Mayo on that” once the sandwich part of your order has been punched in, NO CHANGES FOR YOU. Asking for menu items we do not carry, NO FOOD FOR YOU. Making me do my job any other way then the lazy way I want to do it, NO FOOD FOR YOU! How about, do your job, with a smile, be happy you have one or NO JOB FOR YOU!
1) Maybe not every customer can read your sign, and I don’t mean that to be funny. There are some Canadians who cannot read English/know a limited vocabulary, as well as some with visual impairments. Verbal communication about not having beef is probably the better way to go.
2)Maybe they didn’t see your sign. When I go to a restaurant in January I’m not stopping to read the notices on the door. It’s friggin’ cold outside and I ask specific questions about product availability to the workers indoors.
3) You are there to serve customers, not to judge them. I can understand being a little frustrated but try to see things from their point of view. They probably aren’t going out of their way to piss you off or ruin your day.
Illiterate? Wow, bitchy!