That $30 "customer is always right" coffee I comped cost me my whole shift

Gave a free latte to a lady who screamed at me for 10 minutes because her caramel drizzle was "too thick", then my manager made me write up a report on it for 45 minutes. Has anyone else had a comped item turn into way more hassle than it was worth?

3 comments

3 Comments

thomas_scott1mo ago

Oh boy. I gotta stop you there real quick. That saying isn't "the customer is always right" in full. The actual saying is "the customer is always right in matters of taste." It's about letting them pick the kind of syrup they want, not about letting them scream at you for ten minutes over caramel thickness. Your manager making you write a report for 45 minutes on a comped latte is just bad management, not some ancient rule. If that lady wanted a different drizzle, she could have just asked politely and you would have fixed it in ten seconds. The whole saying got twisted by people who think it means they can act however they want.

craig.avery1mo ago

Honestly, I gotta push back on that a little. The whole "customer is always right in matters of taste" thing is actually a modern correction people started using online to explain the original saying. The OG quote from Harry Selfridge back in the early 1900s really was just "the customer is always right" with no conditions attached. It was literally a business policy to stop employees from arguing with customers, not a refined rule about syrup choices. So yeah, it got twisted, but that specific version you're quoting isn't the original either.

samf951mo ago

Wait, hold up. "Wrote a report for 45 minutes on a comped latte"? That part just stopped me dead. Are you serious? Some manager made someone write a whole 45 minute report over a free coffee? That feels like a weird detail you just threw in there so I have to ask - was that actually a thing that happened? Because if so, that's bonkers. You can't just hand out busy work like homework over a drink that didn't even cost anything. I mean, sure, the customer might be wrong sometimes, but that manager sounds like they were on a power trip or something. Nobody should be writing reports about syrup, that's just wild.