Category: Hot Dog Days

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customers funny Hot Dog Days My San Francisco Chronicles observation rant

Karma’s a bitch.

Yes, karma’s a bitch. And here’s a story to teach you about this statement:

Yesterday, I worked a full day from 9:30am-7pm. I think working seven days straight with no day off finally caught up to me in the afternoon because I felt a bit cranky with some customers then. So, this guy comes along, parks his car in the spot behind me, and then proceeds to bug me for dollar bills and quarters. At that point, I was low on dollar bills and was not in the mood to have someone bugging me for quarters. He was persistent (and rather rude), but I stood my ground. Finally, he “gave in” and bought a bottle of water from me so to “force” me to give him change (what a way to phrase the situation, huh?)

He bought his water, I gave him his change rather begrudgingly, and he filled up his meter. I guess he needed more quarters afterwards (more than $1.50 worth!) and asked for more quarters. I felt really annoyed with him at this point so I shoved the quarters into his hands with no smile. Come on, give me a break, seriously. This is a BUSINESS, not a change machine, dude. No thanks or anything from him.

The guy ended up leaving to go shopping after awhile; I was so tempted to do something to his car since it looked shiny and new. But I resisted the temptation since I felt I could never be so evil to do such a thing to someone’s car. So I forgot about the guy and went on to do my usual duties.

I don’t know how much longer afterwards, but there was a bit of commotion in the area due to some guy jumping off a building nearby (I was completely oblivious to this, fortunately?). Two parking officers came by and were trying to clear the lane behind me for traffic to get through; the female officer stopped and looked at the guy’s car parked behind me. She proceeded to punch in his license plate/make into her little machine; I thought at first she was going to give the guy a ticket. But after awhile, I noticed she was not leaving right away and was sticking around for quite some time.

I was already feeling some sort of victory over the guy with the thought that he was probably getting a ticket. Then, a tow truck stopped in front of the guy’s car and the tow truck guy came out and asked if the car was mine. Well, gee sir, yes it is my car, and I am going to let you tow it away right now…..(sarcasm). Anyway, so the tow truck guy proceeds to prepare the quarter-hoarding guy’s car for towing away; meanwhile, throughout this whole ordeal, I was laughing to myself inside. I could not believe this was happening; the guy was getting his car towed, and the tow truck incident pretty much made my day 10x better.

The car was towed away after awhile, and finally I felt relaxed. The quarter guy comes back much later and looks confused. “What happened to the car that was parked here?”

“Oh, it was towed away.”

“But…they didn’t see the parking meter!”

“Well…the parking officers said no parking in general in this area.”

The guy looked confused for a few minutes more, then he walked away to call someone. In some ways, I felt a little bad for him, but in other ways, I felt like my evil laughter inside was justified. That’s what you get for harassing someone for quarters. Yes, karma’s a bitch.

I will probably be struck down for laughing about this later on, but right now, I’m still feeling amused by the situation.

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customers Hot Dog Days My San Francisco Chronicles question tourists

FAQs at the Carts.

Frequently Asked Questions (depends on location of the hot dog cart):

– “Where is Union Square?”

– “Where do I catch the ‘Hop on, Hop off’ tour bus?”

– “Where is the Apple Store?”

– “Can you give me change in quarters?”

– “Where is the Hilton Hotel?”

– “Where is Market Street?”

– “Where do I catch the cable car?”

– “Where is O’Farrell Street?”

As you can see, none of these questions pertain to the cart itself. Since when did the hot dog carts become information booths?

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customers Hot Dog Days My San Francisco Chronicles Work Diaries

Crackheads…

Well, I guess there’s a first for everything: today was my first time serving crackhead customers. I wasn’t sure if they were homeless or not, but I was pretty sure they were on crack or some other sort of drugs. At first, I was hoping they would just peer at the cart menu and just wander off on their own. But the main, vocal woman kept saying to her friend/acquaintance, “I wanna hot dawg!” and kept eyeing the menu for which one she wanted.

This woman took her sweet time making her decision; meanwhile, there was a small line forming behind her, and I really wanted to move onto the next customer, but the crackhead was being demanding and asking for what she wanted. I told her the price immediately so she would show me her money first before I handed her her hot dog; after all, I was not sure if she even had any money on her.

“I HAVE money, thank you! Ya don’t hav’ to keep repeating the total to me,” she replied back to me. I was feeling frazzled by this point and kept dropping the hot dog buns with the tongs; I handed her one hot dog, and she took it and gave it to her friend. At this point, it looked like they were going to walk away without paying, but then the main woman ordered another hot dog for herself.

Finally, it was time to pay up, and I told her the total amount quickly and sternly. I watched her carefully while she pulled out her money; meanwhile, I had to give an apologetic look to the waiting customers since I really could not refuse the crackhead’s service, despite her being so rude to me. I did not want to go off in front of her, especially in front of young children. She finally had enough money and paid, and I handed her change back quickly.

She and her friend did not go away immediately, though. The next customer got into line and ordered her hot dog/pretzel, when suddenly the crackhead yelled loudly “BITCH I HATE YOU!” or something of the sort…not sure who she was referring to (maybe her friend?) but at this point I dropped a few more hot dog buns because it startled me and made me feel angry inside.

Luckily, the two crackheads left shortly after that outburst, and I think the subsequent customers felt sympathetic towards me since I had to endure the behavior. They ended up giving me tips, and pretty good ones at that! One guy was with his two kids and he let me keep a really big tip because his reasoning was, “You deserve it since you had to put up with those, er, ‘clients’ earlier.”

I felt like just his kindness (and the kindness of the other two customers) was enough to make my day after the crackheads left.

Actually, the main crackhead came back in the afternoon to throw away her trash…at this point, instead of feeling anger towards her, I felt a bit of pity since she seemed to be wandering alone at that point. I don’t know where her friend went, but the woman said that she had fallen asleep and that she was going to go elsewhere at that point.

Hm, the interesting life of a hot dog vendor in San Francisco….

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homeless man Hot Dog Days My San Francisco Chronicles observation Work Diaries

Cat Peddler and Mustard/Mayonnaise.

So over the course of my workdays, I have noticed certain homeless people hovering around the cart. I’m guessing in the past they have had run-ins with the cart, so now they know not to tread too closely.

Anyway, yesterday and today I worked the cart in front of Macy’s, and have found myself amused by the “cat peddler”. I’ve seen it and its owner around before; saw them back in March when I first started working. Basically, what appears to be a cat begging for money is actually its owner being “clever” and placing the cat with its catbed and a dish for money. Oblivious people walk by, see the cat, feel pity, and drop some money. Only after they drop the money do they realize that the owner had been standing by the whole time–he usually says “Thank you” after the people give money to the cat.

The past two days, I’ve noticed not as many people falling for the trick. Either people have just been overlooking the cat or they have caught onto the cat owner’s trick. To me, the guy who owns the cat doesn’t look TOO bad off–perhaps he is homeless, but he doesn’t look the part really. He just looks lazy to me–maybe low-income, but not homeless. I rarely notice when he arrives at his “reserved spot”–he comes in like a ninja most of the time.

Anyway, that’s one observation I’ve made over the past two days. Today, I was “introduced” to another “regular” homeless; the girl walked up to me and asked me for four mayonnaise packets and four mustard packets. She seemed a little doped out in some way, but I wasn’t sure–but anyway, that was all she asked for; didn’t ask for free food. She asked me if I was new, so that probably meant that she’s been around the carts a bit, too.

Last but not least, I think there’s either a homeless or crazy (or both) guy who runs around cursing/yelling. Sounds like he has Tourette’s Syndrome. I heard him this morning yelling obscenities about how “Americans should own America, etc. etc.” and he kept saying the f-bomb. I had noticed him before around another cart; at first glance, I thought he was just a normal guy walking around with his wife/girlfriend. But then I noticed him yelling loudly and cursing constantly, and that made me realize “Ooh….something not right with him.” Meanwhile, the whole time he’s yelling/cursing, his female partner walks beside him calmly, either because she’s embarrassed and doesn’t know how to control him, or she’s so used to him now that she’s become oblivious to his actions.

I’m sure there are other more interesting characters around, but I haven’t encountered them yet.

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Hot Dog Days mistake Work Diaries

Mistakes at work.

Well, the first mistake at work happened on Thursday, and although it was a small mistake, unfortunately it is publicly known from this point forward.

Basically, I didn’t keep the temperature high enough to cook the hot dog meat when the health inspector came by. And although we still got an “A” score, it was not a perfect score, and it was a major offense in the books.

I felt really devastated and freaked out for a moment, but I think we all had to step back for a moment and re-evaluate things, put things into perspective. Nobody is perfect; we all know that. Despite my overall good performance so far at the carts, a mistake was bound to happen sooner or later. Thankfully, my manager and boss both realized this and said that next time I should be more careful; but in the end, we all make mistakes. Mistakes happen so that we may learn from them.

Actually, today it seemed that the issue already kind of became a joke amongst us; seems that things are okay for now again. I am going to be more careful with the temperature now, and seems that there will be new rules/procedures in effect within the next month to make sure that such a mistake will not happen again. We all learned from this incident; now we hope that it will not happen again.