Wednesday, December 31, 2008

The keys that are not polluting our ocean somewhere...

I was having lunch with my good friend Dr. Beckie and her boyfriend Mr. Cote today and I shared one of my hilarious Starbucks tales with them and realized, I hadn’t entered it into the blogosphere!

Before I begin, however, I would like to say that it might not be as hilarious as I make it out to be and if you’re disappointed, I’m sorry. (*After re-reading this before posting, I realize it is a little offensive. Therefore, if you are easily offended and are going to feel the need to report me to some equal rights organization, please stop reading.)

So I’m working on a mid-shift one Saturday afternoon and Fabricio, a barista who’s not actually named Fabricio but once answered the phone and gave that name therefore giving me a great nickname for him, comes up to me and tells me there is a man who would like to speak with the “person in charge.” Being the “person in charge” in a situation where someone wants to talk to you is NEVER a good thing. If they are wanting to speak with you to give you a compliment about how fabulous one of the baristas is, not only is it awkward because all you can do is agree, but you also begin to feel pressured into publicly humiliating the barista by telling him how amazing this one customers says he is. If the customer is complaining on the other hand, then it becomes time wasted out of my life trying to make someone who just wants to bitch happy. Either way, being “in charge” sucks.

I walk up to the guy and he tells me that he dropped his keys into the toilet and the toilet “flushed them away.” We have those automatic flushers that are supposed to help the environment by using less water or are more sanitary or whatever. No matter what it’s used for, apparently the flusher was strong enough to flush this man’s keys away.

After he tells me that the toilet has pretty much stolen his keys, he asks what I am going to do about it. Now, you have to picture me, towering over this short Latino with my hand over my mouth trying not to burst out laughing in his face. Who the hell drops their keys in the toilet and is not fast enough to get them back out?! Not only that, but who the hell is dumb enough to think that there is some possible way to get these keys back?!

I stare at him trying to come up with a solution and the only thing I can think of is to call our facilities system and see what they have to say about it. I walk in the back and take about 5 minutes to compose myself because I can’t stop laughing. I call facilities, and after explaining the dilemma to the person on the other end, have to wait a good 10 minutes for her to stop laughing and relaying the story to everyone around her. Her solution is to either have the plumber come out and approve the overtime (it is Saturday after all), or just telling the man he’s SOL. I opt for neither.

I walk out to the man, who has now been joined by a small Asian woman who is speaking very quickly in Spanish to this man. He looks like a small child being chastised by his mother after stealing a cookie from the cookie jar, which just makes my attempts at professionalism even harder. He gestures at me and before I even reach them, the Munchkin comes at me. “You get keys! Must get keys!”

“Listen, they are going to send out a plumber, but because it’s Saturday, I don’t know when he will get here or if he will even get here today. What I can do right now is get your name and phone number so if he comes out and is able to retrieve your keys, I will call you immediately.” I hoped that her lack of English and my superior fabrication skills would lead this to be the end of our conversation. I should know better.

“No. You get keys! We no get home! You get keys!”

“Ma’am, there is nothing more I can do.”

“Ok, I give you phone number and you call.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You give me phone number and I call you later.” So I give her the store phone number and take her information. She grabs her husband’s(?) hand and practically drags him out of the store, cursing in Spanish the whole time. Trilingual people scare me.

As they are walking out, Fabricio brings up a very good point: “What if they keys are stuck in the pipe and that causes the toilet to overflow? We don’t know how big this guy’s keys were…” So now I have to close down the men’s restroom, flush the toilet a few times myself to make sure, and then keep the men’s restroom closed, just in case.

After about an hour, the phone rings.

“StarbucksDowntownBurbankthisisKimmihowcanIhelpyou?” By saying it super fast, I always hope that the person will get the hint that I’m busy and don’t have time to deal with whatever it is they need from me right now. Once, again, I should know better.

“You get keys!” Now, she has said this to me several times today, yet, never has she phrased it as a question. Amazing.

“No ma’am, we have not found your keys. I will call you if we find them, but I think you should know that it is very unlikely that we will find them.”

“Ok, you call when you find.” Click.

When I left, I told the story to the next shift lead on, who laughed his ass off, but agreed that we should keep the men’s room closed just in case. Apparently, about 2 hours after I left, she called again and was outraged that we still had not found her keys. Before closing, she called again, made a big deal about how her keys should have been found by now, frustrating one of the baristas so much he said, “Look lady, your keys are probably halfway to the ocean right now, so you just need to get a new set and get over it.”

She never called again.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Thank you for handing me the greatest laugh of the week!! I shared this scenario with a co-worker, then we laughed together!
Sorry you have to deal with crazy people though!

QueenKimmi said...

I'm so glad you and your co-worker enjoyed it! Thanks!