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?

Diner to the waiter - 'I can't eat nuts as I have an allergy'
moments later a dish arrives topped with nuts
Other diner - 'that looks like nuts'
Diner 'nah I told them about my allergy'
Other diner 'but it looks the same as ours and we all have nuts'
diner eats the nut and ends up in hospital

I mean, it was ABSOLUTELY the waiting staffs error. But COME ON!

Re hot coffee. I have mine black so in most places it's too hot to drink immediately so I ask for an ice cube to be popped in it. McDs on Tottenham Court Road wanted to charge me for an ice cube!!! Got a £5 voucher from Customer Services after I complained

Just home after a late..... my boss is epic!!

Bloke on expenses and very demanding, which we accomodated as far as possible but he was a prick.

"I want an Americano, hot milk and [something else that I didnt hear]"
Boss said "We are a pub, not a Costa,it comes out of the machine. Do you want black coffee with or without UHT?"

She is a legend! He didnt have coffee btw!

Not from my personal experience so maybe doesn't count but I remember a news article about a woman in holiday in Spain complaining that she didn't like it, there were too many Spaniards, and too many people speaking Spanish!

I didn't realise Swedes had squat toilets at home.

We don’t.

One supermarket group had issues with staff breaking toilet seats in certain parts of the country. It was a problem for them. Not nice for other staff.

Not quite right. They are legal currency as they are issued by a clearing bank. They are however, not legal tender, even in Scotland. That doesn't mean that they are unacceptable as a means of transaction, they are just as acceptable as credit cards, debit cards, Google pay etc.

Not diseases, but I guess I wouldn't want to drink bee poo or pee? If bees defecate. I'm not sure they do. 🤔 I wonder if Google can help me? I'm off to have a look.

They do.

The main reason I wouldn't, is the midges. Biting insects love me.

I would just pick it up, although I know many people are more 'EeeeeEEEEEeewwww a bug!!!' and wouldn't want to do that, and then some people are afraid of them and/or just don't want to, or have an allergy etc.

Beer mat? Something in handbag (pen or bit of paper), leaf? But then they'd have all those nasty germs I suppose and we can't be having that with our Chablais now can we (sorry, prissy, 'princessy' people annoy me)

Yes they do, but It's just pollen residue really. It's not going to do you any harm (mostly they do it while flying, anyway. Please correct me if I am wrong and they like to do it while swimming, too).

If I worried about that, I'd not eat out in the first place. Staff are rushed off their feet and a lot of them are overworked and underpaid and doing the job as a means to an end.

Not all of them wash their hands when they're taking their first loo break in ten hours and know they've got five tables all needing something by the time they've finished having a poo. They wipe their hands on aprons, and are also not going to have time to wait until the water warms up in the staff lavvy.

Flies can land (and poo) on glasses while they're hanging up in the bar.

People don't get paid if they don't work so they often go into work ill.

There tends to be a drinking culture too, hangovers do not equal caring much about one's job.

Lots of grubby things occur in restaurants/bars/cafes/pubs etc.

Well, cows do have several stomachs...

Good point. I also have found out that honey is essentially bee chunder!

I once had to field a furious American guest who, having arrived in the middle of the night, was rampaging round the corridors yelling "Doesn't anyone here speak English?" I gently reminded him that we were in Switzerland where all the staff were fluent in at least two languages, French and German.

He hadn't realised other countries have different languages 😳

More accurately four compartments.

He sounds like a contender for The Darwin Awards for sure!

“This Thai Green Curry tastes funny. It’s not like the one you get from an Indian restaurant.”

I was in a tea-room WC once when I witnessed the girl who was serving behind the counter leave the loo without washing her hands. I was pretty disgusted.
I spoke to the manager - not making wishing to make a loud complaint or embarrass the girl - to ask if she could remind her assistant to do so.
nb. the cafe wasn't busy.

We get a lot of holiday makers complaining about all the rain, mud and dogs we have here (Lake District). If they had done five minutes of research they would have realized that it is no secret that we have all three things in vast supply. They also tend to complain that they don't like walking, water activities, climbing or just being outdoors in general. Then they moan about the lack of shopping centres and clubs. Often they stay in their holiday cottages because apparently there is nothing to do here. I have had to bite my tongue so many times to ask them why they have come here.

Don't get me started on the ones who struggle to walk to the corner shop who come here and think that they can conquer Skiddaw, only to get part of the way up and then ring mountain rescue to politely ask for a lift back down like its a flipping taxi service. Or the ones who don't even know the name of the mountain they climbed.

I worked in an upmarket coffee shop where standards were high, but for some reason, lots of the staff would go to the bathroom with their aprons on.

@Prescottdanni123 Though I perfectly understand the problems of too many tourists I didn't like the fact that every little layby on the road had a parking charge last time I was in the Lake District. The council have started doing that on Dartmoor too.
Is it possible to buy a weekly parking pass as a tourist?

@Garlicpest , was your encounter with the monolingual American in Geneva in about 2006? I think I sat next to him in a restaurant, and ended up translating half the menu and every interaction with the waiting staff for him! He was really phenomenally dense.

Oh, heck, there's more than one of him! 😬