A diner from Topeka
Nov 24, 2010
Never experienced such rudeness from restaurant staff before! On 11/10/10, I went in for the first time, to order takeout for three adults and a child. It was easy to see that the cost of the order was $17 before tax. When the cash register guy said "$19.88" I hesitated to give him my credit card, saying "really? how does it get from $17 to $19.88?" He said, "sales tax, man, sales tax. Everyone pays sales tax." I said, "But that would mean a sales tax of well over 10%, and it's not that much." He took my card, and then called to his buddy in back "this guy doesn't know about sales tax, man" and rolled his eyes and laughed.
Well, I'm in my 50's, and it's been a long time since I majored in math in college, but even after I signed the credit card bill I was flummoxed as I waited for the food. I went up and asked again, and it only got worse. The manager was no help. Finally I asked for someone just to write down the amounts on a piece of paper (they'd done it all in their heads). It took forever to get them to do it, and they were acting like I was a bad guy ("it's only a dollar or two, man!", and as they were writing down numbers I saw a line saying 0.75 and asked "what's the 75 cents for?" He looked at me like I was crazy and said, "that's take-out charge, man, what'dyou think?" Oh, okay, I said, you should've told me, it's not mentioned anywhere. And as I left, I thought, "wow, they just lost a customer forever, by humiliating him in front of people," and "I can't believe they tried to hide a dinky takeout charge, why not just tell me early on?" and then "I also can't believe they charged me state and sales tax on their own take-out charge!"
Well, I'm in my 50's, and it's been a long time since I majored in math in college, but even after I signed the credit card bill I was flummoxed as I waited for the food. I went up and asked again, and it only got worse. The manager was no help. Finally I asked for someone just to write down the amounts on a piece of paper (they'd done it all in their heads). It took forever to get them to do it, and they were acting like I was a bad guy ("it's only a dollar or two, man!", and as they were writing down numbers I saw a line saying 0.75 and asked "what's the 75 cents for?" He looked at me like I was crazy and said, "that's take-out charge, man, what'dyou think?" Oh, okay, I said, you should've told me, it's not mentioned anywhere. And as I left, I thought, "wow, they just lost a customer forever, by humiliating him in front of people," and "I can't believe they tried to hide a dinky takeout charge, why not just tell me early on?" and then "I also can't believe they charged me state and sales tax on their own take-out charge!"
