Category: rant

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customers Hot Dog Days rant Work Diaries

Customer Stories.

We seem to get the most interesting characters at the hot dog stand. People who think they’re funny, people who think they’re going to one-up us by threatening this or that (small threats, mind you).

Yesterday, after the whole homeless guy incident, we got this customer who seemed to be giving me and my co-worker “eyes” (checking us out). The guy orders a jumbo hot dog, and I serve it to him. Then, he complains about the fact that there’s this “strand of something” on his jumbo, and my co-worker and I notice that it’s just a piece of sauerkraut (pickled cabbage). So my co-worker just plainly states to the guy, “It’s just a piece of sauerkraut, it won’t kill you.” And the guy complains more, saying he wanted a different jumbo hot dog. Sigh.

I guess he thought we were being smart to him, because then he asked for our names and our manager’s contact information. My co-worker luckily was acting fast and just gave the guy our manager’s email address..really, come on, that’s ridiculous. You’re going to go complain to our manager about a piece of sauerkraut on your hot dog? I can understand a strand of hair…sure. But sauerkraut is EDIBLE. Gee whiz, the guy needs to get a life.

Today, I was giving breaks, and while I was at one of the “slower” carts, I was approached by this guy who was trying to be funny but failed miserably. All he wanted was a soda, which costs $1.50, so I told him the price. He began looking through his wallet, then he decided to pull out that joke. “I’ll give you $1.37…and a cigarette butt!” I didn’t laugh, didn’t do anything, just looked at him like he was nuts. Then he tried the joke again, this time with other objects (a piece of string, etc.). I still didn’t laugh, and he kind of gave up on the joke…but not before he said to me, “You have to admit that was pretty funny!”

Did you see me laughing? No. It wasn’t funny dude, sorry.

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homeless man Hot Dog Days My San Francisco Chronicles rant

Homeless guy harasses two young hot dog vendors…

Today, had an interesting encounter at the hot dog stand.

So, there are quite a few homeless people who hang around Union Square. There’s this one guy, who wears a hat, a yellow and blue jacket, and he looks of Asian descent. He occasionally begs customers for a hot dog at our stands, and most times someone eventually buys him a hot dog. Today, he was approaching an Italian woman about buying him a hot dog, and my co-worker was just telling him (kindly yet bluntly) that he could not beg standing so closely to our customers. It is indeed a law/rule that people cannot beg/solicit so close to a business…anyway, the guy became super defensive against my co-worker, and an argument ensued. The whole time, I was standing behind the cart with the food, trying to monitor the food temperatures.

Next thing I knew, I heard a bag of chips fall from the rack and I thought the homeless guy had tried to steal a bag of chips, my co-worker yelled out “YOU MOTHERFXXXER!” and I heard the homeless guy run off.

Me: “Did he try to steal…?”
Co-worker: “No, he tried to, but he just smashed the bag of chips on the counter. Hmph.”

Meanwhile, we still had our Italian customer standing at the cart, a little spooked by the encounter, but nonetheless still ordering a hot dog and paying for her food. My co-worker then focused on the customer, but I noticed the homeless guy coming back to our stand and I felt a little scared as to what he was going to do next. I saw him approach the condiments section and then I heard a loud “SQUIRT”.

The Italian woman gasped and then turned to my co-worker, asking her if she had seen what had just happened. I went around to the front of the cart and saw that the guy had just made a mess with the mustard by squirting it all over the sidewalk. How….smart.

After that encounter, my co-worker and I stood behind the cart, ranting about how “lucky” the homeless are in the city. They have so many shelters they can go to for food, and so many tourists come by and feel sorry for the homeless so they are able to gain a lot of money through their begging. The weather stays temperate year-round here, so they never have to freeze to death. And what was the point of the guy for harassing us anyway? My co-worker was being as polite as she could towards him, but he took huge offense against us.

It’s not our problem that he’s homeless; it’s not like he can’t help his own situation.

Anyway…after that incident, my co-worker said that next time she’ll take a picture of the guy and report him to the police/security at Union Square. We’ll see what happens next.

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Hot Dog Days My San Francisco Chronicles race rant Work Diaries

Ni hao, Hot Dog Vendor!

I find it rather offensive when non-Chinese people try to speak “Chinese” to me. Once, I had a customer walk up with his young son (!) and say to me “Ni Hao”. I looked at them with a glare, feeling offended first by his horrible accent, and second, by the fact that he even had the nerve to say such a thing to me. What if I weren’t Chinese? And why exactly was it necessary to “speak Chinese” to a girl working at a hot dog stand? I would be a little less offended and would understand if I were a server at a Chinese restaurant; but come on, a hot dog stand. From my accent, I’m sure the guy could tell I spoke perfectly fine English and that I didn’t need him to “impress” me with his “Chinese”.

Another time, I was giving another customer his drink and his change, and he said to me afterwards “Dou jie/Shi Shi Ni”, which means “Thank you” in Cantonese/Mandarin. I thought the guy was okay up until that point, but immediately I felt offended once again.

You know, I would feel “impressed” if I were in China and they were doing this to me. But I am in AMERICA. I know that many San Franciscans are actually Chinese, and a lot of them are immigrants from China, so they speak little English/more Cantonese/Mandarin. I can understand that–that’s why Chinatown seems so foreign of a place to outsiders since the majority of the businesses are run only in Cantonese.

But hello–it’s just really dumb and ignorant when guys like those (mentioned above) try to “speak Chinese” to someone who is obviously not an immigrant AND can speak English. I’m not dissing on my people in Chinatown, but really, what the hell. Next time someone tries to speak Chinese to me that way, they’re going to be in for a bad surprise.

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rant tourists

Why….

…do tourists/out-of-towners insist on asking locals where hotels are? It’s not like we actually stay at the hotels ourselves. Plus, there are TONS of Hiltons, Hyatts, etc. in the city. It’s hard for even myself to keep track of how many there are and where they are located.

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My San Francisco Chronicles rant

Excuse me, your stroller is in my way.

I went to Tapioca Express today with my friend, and we encountered some of the rudest/most oblivious people in the world. Tapioca Express is not too big of a cafe; since it was a Sunday, the place seemed busy, but there were still some seats and tables by the window.

Well, unfortunately, those seats were blocked off by these people with this huge stroller sitting in the middle of the seating area. I became more pissed off when my friend and I had to get the people sitting NEXT to the rude people to move for us. I mean, come on, what the hell? I kept shooting dirty looks at the people with the stroller, but they were completely oblivious to everything. They seemed way too engrossed in their “oh-so-important” conversation.

After awhile, the magazine table closer to the counter cleared up, so my friend and I decided we would move there. Instead of trying to battle through the obstacle of the stroller in the way again, we decided we would climb over the ramp near the entrance to get to the magazine table. We looked weird climbing over the ramp since we had to raise our legs up and over the ramp. Meanwhile, the rude/oblivious customers STILL did not seem to notice the trouble they were causing. All the while, they were letting their little girl run around in the store causing havoc.

Honestly, people like that do not deserve to be out in public.