Insight on the food service industry

I have decided to write on a topic that brings me much frustration from time to time. As many of you might know, I work in the food service industry. I have my complaints about my job but I have great friends/co-workers and a decent company to work for. What really irritates me is the fact that one single disgruntled customer out of ten gracious customers can have such a negative effect on your mood. Tonight, for example, we have a tip jar and a place on the customer receipt where people can leave a tip as a courtesy. A man asked me "Do you guys work off of tips or are you all minimum wage?". Once I responded with "minimum wage", he proceeds to give me a gesture that suggested we not get tipped. My philosophy is that if you want to be generous and give a little extra for your appreciation then that is awesome but it isn't necessary to leave a tip. What bothers me the most is that some people look at you like you don't deserve anymore than what they pay you for their meal. Those people don't take into account that we not only make the food you eat but we keep our bathrooms clean and dining room relatively spotless for a desireable eating environment. We have to deal with customers who don't realize that the trash can is two feet away will leave trash everywhere. They also sit trash on top of the trash can rather than on the inside of the trash bag. It bothers me when some customers can only think about themselves. An example of this would be when we had a baseball tournament last week with about ten tickets of food and a customer is complaining about the televisions in the pizza place being on the wrong ESPN channel. We don't have time to change the channel when you want. We would have to explain to ten other customers that we can't work on their food because some guy wants us to figure what channel a particular baseball tournament is on. Impatience is yet another pet peeve. It is sad if you can't realize that a food worker is making food at one hundred miles an hour and you are still pissed off that your food isn't out yet. Some customers think that we can magically place their food order into a time machine and have it appear before their eyes. If you make a pizza or sandwich at home, it is going to take approximately the same amount of time. You are merely paying for the convenience to not make the food yourself. I can say that I am grateful for the fact that I have a newfound appreciation for anyone in the food industry. I can be merciful when there is a mistake on my food order or someone forgot a particular salad dressing. People make mistakes but I guess it gets lost in translation with some people. My last irritation I would like to mention is when certain customers complain about how expensive the food is. They will look at me like I can change the price on a food item. Many times I would love to say "Well, if you don't want to pay full price for our food, there are many other cheap food options within a five mile radius of our store". Some people expect you to respond to their every desire because they are a customer. I am all about customer service and advocate it in all industries but there is a point where people need to get off their high horse and come back to reality. One last tip is that I ask people to be sure that your order is exactly how you like it. If it says it on the menu then it will most likely be on your order. We are sorry that we are not mind readers and failed to put no onions and no mayo on your sandwich ::insert heavy sarcasm:: . I think that will be enough venting for the time being. I hope you enjoy :)