Category: tourists

Categories
customers Hot Dog Days tourists

Rude customers, first thing in the morning.

First thing in the morning, I had some rather rude customers. All they wanted was a bottle of water, so I gave it to them, and as the guy was counting out change, I was trying to discourage him from using his pennies.

Me: “Sorry sir, we do not accept pennies.”
Guy: “I don’t, either.” *goes back to counting out the pennies*
Me: “Sorry, we do not accept pennies, I cannot take pennies from you.”
Guy: “But this is US Legal Tender!”
Me: “Sorry…can’t accept it.”

The guy becomes upset at this point and then looks through his wallet. Meanwhile, his wife was stupid enough to start drinking the water before he had even paid for the drink, which, if she hadn’t done so, would have saved us a lot of dumb drama.

I notice the guy has smaller bills in his wallet, but he decides he wants to be “smart” with me and pull out a $100.

Me: “Sorry, do you have anything smaller than that?”
Guy: “WHAT, are you being smart with me today?!”
Me: *becoming really annoyed* “I cannot accept such large bills for just a bottle of water, okay?”

Then, the guy decides he wants to threaten me.

Guy: “I’m going to report you to the Visitors’ Bureau, get you shut down for being so rude to tourists.”

Hmm…he wants to report to the Visitors’ Bureau that I wouldn’t accept a $100 bill from him for a $1.50 bottle of water.

Honestly, I do not see what caused for the guy to get so upset. I would understand a little more if he were becoming upset because I overcharged him or did something really shady, but really, all I asked was for no pennies (my managers do not like counting out pennies, considering all our prices are set at quarter increments anyway), and for no big bills (for purposes of avoiding counterfeiting). Perhaps I should have explained myself better, but most people would not put up such a fight about those two issues. They would just shrug, walk on, and move on with their life.

Hm, what a way to start off the day.

Categories
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.

Categories
Hot Dog Days My San Francisco Chronicles rant tourists Work Diaries

Chaos with the Cable Car

Today, for some reason, the Powell-Mason Cable Car line was not working, so that equaled crappy business for the hot dog cart. As a result as well, I got so many questions from frantic tourists who were wondering “Why or why were the cable cars not running?!” The MUNI Cable Car workers had a small sign up by the waiting area, but it was not noticeable enough. They kept their ticket booth open until 4pm, but that was that.

In many ways, they could have done more. Sure, perhaps these breakdowns happen frequently for them and they feel they do not need to answer tourists when tourists ask “Why is it not running?” But it’d help if they made the news more noticeable/public so people would not be left either standing there stupidly waiting for a nonexistent cable car to arrive or asking the same question over and over and over.

It became irritating near the end of the day; people wanted to know why it was not running, and you know what, I didn’t have the answer to that, and I probably never will since I do not even work with the cable car people. I feel like tourists assume that I gain this sort of information via osmosis, but sadly I have to burst their bubble on that idea.

Categories
Hot Dog Days My San Francisco Chronicles tourists Work Diaries

Vacation Mindsets.

Today was the first day for our carts to work at the Wharf this year; from what I could see between the two carts (located at the Cable Car turnarounds), people can be quite rude and idiotic, even more than the people around Union Square.

It is probably because more of the people who walk by the carts at the Wharf are on vacation, and therefore, they have vacation mindsets. They feel they can act however they want to because they are on vacation; no need to care about others’ feelings so much, especially people working behind a counter, hot dog cart, etc.

After awhile, I was very tempted to say this to people passing by:

“You know, just because you are on vacation, doesn’t mean you can act like an asshole.”

I wonder how people would have reacted to that.

Categories
Hot Dog Days My San Francisco Chronicles rant tourists Work Diaries

"Where is…?"

How many times do I have to say this: the hot dog cart is NOT an information booth. Please DO NOT ask me for directions to the Apple Store, Macy’s, Chinatown, et. al. Even if I do know, I do not need to tell you since you are not even a paying customer.

I mean, seriously, why do people not look on a map or at least attempt to find the places for themselves first? I would be more accommodating if they were to tell me that they had been searching for a long time, but most people just approach me and grunt “Where is *insert location here*?!?!” And when I tell them “I don’t know” they just frown at me and act pissed off that I don’t know.

I’m sorry I do not know San Francisco so well, but then again, all the places you ask for I don’t even frequent. Look it up on your map, or go to an actual information booth.