AIBU to think customers who complain after 5 minutes need to get a grip?

[Coffeecompants]

I work in a hotel in the British Isles which is a popular summer destination, and we're still fairly busy, around 90 guests for breakfast each morning. Breakfast runs for 3 hours, but people can obviously come whenever they like, and I completely understand not wanting to get up at the crack of dawn on holiday. In reality, most arrive around 9am, so we get a fairly busy 30–45 minute period where lots of people arrive at once.

It's first come, first served. Guests are shown to a table and their tea/coffee order is taken straight away, then they have the buffet with hot and cold food, juices etc, as well as an à la carte menu. I'm the barista, so I'm in the back making teas, coffees and toast. Orders come through as checks and I make them in order. During the busy period I can get 10 orders in 5 minutes, so even though I'm pretty quick, a little queue obviously builds up.

Anyway, we're in the middle of the busy period. The dining room is mostly full, people are arriving steadily and I've got about 5–7 drinks in my queue. A colleague comes back from the floor and says, "Do you have a check for table 5? They've complained they've been waiting AGES and they're not very happy." I'm literally putting their drinks on the tray as she says this. I go to check, thinking maybe I’d lost track of time while so deep in my coffee-making groove, or that a ticket had been lost and they'd been waiting 15–20 minutes. It happens to be the order I'd just made and I was placing on the service tray right that second... they’d ordered 6 minutes ago. Six minutes.

Now, if you've been waiting 25 minutes for a coffee and nobody has brought it, absolutely ask. Things get missed, tickets go astray, mistakes happen. I'd rather you tell us so we can sort it. But 6 minutes imo is not long by any stretch of the imagination . During the busiest part of breakfast, when you can see the dining room is busy and staff are clearly working through orders?

People can see what's going on. They can see other people arriving, other tables waiting, staff taking orders, bringing food and drinks etc. We're not all standing around having a nice chat while their coffee languishes somewhere. Yet somehow it's "I've been waiting AGES, better go and complain."
And the thing is, complaining doesn't make the coffee appear any quicker. Someone then has to stop what they're doing to deal with it, which disrupts the order of service and inevitably affects something else.

We get variations of this all the time and this is just one example of an endless list of crazy unreasonable 'complaints' .
Oe recent that stands out (but is hardly unusual for the kind of thing we ge) was man who got absolutely furious because the other guests had apparently "eaten all the sausages". Yes when there have been 30 people art the buffet in 15 minutes, it gets depleted. Obviously, in an ideal world we'd have enough staff to monitor every item on the buffet and perfectly time every refill with the kitchen, but unfortunately we don't have that level of staffing or, as far as I know, magic wands. We apologised and told him the chef was preparing more and they'd be out in a couple of minutes. They were ready less than 3 minutes later. A colleague then took a fresh plate of sausages over to his table so he didn't have to go back to the buffet. He then got annoyed that we'd brought them to him.
Honestly, you couldn't write it.

Maybe I'm just completely jaded from working in hospitality for a while, but sometimes the level of outrage over completely normal things is baffling. If something has genuinely gone wrong, absolutely tell us. But if you're in a busy breakfast room, you've been waiting six minutes and you can see staff working through orders, just sit down and wait for your bloody coffee. Although it does at least give us something to laugh about afterwards when we're talking about how ridiculous you were.

Sorry, realise this was a fairly long post , and I promise that I do actually quite enjoy my job, but it's just these unrealistic demands and entitlement that sour it!

AIBU to think six minutes is a perfectly normal wait, and that some people have completely lost the plot when it comes to waiting in restaurants? Or would you be one of these complaining guests and think that's perfectly justified?

Don't disagree with your suggestions, but unfortunately our coffee area is physically too small for more than one person to stand in, let alone work together.

I get why people are jumping to fix the staffing and system issues (and yes, management is as clueless as you'd expect—I’ve argued for buffet coffee till I'm blue in the face). But focusing on how the hotel should run feels like a bit of a strawman that misses the actual point.

Whatever the setup, waiting 6 minutes for a freshly made coffee at peak breakfast time in a full room isn't unreasonable; it's the ridiculous customer attitude that treats a minor 6-minute queue like a major crisis that I'm calling out.

Some customers do lie about the time they have waited,

I can give you a few examples from my work.

. I started work at 12pm at the supermarket. Walked into the store via the main customer entrance at 11:50. Came down at 12pm "oh could you take (colleague) for their lunch from the kiosk". There was a couple that stood back from the queue.

About 5 mins later, the woman piped up "we are next and been waiting 35 mins". This was 12:05pm and I didn't see them in the store when I entered it 15 mins previously. Also why where they stood in an area which isn't a queue? I said you weren't there when I entered the store 15 mins before and this is not the queue. Another colleague agreed with me

They wanted a manager which I got. Myself, a colleague and by now, another customer who entered the store at the same time as the couple said they have not been there for 40 mins, by the time this happened. The couple became very abusive and manager asked them to leave.

About an hour later, I was in the back area. Manager asked me to see the CCTV footage of the couple. Look at the time stamp between them entering and the woman thrusting her hand. 50 seconds. Not the 35 mins as they claimed. They were banned on their next visit.

Call centre. The lines opened at 9am and trying to ring before this got the automated message "our opening hours are ....." then the call terminated. Also when customers rang us, it said how long they were in the queue before they spoke to someone. At 9:10am, got a call "we have been waiting 25 mins to speak to you". Err, you haven't. Just 3 mins. They may have tried at 8:45am but to be told the lines are not open for another 15 mins. You don't then claim you have been in the queue for 25 mins.

Op, I am with you completely. People have eyes, they can see it is busy. A six minute wait for a coffee is hardly world ending or a big deal. If they want a hotel that has coffee available for self service, because they simply cannot wait, they should book a hotel with that. They didn’t.
Plus. Most hotel rooms now have coffee making facilities IN the room, and/or room service. If people are so strung out for their caffeine fix, they can have a coffee before they come down to breakfast.

I’m sorry but 5-6m for a barista made coffee during rush hour is not unreasonable 😂😂 if they were pressing a button to make a “latte” then maybe.

OP you’re not unreasonable. I’ve had customers tell me they’ve waited “half an hour” for something and we have a system that shows the exact time (including seconds). If they’re being exceptionally arsey about it I have no issue pointing to it and saying actually - it’s been 7 minutes.

I have said "Oh I will check your ticket time" and brought it out to them.....guess what? "Your system must not be working properly then!" funny how it only stops working for people like this isnt it?

The number of times I want to scream "ITS A KITCHEN NOT A FUCKING TIME MACHINE!!!!"

Honestly - as a Customer Services Manager in the travel sector - I think SOME Customers need to get a grip in general. I’ve noticed this year the demands for compensation for (these are quotes) ‘emotional distress’ and ‘severe anxiety’ caused by perfectly mundane issues that come with travel (delayed luggage, minor flight delays, other people’s crying children on a flight) has rocketed. Of course it’s annoying and inconvenient, I completely sympathise with that and we do a lot of work behind the scenes to iron these things out, but to send pages and pages of shitty AI created emails about it after the fact demanding cash and often dropping in how important a person their Big Job makes them never fails to get my back right up from the off.

On the upside we have some lovely customers. A couple recently suffered a huge inconvenience on their journey caused by ground handlers (the bane of my existence) with every right to absolutely kick off but they’ve been so level-headed and reasonable about it. I’m so grateful for their understanding that they’ll receive priority service from us for as long as they remain our customers.

Oh yes. I often have people tell me as a statement of fact exactly how long their flight has been delayed for, or how long they’ve waited for a transfer, apparently not realising that I have access to the receipts for all of these things.

I enjoyed the Woman who told me they waited over an hour for their transfer on arrival. There was 28 minutes between the aircraft doors opening and the car pulling away from the airport, which included baggage collection and passport control. Perhaps she hasn’t adjusted her watch on arrival.

Customers do this for dramatic effect, somehow thinking they will get bumped up the queue. My favourite is when they tell me that they have places to be and they need to be seen RIGHT. NOW. Okay, so does everyone else that’s been in the same queue and patiently waited their turn.

People certainly have audacity! or is it genuine delusion?
idk can't relate, or fathom lying like that for a complaint (or complaining at all tbf, unless of course it was something genuinely worthy of one- which these things probably weren't! )

I think the root of the problem is likely not so much that people don't want to wait 6 minutes for a barista-made coffee as that they don't really care about a barista-made coffee at all.

Most people don't see breakfast as a particularly luxurious meal - and they clearly like the informal buffet-style help-yourself format for the food. Most people would be very happy with a machine-made coffee; and if there were a machine there, absolutely nobody would tolerate waiting 6 minutes for it to make their coffee.

I'm reminded of the Rowan Atkinson scene in Love, Actually - where the shop assistant believes the customer to be totally unreasonable in expecting him to be able to do all of his fancy stuff any faster, whereas the customer doesn't actually want/care about all the fancy stuff in the slightest. Obviously, his reason for wanting speed was to avoid being rumbled for his affair; but plenty of perfectly innocent, non-affair-having folk would naturally plump for speed and simplicity over time-consuming extra fuss that they don't really see any benefit in.

This is true. I have to wait in traffic to emerge from a side-street to a busy main road twice every day. Most of us just resign ourselves to the fact that it will take as long as it takes; but there are still regular dingbats who will honk their horns to help other people in the queue understand that THEY really don't want to have to wait!

Likewise I’m asked a dozen times a week if I can make an exception on cancellation or amendment fees because of the ‘exceptional / unexpected circumstances’ as if everyone else that’s cancelling or changing a holiday at short notice is doing it on a complete whim.

Covid has caused majority of impatience.

Even when in traffic lights, I often see drivers in the car rolling their eyes, curse using hands like claws.

Also @FettleOfKish it’s those passengers who stand up, thrust boarding passes and passports when they have seats on row 10 but the announcement says passengers who have seats in rows 20-34 to board. The row 10 passengers get very arsey.

The plane isn’t going to take off with you

I need my caffeine in the morning and at home always have a coffee in bed. I hate instant and plastic milk so in hotels you often have to wait until breakfast for a fix. By that time I'm definitely clucking. Might have been an excuse for their poor behaviour.

I have had a very interesting conversation recently about how we are no longer conditioned to wait for things. Streaming services, Amazon, Uber Eats etc so many things are now readily available that never were. We have lost the art of waiting/patience!

Yes guests are incapable of judging how long the wait is.

Staff need to explain coffees will be 5 mins. More than 10 is unacceptable.

You would wait a few minutes in Costa or a bar for a cocktail.

My sister has seen this and it always baffles her. Like she says....your waiting time is going to be exactly the same, just in a different seat!

She thinks it is psychological, so if they are on the plane they feel like they will get there quicker!

If the drinks are being delivered to their table then they are very impatient to be complaining after 6 minutes.

I think a drinks machine is better as customers feel more in control of the process.

You could also have a hot water thermos so the tea drinkers don’t have to wait around.

I think this is a copout and doesn't 'excuse' anything.
These aren't todlers who haven't had a snack and therefor can't regulate emotions until after their fix is met.

If a grown adult acts like an asshole just because they haven't had their caffine, they either need to 'medicate' themselves with it before going out in public if they cant act civily without it , or buck up and pretend to be a decent person before they can get their fix.

And i say that as someone who is highly caffine dependant, but would never be moody or a dick to people out in public because I haven't had my coffee, and would feel highly ashamed of myself if I ever were.

The same folks that are poised, seatbelt already unclipped, to pop up like gophers and stand awkwardly in the aisle with their crotch at some poor soul’s eye level until the doors open.

I fly domestic often and it’s not unusual for the crew to ask people to stay seated and let people with short connections disembark first. The FRUSTRATION from the gophers is palpable.

I had the exact same thing today! Was at Slim chickens, placed order and sat down. A man and his son came and sat next to us. We got our food and then he says to the staff “can you check on table 5, we’ve been waiting 6 minutes.” What the hell is wrong with people when they can’t wait 6 minutes!!!

unable to determine the exact wait, sure

Completely incapable of having an inclination that maybe it might take a little longer than you might expect? - no, you'd have to be quite dim, have no awareness or critical thinking skills and never have been out anywhere for that.

But they're paying customers and they just don't want to have to wait longer than necessary and rely on somebody else for their drinks - when, if there were a machine there, as is normal for buffet-style breakfasts in large hotels, they could just press a button and walk away with their coffee in half a minute. They don't want a chance to prove their patience or resilience; they just want a simple, as-efficient-as-possible breakfast experience.

Lots of people will probably want a refill or two of coffee or tea over the course of their breakfast, but won't bother if they have to order it and wait 6 minutes each time... so this is just a case of arbitrary management decisions making customers' experience much less satisfactory than it easily could have been and thus them rating the place lower in reviews/their recollections when it comes to booking for next time - which is traditionally not conducive to great ongoing business success.

I have heard theories that covid infection itself causes changes wrt impulsivity and aggression. Anecdotally "people" (ie me, you and everyone) reportedly appear to be more short tempered since it happened. It's an interesting thought - that it's like a slow burn version of the rage in 28 days later, and we'll eventually kill each other through creeping tetchiness.

Or, maybe we're all just a bit more on edge due to how tech has infiltrated our lives in this time, both in terms of the resultant massive decline in customer service and also the constant nerve jangling sensation of being always connected.

I have mixed feelings on this one. If no expectations are set then yes I think five minutes is quite a long wait for a coffee especially if the wait is because management set the expectation that there will be barista service rather than help yourself.

However, I wouldn’t follow up until after the period set by expectation so if seater said five to ten minutes. I wouldn’t follow only follow up after ten minutes.