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?

I’m not excusing rudeness and selfishness. But maybe a lot of this could be resolved if guests knew that 9am > is your busiest time. I was surprised to read that. I would have guessed 8> would be busier, with the emphasis on guess because I really didn’t know.

I would definitely go for breakfast earlier if I knew the busy time, not only for quicker service but I imagine it would be more peaceful too. Others might think the same way

Have said to people who are impatient and rude. “Have you ever worked in retail, customer service or hospitality?” They always say no. “It clearly shows” They struggle to respond to that.

I advocate a new consumer act to bring customer service into this century where much is done online. Stop rip-offs such as dynamic pricing and some of the things Ryanair do.

Included in this there should be some simple measures that cover customers blatant lying so incentivise the truth to be told when something goes wrong.

Exaggerated language is a consequence of many things and some retailers and/or hospitality help encourage this- not every offer is 'amazing' for example.

I cannot BELIEVE the number of posters who are basically agreeing with the complaining customers and blaming it on your system OP 🤣

Absolutely wild!

So many people are arseholes nowadays and this is what makes hospitality so hard. I feel for you. ❤️

As others have said, a self-service coffee machine makes much more sense at a breakfast buffet, and as long as it’s a quality machine such as a Faema or La Cimbali etc with fresh beans and fresh milk every day I don’t see how that would devalue the hotel’s brand. Personally I like a cup of tea at breakfast so as long as there are tea bags and a separate hot water boiler that gets to at least 90°c I’m happy.

All the posters saying the hotel should just offer a pot of coffee or tea don't seem to realise that the OP is a barista, so would be out of a job.

Can you see why a barista may not agree that an automated coffee machine might be better than a barista-functioned coffee machine?

Yes I do understand the difference between espresseo and instant coffee, what I find intrusive is the heavy banging of the portafilter to remove the 'coffee puck' after making each coffee.

If this Government had any backbone they would introduce a law that every coffeeshop had to have something like this...
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1080633747125538

Im with you. I work with the general public and some people are just so demanding and have no thought of others.

Of course. But that isn’t the reality in this situation is it?

I always have my first 'got to have it, absolutely gasping and can't function otherwise' cup of tea in my room before I go down to breakfast. Then I'm fine to wait.

Don't like it when the buffet runs out of an item just as it gets to me though, but it's hardly going to ruin my day!

They have not worked in retail or hospitality

OMG! The number of British hotel guests when I have visited foreign countries in the hotel breakfast think it’s the end of the world if there are no cornflakes!

Why travel on holiday expecting bloody cornflakes? They are the most boring foods

People staying in hotels may be there for a leisurely holiday, or they may be under time pressure. And quite often haven’t slept well for one reason or another.
So a good hotel should offer a choice of quick self serve or barista-made drinks.
(it’d help if they’d also stop the recent trend of not having decent sized mugs in the bedrooms, and supplying enough milk for all the occupants to have a drink when they get in and one or two in the morning without having to get extra. I don’t want a bloody thimbleful of black nespresso.)

Fair enough, if it's clear that it's a table service place (although I wouldn't really call it proper table service if the food is out on the side for people to help themselves, so this in itself is giving out a confusing message); and if people have indicated/demonstrated that they prefer waiting for somebody to bring them their drink rather than a quicker self-service option, all well and good.

Either way, it is never acceptable for them to get arsey with staff when they have no control in it personally - although I would wonder if they realise that you're on your own in the back, working hard in dealing with all of the orders, and not just lazily taking forever over it? - but as I said before, some who don't like it will just vote with their feet and go elsewhere in future if they prefer the different setup of the other place.

It's not just about a perceived right to complain - I don't think anybody is claiming that that is justified, are they? I think people have a right to be peeved if somebody else whom they are paying for a service has deliberately chosen a slow way to deliver that service.

You also can't just say that 6 minutes is a short or long time out of context. Obviously, for many things, it's no time at all; but for other simple things, it's a disproportionately and unnecessarily long time to wait. As for 'rush hour', hotels do know how many guests they can accommodate, and when they make breakfast available, and the relatively small window when most people will come down - and be prepared for it. It might be that they find they need two or three coffee machines, if they're a big place. Unfortunately, even if they offered it, guests would not be willing to spread themselves out throughout the whole day, coming for their breakfast.

I just think that having buffet-style food available for people to help themselves, but having to order and wait for a barista to make them a coffee, is sending out baffling mixed messages. Is it table service or isn't it? Is it instantly ready or isn't it?

If the only thing separating them from a premier inn is not having a coffee machine, they are doing it wrong.

ITA with pp. I couldn’t care less, if I were staying in a five star hotel about a “barista” coffee. We have just stayed in a three star hotel in Greece, with about 60 rooms. They had three coffee machines at breakfast. Two did the normal range of Americano, espresso, cappuccino, etc and hot water for tea. The third was bean to cup.

My convenience about being able to get the drink I want from a machine within a minute is way more important to me, than someone else making the same coffee with a machine and taking 6 minutes. I for one can’t tell the difference.

(We did stay in a five star hotel in Greece in May. They insisted on making hot drinks to order but imo it didn’t improve the hotel experience at all - quite the opposite)

I'm sure being a barista is far from her only skill in hospitality. Nobody is wanting her to be out of a job; it's just that it's wise to be able to differentiate between where an actual human input is valued/important/essential and where a machine can be more efficient and free up the human staff to do less monotonous tasks that a machine can't easily/satisfactorily do.

OP has said that a lot of customers DO like barista-style service, so wouldn't it be much more sensible to offer both options: get a machine so that people who want a quick filter coffee can grab one - and can be 'reminded' of this option if they complain about having to wait; and also have service for people who are very happy to wait a few minutes for an authentic barista experience, provided by somebody who is free to concentrate on the special orders and isn't under added pressure from the people who just want their basic caffeine boost ASAP?

Presumably they offer several different varieties of coffee drink, and don't just tell people that it's a cappuccino or nothing - as well as tea, fruit tea, hot chocolate etc. - so why not cater for customers' different preferences in this way too?

ETA... I've just re-read the OP and saw this again: then they have the buffet with hot and cold food, juices etc, as well as an à la carte menu

What on earth sense does it make offering both a simple help-yourself-to-the-standard-stuff buffet and an à la carte option to cater to different customers' preferences; but then not extend that choice to the hot drinks too? They don't seem to know what kind/level of establishment they want to be - at the moment, they're neither one nor the other.

I’ve often mused on their being some kind of service industry national service. A couple of years in the late teens or early 20s, retail or hospitality or catering, or perhaps care work. Knock the entitlement out of people before it takes root.

I have in my youth; and worked in a customer serving profession for 40 years. If we don’t give clients a good service, we starve!

I agree: no place that could genuinely be considered 'upscale' or 'higher end' would have a buffet with dishes of sausages, mushrooms and scrambled eggs on a long hot-plate in the first place.

What's the point in alienating many of the customers that you DO have in favour of catering to the clientele that would likely never choose you anyway?!

My convenience about being able to get the drink I want from a machine within a minute is way more important to me, than someone else making the same coffee with a machine and taking 6 minutes. I for one can’t tell the difference.

I think this part is key. If you remember the early days of telephones, where you had to wait to speak to an operator and ask them to connect you, you were getting actual personal service provided by a human... but as soon as STD came in and it became possible to just press a few buttons yourself and then speak directly to the person you were wanting to contact in a few seconds, nobody was ruing the old days and cavilling at people now being too impatient to wait for a third-party middleman/woman to step in and assist, when all you wanted to do was say "I'll see you there at 8, then? Thanks, bye!"

But a 6 minute wait isn’t ’poor Service’

Many people will consider that it is if other places can provide what they want as standard in a tenth of the time.