Are generally shitty parents. I feel bad for other people in the shop when there's a shitty family in, because unlike myself and the rest of the people that work here, their chances of encountering shitty families are much lower. Well I hope so anyway. Public places seem to be the ideal dwelling spot for shitty families, and I'm guessing it's because they want to boast about how bad at being a family they are, because I imagine that's what shit people do. Anyway, this family in particular really got on everybodys tits the other day. Mam and Dad, two boys and two girls. Assholes. They came in and completely re-arranged the soft seating are to cater for themselves, which is one of the worst things people can do, purely because it's a pain in the todger to fix after they leave.
The parents came up to the till and just said the word "coffee" one after another. I wasn't going to bother asking what type or size so I just put it in the till as two venti americanos. If you're in anyway familiar with our sizes and coffees, venti is the biggest, and americanos are more expensive than normal filtered coffee. Granted, it's not even that pricey, and the money is going straight to the man and not me, but it was victory #1. The cunts had the cheek to then ask for "some cookies". Not how many cookies, just some. So I gave them some. I charged for three. Victory #2. Seeing as we're always really quiet, most of the time it'd be just two people working per shift. My supervisor was on a break at the time so I was juggling till and bar, and it was grand. Seeing as the dicks hadn't asked for anything but "coffee" in terms of drinks, that's what they got. Coffee. Right up to the top. No space for milk. Sure they didn't ask. So they got their two coffees and three cookies after they'd paid, seeing as i was doing bar and till, and when they got them after paying they looked real pissed off. I smiled and told them to enjoy their coffees. Victory #3.
"There's no space for milk in these..."
"Oh, sorry about that. I'm just used to making black coffees when a coffee is asked for, you should have just said you'd like space for milk. I'll pour some of those out.
"Oh ok, thanks. And could you give me another cookie? We've got four children with us..."
"Oh, really sorry about that, I only saw three kids with the way the couches were re-arranged."
There's nothing wrong with anything I said, as I said it with a smile on my face, but still, victory #4.
Charging them €2.50 for an extra cookie was victory #5. The cookies are fucking huge by the way, it's not as extortionate as you may imagine.
After the kids had finished their cookies, all hell broke loose. Well, considering we're probably the most chilled out store, a bit of kids acting the arsehole is deemed as all hell breaking loose. One fucking dickhead decided he'd go over to the condiment bar and make the biggest straw in the world. Fair enough, it's actually not that big a deal, but when he belongs to a clan of pricks it's the worst thing in the world. I went over and just started cleaning the condiment bar and took the straws and stirring sticks away so he couldn't have any more fun. #6.
The other brother and one of the sisters decided to have a game of chasing around the shop, all well and good until the girl somehow tricked the dude into going flying into a chair, which really pissed him off and he started running mad fast at her, which led to her screaming and running towards the stairs. And she would have fallen down them too if the dad didn't get up and grab her and tell them to stop. But he did it in a really aggressive manner which made pretty much everybody in the shop 100% more awkward than they/we already were. The other kid was just sitting there with her arms crossed and a grumpy face on her, and that even pissed me off.
They went to use the lift and I told them they couldn't unless they had a pram, buggy or wheelchair. #7.
Fuck that family.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
People are idiots.
Obviously you might see a pattern forming here. I tend to write about people being idiots a lot, because a lot of the time, people are idiots. To cut a long story (in which I cut my finger open) short, I was working in the busy store last night because I was covering for some dick who just straight up didn't come in to work. Idiot #1 right there. We close to the public at 8pm and have 2 hours to get the store clean, because we've only got 2 people working, and the store is heeeewwwwjjjj. We put the shutters down when everybody leaves, which was about 8.10ish. We leave the shutters open a tiny tiny bit so we can actually get out of the shop when we're done, and then close them from the outside then. So they're like 2ft off the ground at this stage. Grand. You might have the odd dog come in and fuck your shit up every once in a while, but then again, you might not. So at about 9pm I'm in the back cleaning all the equipment for the next day when some wrecked bitch scares the fucking shit out of me by just appearing beside me and asking if she can get a coffee to go. Now keep in mind that I'm in the back of house, and the shutters are down. She saw that the shutters were down and decided to (as good as) crawl under them and then COME AND FUCKING FIND ME IN THE BACK OF THE SHOP. I just looked at her and let out that shrill "NNNOOOOOO!" thing that people do when they don't want to shout, but want to use emphasis. She looked at me, puzzled, as if I was the bad guy for not letting her get a coffee an hour after we closed, and then goes "Why not, are your tills closed or something?". I didn't know what to do, so I did nothing. She left soon after I gave up on her. Idiot #2 right there. But what a fucking creep, to be fair. I don't know what sort of jam people are putting on their bread.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
The Old Geezer
This is Malaysian Dave's pet name for a regular customer we have called Pat. Pat's pushing 83 and wears the same clothes every single day. Because of that, his clothes smell like piss. So bad. So so so bad. He comes in about 3 or 4 times a week about half an hour before we're about to close up. He gets fruit bread and a grande americano. We keep a portion of fruit bread for him in the cupboard because he takes about 10 minutes to choose something else if we don't have any. He's the first person that I've ever convinced that the americano is pronounced ammerikkino rather than americano, if that makes sense (by the way, people coming in and asking for an ammerikkino and having someone on the till going "wtf...", is the funniest thing ever). Yeah so back to Pat smelling like piss. It's so bad. So so so bad. It literally stinks up the whole shop, and it even overpowers the smell of non-corrosive oven cleaner on the panini grill. Shit, it makes oven cleaner actally smell half decent.
We have timers in work to remind us when it's time to do stuff like change the drip coffee and when to plunge the plunger on the french press for coffee tasting and stuff. They've got three functions:
7 minutes.
The smell had already infiltrated most of the store by the time he'd sat down anyway be cause he was at the till, but fucking hell. The first couple to leave, left after 7 seconds of him sitting down. We counted the people in the store (just for facts sake), and there was 23. for our shop and the business that we do, 23 is a pretty full house for us. Pat cleared 23 people out of the store in 7 minutes.
Another thing about the old geezer is that nobody knows what the fuck he's saying. Ever. I kind of do, because I rule, but the full time staff are made up of a Malaysian dude, an Indian dude, a Japanese girl, a Polish girl, and me. Now these four have enough trouble understanding me if I get a bit too excited or giddy, how the fuck are they going to know what a weezy coffin dodger with a thick Dublin accent covered up in a hefty coat of old is saying? There's three part timers who are all Irish, and can probably understand him, but I don't work with them or care about them enough for them to count. He once called me Niall of the nine hostages and then started laughing. I don't know what that means so I'm not sure if it's funny or not, but the Polish girl got really scared when he said it. Yikes.
The thing that pissed Davie off most about him is that Pat wrecks our jax every night he's in without fail. As long as they've just been cleaned. Dave likes to get everything done before we actually close to the public so that our actual close is way faster, and not as rushed or cramped. The toilets are good to be cleaned an hour before we close because we don't get too many people in at that period, and if we do, hardly anyone ever uses the toilet. Except Pat. He spends about 20 minutes in there, doesn't flush, and leaves the place looking like the front door of a church after a wedding, except the confetti is actually snotty tissue paper. I don't know why he doesn't put it into the bog and I don't know how he gets the jax roll broken up into such tiny pieces, but he does it. Every time. The funniest thing is that he never seems to go to the toilet if it hasn't been cleaned already, and Davie goes mad about that. "HOW COME HE NEVER GOES WHEN I'LL HAVE TO CLEAN IT ANYWAY? HE ONLY GOES WHEN IT HAS BEEN DONE SO I HAVE TO CLEAN IT TWICE." Dave's recently been looking for ways to get him barred from the shopping centre, which I think is the funniest thing ever, because he's totally serious.
Realisticly, Pat's going to snuff it real soon and I honestly imagine Davie will be pretty upset about it. We all will.
We have timers in work to remind us when it's time to do stuff like change the drip coffee and when to plunge the plunger on the french press for coffee tasting and stuff. They've got three functions:
- Timer - You set a time for it to count down by the hour/minute buttons, press the start button, and there you go.
- Clock - It tells the time. Like a clock.
- Count Up - It counts up. So you can count how long something takes.
7 minutes.
The smell had already infiltrated most of the store by the time he'd sat down anyway be cause he was at the till, but fucking hell. The first couple to leave, left after 7 seconds of him sitting down. We counted the people in the store (just for facts sake), and there was 23. for our shop and the business that we do, 23 is a pretty full house for us. Pat cleared 23 people out of the store in 7 minutes.
Another thing about the old geezer is that nobody knows what the fuck he's saying. Ever. I kind of do, because I rule, but the full time staff are made up of a Malaysian dude, an Indian dude, a Japanese girl, a Polish girl, and me. Now these four have enough trouble understanding me if I get a bit too excited or giddy, how the fuck are they going to know what a weezy coffin dodger with a thick Dublin accent covered up in a hefty coat of old is saying? There's three part timers who are all Irish, and can probably understand him, but I don't work with them or care about them enough for them to count. He once called me Niall of the nine hostages and then started laughing. I don't know what that means so I'm not sure if it's funny or not, but the Polish girl got really scared when he said it. Yikes.
The thing that pissed Davie off most about him is that Pat wrecks our jax every night he's in without fail. As long as they've just been cleaned. Dave likes to get everything done before we actually close to the public so that our actual close is way faster, and not as rushed or cramped. The toilets are good to be cleaned an hour before we close because we don't get too many people in at that period, and if we do, hardly anyone ever uses the toilet. Except Pat. He spends about 20 minutes in there, doesn't flush, and leaves the place looking like the front door of a church after a wedding, except the confetti is actually snotty tissue paper. I don't know why he doesn't put it into the bog and I don't know how he gets the jax roll broken up into such tiny pieces, but he does it. Every time. The funniest thing is that he never seems to go to the toilet if it hasn't been cleaned already, and Davie goes mad about that. "HOW COME HE NEVER GOES WHEN I'LL HAVE TO CLEAN IT ANYWAY? HE ONLY GOES WHEN IT HAS BEEN DONE SO I HAVE TO CLEAN IT TWICE." Dave's recently been looking for ways to get him barred from the shopping centre, which I think is the funniest thing ever, because he's totally serious.
Realisticly, Pat's going to snuff it real soon and I honestly imagine Davie will be pretty upset about it. We all will.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Fuck yeah
So much good news as of lately. I haven't encountered a dickhead in like 3 weeks, apart from one day where our dishwasher broke and some people were getting a bit pissy about not having mugs or plates, but sure fuck them, it's no big deal.
The manager who I was covering for came back yesterday. He's my old manager and he's the best. I've probably already posted this but fuck it: One time he got his hair cut and I commented on how sharp he looked, and he replied with this really serious tone and Indian accent: "You see Niall when I don't cut my hair, it grows too long and they end up looking like little noodles". I nearly shat myself, and he hadn't got a clue why I was laughing so hard either, ehich made it 17 million times funnier. He always gives me shit about being vegetarian, too. Like he used to hide a Mozzarella Cheese paninis on me before I'd go on a break and shit like that, haha. I once asked him what the deal with the cows being sacred in India and he was like "I couldn't give a shit. I'd eat you if I had the chance." Hahahahaha wtf.
Anyway, he's back and I'm stoked. I asked if I could stay in the Hughes and Hughes store for a while because I'm enjoying the chilling spree I'm on, and he asked if I'd like to come back permanently, so I was like "fuck YEAH", and here I am. Sweet. Today he asked me if I was interested in a supervisor position seeing as one's leaving because she's going to have a baba and the other, my good friend Hoey is going back to being a part time supervisor because of his English and Business course is starting back in March. So here I am, having the buzz. Doing way less work than the busier store, and I'll soon be getting paid a shit tonne more to do so, haha. I'm totally fucked if they see this blog, though. Sketch. I can't wait for when I'm being trained in for supervisor and my manager decides to tell me more stories about his childhood like when him and his two mates used to put on their best clothes and crash weddings so that they could score some free meals, hahahaha. Best dude.
Hopefully this dream doesn't fall through because I'll be heartbroken, innit.
The manager who I was covering for came back yesterday. He's my old manager and he's the best. I've probably already posted this but fuck it: One time he got his hair cut and I commented on how sharp he looked, and he replied with this really serious tone and Indian accent: "You see Niall when I don't cut my hair, it grows too long and they end up looking like little noodles". I nearly shat myself, and he hadn't got a clue why I was laughing so hard either, ehich made it 17 million times funnier. He always gives me shit about being vegetarian, too. Like he used to hide a Mozzarella Cheese paninis on me before I'd go on a break and shit like that, haha. I once asked him what the deal with the cows being sacred in India and he was like "I couldn't give a shit. I'd eat you if I had the chance." Hahahahaha wtf.
Anyway, he's back and I'm stoked. I asked if I could stay in the Hughes and Hughes store for a while because I'm enjoying the chilling spree I'm on, and he asked if I'd like to come back permanently, so I was like "fuck YEAH", and here I am. Sweet. Today he asked me if I was interested in a supervisor position seeing as one's leaving because she's going to have a baba and the other, my good friend Hoey is going back to being a part time supervisor because of his English and Business course is starting back in March. So here I am, having the buzz. Doing way less work than the busier store, and I'll soon be getting paid a shit tonne more to do so, haha. I'm totally fucked if they see this blog, though. Sketch. I can't wait for when I'm being trained in for supervisor and my manager decides to tell me more stories about his childhood like when him and his two mates used to put on their best clothes and crash weddings so that they could score some free meals, hahahaha. Best dude.
Hopefully this dream doesn't fall through because I'll be heartbroken, innit.
Friday, January 16, 2009
So I'm halfway through
A 3 week stint of working in Starbucks Swords Hughes & Hughes (The quiet store). Since the new store opened up in the Pavillions, this store lost well over half it's business. I'd like to say that it was because all the regulars couldn't get enough of me and followed me down, but I'm pretty certain it has more to do with the new store being right beside the car park. I'm currently in H&H because the manager's away in India so I'm covering shifts, even though I have zero managerial experience whatsoever. I never thought I'd say this about Starbucks, but I fucking LOVE this store so much. We take in about €700 a day AT MOST. That's insanely quiet. Starbucks Swords Pavillions does about €3,500 or more per day (well it had been doing with the Christmas buzz). Because the store is so quiet, we start our pre-closes at like 2pm when they closing shift comes in. We're never busy in the last hour like the other store so we can hoover the carpet and sweep the floor. We have an hour and half to finish up after we close to the public. We never need more than 40 minutes between closing tills, mopping the floor, supervisor paperwork, wasting food etc. It's simply delish. And because of the fact that we're so quiet, the store is just totally zenned out. It rules. There's no dickheads anymore. What do they possibly have to complain about when they don't have to queue, the store is suoer clean and peaceful, the staff are happy to see somebody actually come in, and their drink is made pretty much before they even get their change put back into their hands?! It's truly amazing. I've been reading veggie cookbooks for about 50% of the time spent working over the past couple of days, seeing as we have a bookstore right down a flight of steps! Which brings me onto my next point...
Why oh why hasn't this store closed down, Starbucks Sos?
Well children, Starbucks have a 10 year contract with Hughes & Hughes to stay in business together, a sort of get the caffiends into literature and also give the bookworms a place to chill the beans during their first couple of chapters so they can get into the book.
Swords Hughes & Hughes truly is the mecca of Starbucks stores. Love you.
Why oh why hasn't this store closed down, Starbucks Sos?
Well children, Starbucks have a 10 year contract with Hughes & Hughes to stay in business together, a sort of get the caffiends into literature and also give the bookworms a place to chill the beans during their first couple of chapters so they can get into the book.
Swords Hughes & Hughes truly is the mecca of Starbucks stores. Love you.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Suck my dick, work.
I'm off work til Thursday for some ridiculous reason yet again. Throw a text my way and let's get hiiiiiigggghhhh.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Negative Niall.
Basically I've been called this ever since the store at the back of Hughes and Hughes in the Pavilions opened up because we had a really happy-go-lucky manager and I'd always try to make her see the flaws in her buzz of bliss. I don't know why I did it really. I guess it just comes down to the simple fact that if something's not right, it needs to be corrected. So whatever. I don't think I'm that negative at all in work. Sure, I'll point out if a customer is a dick, and I'm not as braindead as some of the people who "are only making stupid mistakes because they're enjoying themselves", but fuck, I'm not a negative person. I do have the laugh with customers if they're nice, but I'm all about the mutual respect buzz, so if someone isn't lubing me up with the uplifting and gentle auro I deserve, they're not going to enter a world of white clouds and roses with me. Fair enough.
I remember one day in particular that I was in an extremely bad mood, and it was because I was working on my dad's 5th death anniversary. I didn't really want to tell my manager about it and ask for the day off because I thought I could weather it and it kind of pisses me off when people take a day off over stuff like that or go home sick when they're clearly not, so I didn't want to do that. I'm not saying that it's bad to take some time off for grievance, but at this stage in my life it's just another day. It just so happens that the date has some meaning behind it. Basically, on that day I kept quiet for my whole shift only talking when I needed to and nodding or shaking my head if that was feasible. I can't really explain, it was just as if I couldn't have been bothered being there and didn't want to give my full dedication or something. There were a good few idiots in that day and it really made my day a lot worse than it was already going and up until a couple of days ago I can safely say that it was the only "bad" day I've had.
Yesterday got on my tits a bit. Nobody's doing any of the simple things that take 2 seconds to do and generally make things 100 times easier, like rinsing the milk jugs after they're used, or changing the brewed coffee once the timer goes off, or bringing the shot glasses that are too hot to hold into the back so they can be cleaned and cooled so that when the replacement shot glasses get too hot, there's other ones there, or getting more take away cups when it's quiet and it looks like they might run out if there's another busy little burst of customers. Stuff like that. Stuff that annoys me anyway because I have to do it ALL THE TIME, but it's annoying me a shitload more because we're so fucking busy in the run up to Christmas. One of the lads who was looking like he was going to get the supervisor position ahead of me (before nobody got it because of labour cutbacks) is especially destroying my will to live, one tiny bit after another. He has this whole public humiliation buzz that's both failing hard and completely ridiculous. The lad's a bit of a flirt with ANY GIRL THAT HE TALKS TO. Anyone. You could be Rocky from "Mask" and as long as you have a gap between your legs he'll try it on. What he doesn't like is anyone else ever having the buzz with another customer when he isn't. I was chatting away to a couple of middle aged women just because they were pretty sound and bantering away and he just cuts in and goes "It's a shame he's a gayer ladies, isn't it?" and walks off. WTF. I kind of scanned the place to gather myself to see if I was in fact gay, realised I wasn't, and then I noticed one of the women looking at me with the "how the fuck does that guy work here?" eyes, and i met her with the "I hope his house burns down on Christmas day and all of his family is wiped out along with everybody else that shares his blood" eyes. He also does this to everybody, and that's only the tip of the iceberg but sure if I was to go into it I wouldn't have fingertips left. It really does blow that it's so hard to fire people from Starbucks because this moogy should have been out on his ear a long time ago.
So with all this, and the store being busy, I've been a whopper grump. Especially seeing as Christmas is a time for family and "reflecting on your life". My family has been shattered for the past 5 years with repressed grief from myself and my brother caused by way too much grief being put on the table from my mam, and my youngest brother not really being old enough at the time to have understood what was going on, so he's just there, getting caught up in the middle of all of us not getting along with each other. As for reflecting on my life, I'm working a really badly paid job and I've no idea what I want to do in college next year. My boss kind of noticed me being a bit shitty over the past few days, so he decided to give me a week off. That was really nice. Thumbs up. Merry Christmas.
I remember one day in particular that I was in an extremely bad mood, and it was because I was working on my dad's 5th death anniversary. I didn't really want to tell my manager about it and ask for the day off because I thought I could weather it and it kind of pisses me off when people take a day off over stuff like that or go home sick when they're clearly not, so I didn't want to do that. I'm not saying that it's bad to take some time off for grievance, but at this stage in my life it's just another day. It just so happens that the date has some meaning behind it. Basically, on that day I kept quiet for my whole shift only talking when I needed to and nodding or shaking my head if that was feasible. I can't really explain, it was just as if I couldn't have been bothered being there and didn't want to give my full dedication or something. There were a good few idiots in that day and it really made my day a lot worse than it was already going and up until a couple of days ago I can safely say that it was the only "bad" day I've had.
Yesterday got on my tits a bit. Nobody's doing any of the simple things that take 2 seconds to do and generally make things 100 times easier, like rinsing the milk jugs after they're used, or changing the brewed coffee once the timer goes off, or bringing the shot glasses that are too hot to hold into the back so they can be cleaned and cooled so that when the replacement shot glasses get too hot, there's other ones there, or getting more take away cups when it's quiet and it looks like they might run out if there's another busy little burst of customers. Stuff like that. Stuff that annoys me anyway because I have to do it ALL THE TIME, but it's annoying me a shitload more because we're so fucking busy in the run up to Christmas. One of the lads who was looking like he was going to get the supervisor position ahead of me (before nobody got it because of labour cutbacks) is especially destroying my will to live, one tiny bit after another. He has this whole public humiliation buzz that's both failing hard and completely ridiculous. The lad's a bit of a flirt with ANY GIRL THAT HE TALKS TO. Anyone. You could be Rocky from "Mask" and as long as you have a gap between your legs he'll try it on. What he doesn't like is anyone else ever having the buzz with another customer when he isn't. I was chatting away to a couple of middle aged women just because they were pretty sound and bantering away and he just cuts in and goes "It's a shame he's a gayer ladies, isn't it?" and walks off. WTF. I kind of scanned the place to gather myself to see if I was in fact gay, realised I wasn't, and then I noticed one of the women looking at me with the "how the fuck does that guy work here?" eyes, and i met her with the "I hope his house burns down on Christmas day and all of his family is wiped out along with everybody else that shares his blood" eyes. He also does this to everybody, and that's only the tip of the iceberg but sure if I was to go into it I wouldn't have fingertips left. It really does blow that it's so hard to fire people from Starbucks because this moogy should have been out on his ear a long time ago.
So with all this, and the store being busy, I've been a whopper grump. Especially seeing as Christmas is a time for family and "reflecting on your life". My family has been shattered for the past 5 years with repressed grief from myself and my brother caused by way too much grief being put on the table from my mam, and my youngest brother not really being old enough at the time to have understood what was going on, so he's just there, getting caught up in the middle of all of us not getting along with each other. As for reflecting on my life, I'm working a really badly paid job and I've no idea what I want to do in college next year. My boss kind of noticed me being a bit shitty over the past few days, so he decided to give me a week off. That was really nice. Thumbs up. Merry Christmas.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Babyccino Update
I sold/made THREE BABYCCINOS the other day. All in the space of half an hour. It blew my fucking mind. High fives were had. I haven't sold or made one since.
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