Never work in hospitality. Strangest things people have complained about.

[KnopkaPixie]

Here's some to get us started:

"There's broken glass on this steak."
It was fancy coarse ground salt.

"I can't eat from a square plate. It's bad feng shui."

Any more?

Then I have two questions for you Citrus:

1. Exactly how many decades ago is it since you were a ward sister?

None of the housekeeping staff ever made refreshments for the patients on the wards I worked on, but occassionally ward clerks did if we were particularly short staffed, apart from them it was the care assistants, volunteers and student nurses who made and distributed the hot drinks. I have worked on male surgical, elderly medical, maternity and children's wards.

2. So it was rarely the very sick patients that "behaved like arseholes". Did you get many patients that were not very sick in the Coronary Care Unit?

Before I became a nurse, while I was nursing, and now as an OAP, I never once referred to, or even thought about, patients in hospital being "arseholes". But I can think of some nurses who I would classify as being an arsehole, except that, that particular phrase is not in my personal lexicon.

You can have the last word now if you would like to @Citrusandginger, as I will not be replying to you again on this thread.

I can believe someone just misread the menu. In some places it’s become a thing where the menu will say something like:

beef, apple, egg

or in the case of the one I misread:

beet, feta, salad greens

I read beef (careless scanning) was thinking it might be a bit Mediterranean or North African style of spicing. It was beetroot 🤦🏼‍♀️.

I can well believe with that kind of menu you’d read as Beef, Tomato when it actually said Beef Tomato. I prefer descriptions but my brother loves these places that have none

No restaurant will serve a single beef tomato as a main dish, though.
It’s just not credible.

Quite dull compared to some of these but I once shared a table on a cruise ship with a woman who had a visit from the Maitre d every evening so she could choose her food from the gluten-free menu for the next day. Big fuss about what she couldn’t eat.

She always had regular digestive biscuits with her cheeseboard though. I felt quite irrationally angry, had to move tables.

Are you sure they were regular digestives and not gluten-free ones though @ParrotPirouette? They look more or less the same.

Definitely, the regular cheese boards have water biscuits, digestive biscuits and cream crackers. She would ask for them separately after her gluten-free pudding had been eaten.

I've been wondering about cruise ships! Your's is the first post mentioning cruises. I thought that would have been a rich seam in the hospitality hell.

Stuck on a Covid plague ship à la Diamond Princess.
Choppy Waters or Downright Sinking à la Costa Concordia.
Suspicious passenger overboard scénarios.
Crew member relationship shenanigans.
The onboard morgue.

Likewise, we've heard nothing from either airline cabin crew or the 'Below Deck' yachtie types. Or are they, "Too posh to goss."
(Gossip.)

I used to work on a small cruise ship. You wouldn't believe the amount of people who complained that ship is rolling too much for their liking. I usually said that of course, I'll see if they can turn the wind down.

There’s an awful lot of moaning on some cruise ships. The ones aimed at the British market particularly. As we know a large section of our society isn’t happy unless they’ve got something to complain about 😃
Ive not seen too much bad behaviour from passengers though.
I remember a man screaming abuse at a member of shore excursion staff because it was a regular coach and had no access for his wheelchair-bound wife. He was certain that he was right and they were in the wrong for not providing a wheelchair accessible vehicle. Not sure how he managed to miss the separately-listed excursions available for wheelchair users, with dedicated WAVs.

I don't find it odd at all - many restaurants and hotels serve a single vegetable as a "vegan roast" - I've seen single mushrooms, small slices of cauliflower - so a beef tomato would be quite substantial.

The nit picking on what could be a rather amusing thread is becoming incredibly tedious.

When working in Forestry cabins industry one woman asked to move cabins as the birds woke her up too early near hers ...

Yes. I remember popping into a small London branch to see if i could replace the gloves I had just left on the bus. It was sleeting. The gutters were full of slush, there was a wind that went right through you. It was February. The summer range was out - cool linens and floppy hats. No wonder M&S nearly went down the toilet

Another story that involves Americans, although it could have happened with many other nationalities.

I was staying overnight at a hotel on the outskirts of Paris and went to the bar, where I got chatting to Henk, a Dutch tour guide who was leading a coach party of Americans on their tour of France or Europe or whatever.

One of the party comes up and excuses himself for interrupting, then says "Henk, can you get the bartender to give me and my wife some ice? We don't speak any French". Henk nods and says sure, then turns to the bartender and asks, quietly, in English, "Can I get some ice here, please". Because Henk doesn't speak French either. The bartender replies "Of course, sir", in English (this was back in the 1980s, but even then, decent chain hotels in Paris employed bar staff who could speak enough English to get by!) and brings him a small bucket of ice. Henk hands it to the American guy who says "Thanks, Henk. Don't know how we'd manage without you".

Ahem. Tap tap tap... is this thing on, @Loonaandalf ? Inquiring minds want to know! 🍿😂

I put "stuffed beef tomato" and "our menu" into Google and found several hits, for example here. Although it is described as a vegetarian main, so again one would hope that the diner wouldn't ask where the beef was... but then, see the rest of this thread!

Oh god.
I once spent 30 minutes refunding a woman who swore blind she hadn’t worn any of the very worn holiday clothes she wanted to return to m&s.
my manager made me refund the lot despite them absolutely stinking of sweat and the fact they had obvious white dried crusted deodorant stains and sun cream sweat marks in the arm pits. I will never forget the smell.

There's the common French menu problem - akin to steak tartare - is it steak with tartar(e) sauce or raw mince with egg yolk - that is:

Steak à cheval.

It's a perfectly normal fried beef mince patty with a fried hen's egg on top.

No horses were harmed in the production of this dish.

Ah. I see you aren’t vegetarian or vegan then.

It’s been 25 years and I’ve never forgotten him! 😂

My dgs has a severe peanut and nut allery. He had seen an advert for one of those dessert places and wanted to try some elaborate pancake, chocolate, ice cream and cream thing. The flyer said to check at the restaurant for allergens. Poor kid is used to disappointment and having to settle for mum/nan made attempts at these type of desserts but I took him to to see if there was anything he could have (he had recently been on holiday and there had been a place that had a separate nut free prep area and an outside eating area for nut allery sufferers so he was hopeful)

I explained to the teen at the counter about the allergy and she actually cringed away from me as she explained that all their desserts were made in a kitchen that used nuts and that as I had stated that there was a nut allergy she couldn't serve me. I thanked her and as I was leaving I heard her colleague say, "see, that kid must have a real allergy". It took me a few minutes to realise that the server had expected me to have a go at her when she refused service.

Yes, as opposed to steak de cheval, which is horse meat.

For extra fun: in Alsace, rossbiff is not roast beef, or a mildly derorgatory term for the British; it's braised horse meat in gravy. The word ross means a horse in the Alsatian dialect of German. In fact it is sometimes spelt hross in the Germanic dialects of nearby areas, and with a small sound shift, that's where the English word comes from.

I can remember when egg mayonnaise or half a grapefruit with a glacé cherry was considered a starter so beef tomatoes wouldn’t surprise me at all.

🤮 why did they let her off?! was she raving or something?

Nothing surprises me about Greggs' customers, their staff deserve medals!