“No ma’am, I can’t serve you boiling water.” : TalesFromRetail

First time post! Apologies if I’m too long-winded.

Back in high school, I worked for a coffee chain. Let’s call it Barschmucks. We had all sorts of customers and a few good regulars, but one of our regular demographics was the elderly. We were located very close to a pair of assisted living homes and were in a community that’s 97% white and whose average home value was $900,000, so we had quite a few grandmas and grandpas coming in.

One trend I noticed was that the old-timers would often want their drinks hot. They would almost never order cold drinks and they would request that their lattes be extra hot. We’d often be asked to microwave drip coffees because 170 degrees ostensibly wasn’t hot enough for them.

So one day, a little old lady comes up and asks for a Zen tea, extra hot. No problem, my coworker rings her up while I make the tea. On our coffee maker, there’s a hot water spout. You know, those red levers that dispense water? Well in case you didn’t know, that water is at an off-boil (~205 degrees). It’s hot enough that you can’t hold the bare cup whilst filling it, lest you burn your hand. To make tea, you simply grab a cup, drop in the tea bag, fill it with the water, top it, and serve it.

I do steps 1-3, but while trying to put on the top, the wall of the cup caves inward and sends 190-200 degree water all over my arms and hands. This isn’t the first burn I’ve had working there, so I dutifully remade the drink immediately.

I hand the lady her new cup of tea and apologize for the hold-up. She takes a sip, frowns, and asks if we can make it any hotter.

I look at her, down at the blisters forming on my hands, then back at her.

forced smile "No ma’am. That’s as hot as it gets."

TL;DR: Found a severed human finger in the mocha mix, served it to hundreds of customers anyway.

via "No ma'am, I can't serve you boiling water." : TalesFromRetail.