Saturday, June 16, 2012
Thursday, May 03, 2012
HK is Bad for the Soul
I am a little embarrassed about my behaviour here, but thought I'd share this story regardless.
I was buying the Hubs some croissants while waiting for him to get back from work so we could go and see the Avengers (worth seeing just for the use of the phrase "mewling quim" alone). I get to the till and there's one person ahead of me. He (P) gets his change, looks at it, and tells the server (S) he's been short changed. They go back and forth for about a minute.
S: I'm so sorry, I'll call my manager (M) to come and fix it (disappears for about a full minute)
M: Hi, sorry, I'll just correct it. Can I see the receipts?
P takes about half a minute to produce the receipt
M: Oh, ok, so it cost $54 and you paid $55. How much change did you give him?
S: 50 cents
Me: OK, how about I pay him ten dollars and you pretend it never happened?
M: Oh, I just need ten minutes to fix this.
Me: I need to go pee. Can I give you the cash for mine?
M: We can't input your order so please wait ten minutes.
Me: I need to pee. How about I give him ten dollars, give you a hundred dollars for my seventy-six dollar purchase and we forget about the change
M: We need to input your order
Me: I don't care about that. It's four croissants, you can input it after. I'll write it down so you don't forget
M: We need to input your order
In the end I got them to ring up my order on the take away till, went to the bathroom, came back and paid at a different till.
I felt like such a smug gweilo (I realise that I'm not white) making such a fuss when some guy just wanted 50 cents. It was only after I had managed to pee and rational thought returned that I realised how despicable and obnoxious I had been. At the same time, I realise how ridiculous the disparity here is. Arguing for 5p or 10 cents? The inflexibility is also classic HK. All in all, quite a good HK parable.
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