Let’s throw this back to about seven months ago...
During the holiday season, my store undergoes a Christmas makeover. Red, green, and gold decorations fill the shelves, controversial cups line the bar, and seasonal drinks are plastered across the menu boards. One could say it looked like Santa threw up on the entire store.
In addition to the festive decor, my company puts in an immense amount of effort to display cups, travel mugs, and pounds of coffee. The closer it gets to Christmas, the better the deals.
At this specific time, we had our pounds of coffee on sale for $12.95 (they usually run at $15 or more). And if I remember correctly, this deal consisted of buying a pound of coffee for $12.95 while getting another one free. The catch to this though, was that the pound of coffee had to be one of our seasonal blends.
It was a cold Thursday afternoon and customers were lining up out the door. My co-worker, Beth, and I (P.S. Her name isn’t actually Beth) were both ringing up customers while our shift manager was banging out drinks back to back. Then suddenly, Mr.Scrooge enters the building and everything turns to shit.
Originally, Mr.Scrooge entered my line asking about the current deals on the coffee. I had just recently returned from a trip so I was unaware of what deals were happening. I turned to my shift, let’s call her Anne, and asked her what our coffee discounts were. Anne, in the middle of a 20 cup line rush, responded and told the man that our seasonal/holiday coffee was $12.95, buy one get one free.
Already, as I’m watching Mr. Scrooge, I can tell he’s slightly irritated by something. While his wife is in the cafe, he runs back and forth to the shelf to negotiate what coffee he should get. At this same point in time, more and more customers were shooting through the doors. Finally, Scrooge gets back into my line, and he asks for a decaf coffee. During the winter, we tend to dump our decaf around 2 pm-2:30 pm because it doesn’t sell as much as our seasonal drinks. Instantly, he becomes irritated by this but I talk him into getting a half-caf Americano for the same price as a cup of coffee. He huffs and puffs but he settles on it.
Next, he throws down two pounds of Sumatra onto my counter. I ring him up and while doing so even more customers begin to form a line. After processing the transaction, I hand him a receipt and he becomes infuriated. He starts asking, “Why didn’t the discount come off?” He then begins to take his anger out on me.
Anne notices what’s taking place and begins to interject. She asks, “What’s the problem?” and Scrooge responds with, “I didn’t receive the discount.” Anne takes the receipt from my hand and notices the problem within seconds. She says, “You purchased two pounds of Sumatra. These are not Seasonal blends.”
This was not what Scrooge wanted to hear.
Immediately he starts yelling, “You told me that the coffee on that wall was discounted.” He then points at me and says, “I want my money back.”
I start to punch in the return process and while doing so he begins to bicker back and forth with Anne. He goes off by saying, “You guys need to get your stuff together.” Annoyed by this, Anne stops what she’s doing in the middle of making a drink, looks him in the eyes, and says, “Thank you. But we are very together,” with the most passive-aggressive smile.
Meanwhile, Beth and I are doing our best to ring up the other customers while Scrooge yells at Anne and requests her information so that he can call corporate. Anne gives him her first name but not her last, according to policy we’re not required to give this information. Finally, Scrooge realizes this is a battle he can’t win and marches out the door with his wife in hand.
By the end of the rush, Beth and I look at each other acknowledging the uncomfortableness that just entailed.
Anne then walks over to us and says, “No one’s allowed to yell at you guys except for me.”
