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?

You wouldn't even know if staff had messed about with your food. That is the point. It's underhand and cowardly. Just because you have access to somebody's paid-for food doesn't mean that you have any rights at all to tamper with it so your rule is simply tautology.

There is so much CCTV now that these 'stories' sound more like wishful thinking and boasting. You'd have to be very stupid indeed to risk carrying out revenge on a customer.

Most people know how to behave and don't treat serving staff with disrespect. I agree with Maverickess that management are ineffective and they should be protecting their staff from abusive customers. Why aren't they?

People absolutely can be beyond rude when you work in a place like this. I worked in greggs as a student and it was the worst job I ever had, I somehow lasted for 10 months before quitting on the spot after a particularly hideous shift.

They chat to you like you’re a piece of shit that’s beneath them in some way because you’re just a min wage robot dishing pastries out into paper bags. Most people are ok, some are very kind but there’s a small minority who are honestly just absolute dickheads.

One regular customer always demanded his sausages were chopped in half in his baguette. The sausages are tiny and red hot, you’re not allowed to wear gloves for hygiene reasons so I had to hold those scorching hot sausages in my bare hands while I tried to chop them in half. They’re all greasy and slippery too so I cut myself more than once. Why the fuck he wanted them chopping in half, I still don’t understand. Eventually I just stopped serving him all together and asked someone else to.

You are definitely not being unreasonable.
I mean what kind of pyscho messes with someone's food order regardless of how vile or rude they are when you CHOOSE to work in retail and hospitality u k ow there's always going to be idiots if u don't want to deal with that then pick another profession although there's idiots in all kinds of life.
But Messing with someone's food or drink is irresponsible and downright dangerous not to mention you are opening up yourself to a myriad of lawsuits if u god forbid do end up making someone seriously ill or god forbid kill someone coz of your actions.
OP you are very right on this one.

Spot on! 👏 why on earth do people try and normalise playing God with someone’s food? Literally could cause injury or worse to people with allergies/intolerances!

Genuinely don’t understand why this would be a problem? Always cut my kids sausages in half and use a fork or tongs to hold it? Customers ask for crazy things, some customers have mental health problems, if you work face to face surely you expect strange customer demands??

This is hilarious, I would never have thought of poking my nails into their fruit 😂 Brilliant 😂

I'm allergic to dairy, I've gone to coffee shops and asked for a milk alternative & within half an hour have chronic pain that can last up to 3 hours, cause they obviously used dairy milk.
When ordering I've had someone tell me to 'let loose' cause it's 'the holidays'. I'm not asking for a fad, I'm asking cause I can't tolerate that specific thing!
I wouldn't be nasty to a server anyway but you will always get days where the server isn't in the best of form & can take it out on the customer

I don't blame them at all. People who are rude to food service staff deserve whatever comes to them. It's not just rude, it's stupid to purposely upset someone who is preparing something you are about to eat or drink.

You know what? I can’t really bring myself to care that much about those that are so rude they inspire staff to behave badly - I am polite and friendly to those that work in service roles even if they aren’t able to do what I want. So this has literally no impact on me.

Working at Mcdonalds as a teenager I always remember the sinister way a colleague would remind rude customers he would be the person preparing their food. Attitudes of rude customers changed fast 🤣 He never actually messed with anyone's order but the implied threat was sufficient

I know people who won't even make the mildest of complaints in restaurants because they're afraid some moron will decide to take offence and tamper with their food.
People who do this fully deserve to be kicked out on their arse with no reference.

As a person with T1 diabetes, the consequences of a persom changing the milk, for instance, I asked for could mean my welbeing could be seriously compromised with either not enough insulin or too much insulin which can lead to unconsciousness.

I bolus insulin depending on the fat content of milk, to keep my blood glucose stable.

No one would know who has a condition such as diabetes or a food alergy which are both hidden conditions, so someone having their food switched by some unhinged nutter which could cause anaphylaxis .........and death for those with food alergies.

This is why induviduals who sabotage food of customers can be jailed or recieve an unlimited fine.

Never mind making someone ill, this could kill someone who has a a severe allergy to something on the food you’ve swapped. Some places even ask before serving if you have allergies and will check the ingredients - happened to us in frankie and bennies and TGI Friday and one wouldn’t even serve a particular pudding without me signing something as they couldn’t be sure it was totally free of the allergen (it was but some people clump specific nuts in with not being able to eat all nuts which isn’t true for us).

Abso-fricking-lutely!!! We all have shitty days and people treating us shitty-ly. Doesn't justify being an arsehole with respect to food/food service.

I was a waitress for almost a decade and dealt with my fair share of arses. But I never ever dreamt of doing anything unprofessional, unhygienic nor dangerous. People might be arseholes. Doesn’t mean I have to be an arsehole too.

Agreed. Important life lesson.

The choc and instead of carrot cake one is just stupid.

I mean, they are obviously completely different so all she’s doing is wasting a perfectly good piece of cake that the customer will inevitably complain about.

I've been in hospitality for years and I've never messed food, it just doesn't happen. That doesn't mean we don't do petty shit.

If you're a nice, decent human being you're going to get a bit of extra whipped cream, the bigger scoop of ice cream, a free cake.

If you're awful to me (only been threatened with death once this week for a change) you're getting the bare minimum. The smallest amount of cream. A single chocolate sprinkle. A normal highball glass instead of an Instagram worthy cocktail glass.

Generally when people treat us like shit we have to stand and take it, management don't back us up. But still, I don't know anyone who would actually mess with food or drinks like that.

That's fine. If someone is nasty, then they don't deserve to have people go all out for them. I would be tempted not to serve them at all, but that may not unfortunately be permitted.

Sorry that some customers are so vile.

They deserve to have only the minimum or less done for them; to not be served; to be kicked out and banned; in extreme cases, arrested.

They don't deserve to have their health endangered. And even if you think they do, it might not only be them who suffer. Suppose that the rude person, who is served nut-containing cake without their knowledge, shares it with their severely allergic child? Suppose that someone, who is given unhygienic and contaminated food, gets a bad infection and gives it to their whole family?

If that cake they swapped has nuts in it or something it could be a disaster. How would they know the person hasn't any allergies ?
This is why I'm always pleasant and polite to anyone in hospitality or retail ; they deserve our respect.

I want to make a serious point here about the allergies thing, please, please tell anyone serving you anything about allergies when ordering, as people keep pointing out - we don't know if you have them, I'm careful and hygienic but we do use all sorts of products in a kitchen and behind the bar that may contain nuts or dairy (for example one of our syrups for cocktails and coffee says may contain nuts, you wouldn't know unless you read the label it's not an obvious thing) telling me means I can be extra careful and check before I serve you something.

@LyingWitchInTheWardrobe
I actually just went back to hospitality last year and it's better than social care (which doesn't say much) in terms of pay and conditions, at least where I work anyway.
One thing I've noticed from pre pandemic to now is that everyone wants top notch customer service, but they're not seemingly willing for someone else to get it, people seem to take a lot more time deciding, need a lot more putting in from our side compared to a couple of years ago, yet they are very impatient if the person in front of them is doing the same. People cut across you serving someone else so many times, will stop you with hands full of plates or a tray of glasses to be delivered and get arsey if you say you'll just deliver what you have to other customers and come back. I get that people want customer service that's good, they want that 'experience' but the most annoying thing is that you're immediately labelled lazy, useless or incompetent if you aren't available immediately for each customer simultaneously, and people take it soooo personally.
Someone rolled their eyes at me and had a "For fucks sake!" when a barrel ran out on me yesterday mid serving, it's just life and I didn't particularly want to leg it down the cellar either, was gone less than a minute and they got their drinks about 90 seconds later than they would have done, I don't think that warranted the attitude towards me or the sarcastic "Did you have to brew it as well?" When I came back. The reactions to small, minor inconveniences are so OTT.
The guy could have been having a bad day, and I didn't react as I mustn't being a service worker and all, apart from to apologise, but even if he was having a bad day - is 90 seconds to get your hands on a pint of cider really so devastating?
It's all those small, seemingly insignificant little things that add together to bring you down a bit by the end of a shift and the really sad thing is that some people do it to actively ruin your day for no other reason than your job.

Maverickess, I think that some people are just so self-absorbed that they see only their immediate wants/needs and that tunnel vision makes them very rude indeed.

I won't comment on people's drinking habits other than to back up your suggestion that yes, to some people, they simply cannot bear to wait for an alcoholic drink. It's a shame that you and your colleagues take the flak for that, it shouldn't be acceptable.

I've seen breathtaking rudeness to staff this week at my local gym. Shouting at a member of staff for wanting to get the equipment ready for a scheduled class. Completely unacceptable and whatever the reason, it's not good enough.

Managers - across the board - need to step up and chuck out these customers, ban them for good - taking with them the moron staff who would land the company in court. The dregs will run out of places to frequent and so they should. Nobody should be putting up with the sort of behaviour detailed in this thread.