To think food service employees shouldn't mess with peoples orders?

[LucyLeblanc]

Saw a Tiktok earlier of a barista claiming she "messes" with the orders of "rude" customers. And there were thousands of comments in agreement with her and saying they also do similar 😧

The examples she gave were: Putting full fat milk in the customers coffee, rather than semi-skimmed. Giving them regular coffee rather than decaf, and vice versa. Serving them carrot cake rather than the chocolate cake they ordered. Etc...

I know she's not necessarily contaminating the food as such, but I think petty acts like this are totally unprofessional.

I understand some customers can be rude, I've worked in retail, but I just got on with it, I didn't feel the need to mess with anyones food for 'revenge'.

AIBU to think this is petty behaviour and food service employees should maintain some professionalism?

There's a difference between being deliberately rude (often for a laugh) and being stressed/distracted/tired

You've not worked in retail have you?
I got told I was fucking useless and when I said not to speak to me that way, he told me I deserved to be spoken to like that

If you have such a bad day you scream at people that they are stupid because it's their fault you didn't know that latte comes with milk (yup happend) you should not be in public... Don't care what happened that day.

In real life people don't mess with food, however, people do happily abuse staff

When I worked on till in a supermarket, some customers were monsters.

I was called names, grabbed at, abused, usually always by men 50+.

Mostly I ignored it, but with the particularly nasty ones I would squeeze their bread as I scanned it and poke my nails into their fruit.

I don't regret it.

Jesus, sorry . No, obviously, I haven't. Terrifying that such Neanderthal arseholes are freely walking the streets.

Oh gosh I was the opposite of this, if someone was nice to me at work in McDonald's or I saw a mom struggling with kids in tow etc id give them large fries instead of regular, fill their drinks to the brim, maybe throw in an extra cheeseburger. 😅

People can be very rude in a short time. Don't underestimate that. Making people ill is not cool though

Examples of what happened to me when working as a teenager in a fast food joint include someone bringing a massive kitchen knife into the restaurant and trying to stab the colleague working next to me because he felt he looked at him the wrong way; another person who tried to stab me in the face with a lit cigarette when I politely advised the restaurant would be closing in 15 minutes (it was after midnight and we were actually already closed but she continued to sit at one of the tables); the person who tried to pay about $4 in a bag of copper coins filled with their spit; people who expected free food and screamed and threated us when they didn't get it; people who tried to rob us etc., etc. All for minimum wage and 'service with a smile'. Saying that, I don't know anyone - bar one manager - who actually 'messed' with people's orders when they were rude. We all needed the jobs too much.

I used to work in food retail and if people were rude, they always got the worst pick of the food available. If they were rude to me when I made up their pizza, they always got the absolute bare minimum of any topping they asked for too.

I'm not sorry either - it's not difficult to be polite. The amount of people who swore, threw things, shouted and just treated us worse than dog muck was unbelievable.

This. This is why I rarely eat out. Not because I am rude, I might add, but rather I do not really trust the hygiene aspect of it all.

I was a waitress, a bar maid and a shop worker back in my school and university days. People can be absolute arseholes, rude and condescending, and in the case of waiting on at 'sports men's dinners' actually physically harassing. But, I never took any sort of revenge on them! Just got on with my job and thought, you're an utter twat!

In the job I do now, if I took revenge every time someone took offence to something I did professionally, i'd never get any other work done!! 🤣

My local M&S cafe has a big sign at the till saying they will not tolerate abusive language or threatening behaviour. What the hell has happened there to require that sign? It's not exactly the location for a rough or drunk clientele. Reading this thread has got me wondering.

The NHS also has signs like that everywhere, but nothing is done against the abusive relatives/patients incase they complain

In my experience, the rudest people are stone cold sober.

I worked in a pub once where wanker customers would routinely be served pints that had had testicles dangled in them, or where a finger up the bum would then be wiped around the rim of a glass before serving. Truly truly gross. By “wanker customer” I mean someone who had verbally abused a member of staff, had been inexcusably rude, or had manhandled a female customer/ member of staff.

I knew someone who pissed in a chip fryer, and someone else who pooed in the shake mix at Burger King. Disgruntled employees do disgusting things.

clocksgoingbackwards you’re right of course, but my experience of working in education (been a teacher for 15 years) is that schools tend to defend their staff, even the lowest paid ones, against crap ‘customers’ (I.e. tricky parents) better than restaurant and pub bosses do.

Clocks "What is it about working in the food service industry that turns people into spiteful twats?

I actually gasped at this. Have you ever done a customer facing job? The nastiness of customers means I am surprised worse doesn't happen to the food orders.

The response to very rude customers should be not serving them, and retail managers should be supportive of this. Too often it seems that rude or entitled customers are pandered to, for a quiet life or to get them out of the way.

Yep, this is the problem.

You're very, VERY rarely allowed to refuse service, so of course customers (rightly) think they can get away with treating people like dirt.

Making money is more important than protecting staff.

It's not just rough drunk clientele going berserk🙃of course

DH used to work for M&S, and spent a long time managing the cafe. He would have weekly examples of spectacular arseholery and unbelievable entitlement which were generally brushed off by senior management. His theory - after decades of similar customer service jobs - was that the more expensive the shop, the more arseholes that would shop there.

Of course there are rude customers. I worked in well known shop and was dragged across customer service counter when I refused a refund

My first job was in a bakery and if people were rude and nasty for no reason i'd put their cake / bun / donut in the paper bag with the tongs and then squeeze it so it was all squished. I'm not sorry either.

😂😂😂 I’m living for these!

I’ve only worked in clothes retail and not food. The most I did when a customer went out of there way to be rude is send their order to a completely different address or wouldn’t even bother going into the stockroom and would say their size is sold out in all stores.

People can really be dicks

That's fair enough. But deliberately giving someone something they didn't order is really stupid and dangerous.
Supposing someone had a serious allergic reaction, or went into a diabetic coma?

Working in pubs and cafes, I've been told "I'm going to rape the gay out of you" (in a gay bar), had quite a few angry men tell me they're going to wait outside for me after my shift to teach me a lesson, had people tell me there's too many of "your lot" in this country and they want to be served by an English person, had people refuse to take money I've touched, had people refuse to believe I was the manager because I'm a woman and then get violent when other staff backed me up.
I've never done anything to anyone's food or drink but my God it's been tempting.

General public and be incredibly rude and I think it's only got worse.

But I never tampered with food - I might have been less obliging to some than I could have been but never more than that.

Though I was waiting in chemist - which still has restricted numbers - and an a non customer came to just to have a go at the ship worker not liking how she'd done something visible through the shop window. I mean who does that - why do that - in end they left threatening writing to management.