An open letter to all obnoxious customers

Yes, it annoys me when you talk to me like I don't understand English. It also annoys me when you treat my boss, who is 50-something years old, like a child. I'm not sorry I glared at you and didn't smile. Also, don't ignore us if we're saying something to you. We're not speaking gibberish; we obviously are trying to tell you something, so it's rude to not acknowledge that.

To the suburbanites of all (mostly white) races --
Please stop freaking out and yelling at me over the phone because you're a missing pint of rice or one egg roll. It only takes us a second or two to give you your money back. The working class customers understand that we make mistakes from time to time, because -- gasp! They've actually worked at a shit job before in their lives instead of mooching money off of their rich-ass parents (maybe that's why they give us decent tips).

Oh yeah. I'd appreciate it immensely if you bitchy vegan/vegetarians don't come here anymore. Why do you always assume that we know you're vegetarian and complain when we put in our regular dumplings instead of the vegetarian ones? We're a CHINESE RESTAURANT, not a New Age-vegan-Thai food joint. 99.9% of the people who come here order meat. You have to tell us if you want vegetarian dumplings.

And...for you who are obese -- and I mean the really obese ones, not the bigger-boned people -- please do NOT try to squeeze into our regular-sized booths. They're obviously too small for your elephant-sized bum, so stop trying to lodge yourselves in and obstruct the walkways. We don't care if you want to eat here until you have a heart attack. We do care, however, if you're in the way of our other customers or our waitress.

I have to deal with people like you every time I work at my restaurant. Can't you -- uh, you know, stop acting like children and start acting like the adults you are?
It's getting old.


Love,
The Takeout Wench (who is not Chinese, but actually Japanese-American).

Ramblings from a week ago.

I was reading Metro while waiting for more takeout orders to be phoned in. An article caught my attention: "More 9/11 Remains Found".
Nearly 300 bone fragments have been found on the roof of the Deutsche bank, which is in the process of being demolished. It's strange how it sounds like the whole process is an archaeological discovery; maybe it's a sign that the memories are finally fading and the wounds are healing. That's probably a good thing; it's natural for us to heal from traumatic experiences and move on, and it's probably more harmful to hold on to the pain we all felt that day.

So movies like United 93 don't appeal too much to me. In fact, I just find the idea of people cashing in on a movie about 9/11 revolting. (However, I'm not going to deny the fact that I'm just biased like everyone else. Films like Hotel Rwanda and Munich didn't phase me so much, and frankly, nor did events like the London bombings or even the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo incident. Things like that happen often around the world, and if it doesn't directly affect me, I just feel awful for a few minutes and then move on with my life.)

A few of our customers also seemed to feel that way -- a group of middle-aged men, clearly drunk, were discussing their dissatisfaction with the movie's release rather loudly. "They've got no respect," one of them was saying, while the other guys were murmuring their agreement. "I knew three of the guys that died, man. They're not gonna want some asshole in Hollywood to make a movie about how tragic their deaths were. Think about their families, man. Nobody deserves that kind of disrespect."
He went on like that for a while, the topic of discussion eventually changing to his current work situation and his new baby.