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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To have expected a soft play to serve toast to a baby

274 replies

PearlyWhites · 10/08/2013 16:17

I have just left a play centre early and really annoyed. I forgot to bring a snack for my ds who has just turned one.
I was going to buy a banana from the soft play cafe but they were black.
I asked for a piece of toast and was told very rudely no as it was not breakfast time . I asked if they had an suitable baby snacks and was offered quavers! I asked again politely for toast as they sold nothing suitable for a baby but was told no ( despite a loaf and toaster in full view)
AIBU to think it is good customer service just to make a piece of flipping toast for a baby?

OP posts:
limitedperiodonly · 11/08/2013 10:56

And there is nothing wrong at all with a black banana.

Quite right.

OP, it's entitled mothers like you that are single-handedly responsible for the generation of namby-pamby young people who think the world owes them a living.

Here, have my first Biscuit. Or isn't it good enough for you?

themaltesefalcon · 11/08/2013 10:56

YANBU.

Quite a normal request, I'd have thought.

Hate jobsworths and this would have pissed me off, too.

MissDuke · 11/08/2013 10:57

Op, I completely agree with you here. I am so sick of these softplay places offering such rubbish food. We now know which ones to go to and avoid the ones like you were at. My dd doesn't like chips, so I often ask for them to be replaced with toast or beans and it is never a problem. I wouldn't have bought the rotten banana or quavers either. I would have asked for a slice of bread though and given lo bread and butter.

Chocolatepup · 11/08/2013 11:11

Its not even the fact that it was a soft play cafe that gets me about this thread. Or the forgotten snack, the quavers or that sodding black banana. :) It's the fact that someone wouldn't do a very simple favour for someone else, just because they didn't need to. And so many posters seem to agree too which is a depressing. Since when did it become so awful to help someone out a bit?

pigletmania · 11/08/2013 12:36

Limited I would not pay the extrtionate price tey are probably asking for it! When I buy something I expect it to be in good condition, if bananas go black at home I eat them or ake a cake with them.

pigletmania · 11/08/2013 12:38

Exactly Choco, it's a bit of pain toast fgs not a 3 course meal, how default I it to pop a slic in the taster and charge say 40p for example

LynetteScavo · 11/08/2013 13:35

At 60p per slice of toast, that is a massive proffit

I think you should contact the center owners, and tell them they are missing out on sales.

insancerre · 11/08/2013 13:50

why not just order the beans on toast without the beans?
or ask for the beans on the side and not on the bread?

limitedperiodonly · 11/08/2013 15:21

I like spotty bananas the best pigletmania but will eat black ones. I hate anything with the merest trace of green. Disgusting.

DH is a Hoover who doesn't care. He eats the banana I've been carefully saving and leaves the green ones so I have to start all over again. Angry

IME black banana eaters are in the minority; Most sellers would chuck them. So yes, as such we should get a discount, if not a medal for saving on landfill Wink.

schmee · 11/08/2013 15:33

Chocolatepup - "Since when did it become so awful to help someone out a bit?"

There's no issue that it would have been the nice, kind thing for the person in the cafe to serve a piece of toast. What's unreasonable is that the OP "expected" it. The OP was asking a favour of the person serving, so she shouldn't have "expected" the answer to be yes.

SirChenjin · 11/08/2013 15:42

Generally speaking however, it is good to meet your customers expectations. It shows that you care about them and their business, that you are prepared to go the extra mile, and that you want them to go and tell their friends about the fantastic customer service they received. That way, you're likely to grow your business and make more profits.

So, whilst the OP was perhaps asking too much to expect it (although I don't think she was), her expectation was a single bit of toast which would have been easy to make and would have contributed to their profits. It's a shame that the soft play couldn't see the bigger picture.

limitedperiodonly · 11/08/2013 15:43

Because schmee, in the difficult trading conditions that banana-Hoover DH finds himself in, he'd do a customer a slice of toast for her baby in order to keep her eye on the bigger picture of spending money with him.

He'd be beyond cross if one of his employees lost a customer for want of putting a slice in and pressing a button.

Plus, what's wrong with feeding a hungry baby?

GwendolineMaryLacey · 11/08/2013 15:58

And why shouldn't she expect it fgs? She was in an eating establishment during opening hours and asked for a piece of toast in full view of a toaster. She didn't ask for a 15 course tasting menu.

Jan49 · 11/08/2013 16:12

Maybe I'm missing the point here, but why did you need to give the baby a snack

Ooh I will take a wild stab in the dark and suggest...maybe because the baby was hungry!

I just thought in the mid-afternoon between meals if the baby showed signs of hungry you'd give milk, not solid food, so it sounded strange to me.

Jan49 · 11/08/2013 16:14

"signs of hunger" not hungry. Feeling a bit peckish myself. Grin

schmee · 11/08/2013 16:17

It just seems to me that if you go around expecting things then some of the time you will be disappointed. If you go around being pleasantly surprised if people do something even a tiny bit extra for you, then you will spend a lot of time being pleasantly surprised.

BTW I've been in the same position as the OP (stuck without a snack with small babies) more than once and been given a piece of bread, etc free by cafes. Which was absolutely lovely. But not expected.

HaroldLloyd · 11/08/2013 16:27

Well to be honest I would expect a cafe to serve some toast.

I am amazed at the lengths people will go to to prove the OP wrong here, she has had it all, from feeding them rotten bananas, quavers, beans, nothing, should have brought something, would be rude to bring something, why go out at all.

They were just being TOAST-CUNTS.

limitedperiodonly · 11/08/2013 16:35

Maybe that's it.

Those of us who live life expecting to give and receive favours that make life happy, get them.

Those of us who resent the giving of small favours to people just because, don't.

We get what we deserve.

Bluegrass · 11/08/2013 16:38

I wish people in this country did go around expecting more. Far too many places here have absolutely no concept of customer service, they seem to regard customers as an inconvenience, to be relieved of money and moved on with as little effort and engagement as possible. Perhaps if we expected more we could cast off the reputation our service industry has for being surly and shambolic!

Lackedpunchesforever · 11/08/2013 16:40

Another lovely MN thread to remind me that I'm GLAD I'm not a soul less old harridan and life hasn't quite sapped me of every morsel of human empathy.

OP YANBU Grin

HaroldLloyd · 11/08/2013 16:40

I am strangely invested in this thread. I might even do a tour of the local soft play establishments asking for toast and see what happens.

limitedperiodonly · 11/08/2013 16:44

Toast-cunt haroldlloyd?

What's that mean?

I like Harold Lloyd, btw. I did loads of research into early 20th century film stars and got really interested in his photography,

He seemed like the sort of person who'd do you a slice of lightly-browned Mighty White in search of the bigger picture.

SirChenjin · 11/08/2013 16:48

Jan - the baby is one year old, so probably well able to cope with a mid-meal snack

It just seems to me that if you go around expecting things then some of the time you will be disappointed. If you go around being pleasantly surprised if people do something even a tiny bit extra for you, then you will spend a lot of time being pleasantly surprised - this is a cafe, it is their job to keep their customers happy (well, within reason, obv. if they have some abusive sweary numpty they are well within their rights to show them the door). If a 'tiny bit extra' is just a bit of toast, then it hardly seems a massive expectation, esp. as so many businesses are going to the wall. Quite frankly, as a (very nice and polite) customer, I expect anyone in the business of taking my money to bend over backwards with a smile.

HaroldLloyd · 11/08/2013 16:53

Its TOAST in a cafe. Its not like she went to a petrol station and demanded a tea cake is it.

Harold Lloyd CERTAINLY would have provided toasted snacks, Im sure of it. He probably would have served it with a few comedy falls as well.

limitedperiodonly · 11/08/2013 17:10

bluegrass I agree, but why can't we expect people to be nice, whether they're providing a commercial service or not?

My mother is old and decrepit Grin. I am astounded and grateful at how fantastic people are on the London Underground, both staff and passengers, every week when she comes to see me with her little wheely suitcase.

It's not necessary for people to give her directions but we understand why they do because they're concerned. I'm also really grateful to the people who shield her in crowded places.

I'm sure it's the same for people who have other vulnerable people, not just oldsters, who deserve to be out and about.

I don't understand the mean-minded people on this thread. Maybe they don't get out much. I think they should stay that way and away from us nice people.