So I'm at the Delice de France stall at Paddington station

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...and I'm very fond of their Chicken and Leek pasties. So I asked for one, and I'm told 'it's a feulette' (or whatever). Not really giving one, two or three shiots about what the fucker's called, I went , 'if you say so - whatever it is, one of them please'. To which point the customer-company product interchange technician (or whatever)said 'No, it's a feulette' to which I, getting rankled (and hungry) now, said: 'Well, they used to be called pasties, because it's pastry, with a filling in, isn't it?'

She wouldn't let it lie. She'd obv. been on some customer care(ha!) course and told that the company line was that 'we're French, right, even though we're based in, er, Middlesex, and we have everything in French. And if any lippy customers use words like 'pasty' or 'sandwich' then give em what for.'

Underneath 'customer service' there's a deeply Orwellian Stalinist thing going on which is all about denial of customer choice and such like. And it's even worse for the poor workers.

And whilst I'm at it: there was a woman on Preston station who I used to buy a cup of Coffee from every morning at about 7.15am. I never had a sandwich, or cake or anything else. But every time, she had to ask me 'would I like anything else with that' even though she knew full well that I wouldn't, and should I want something, I'd bloody well ask for it. But because there could be company spies in the coffee shop checking that the company script was being delivered by the employees, she couldn't relate to me as you would in a 'real' situation where there was a link between me and her, rather than a forced marketing bollox shite.

And another thing - Upper Crust sandwich sellers - whilst not full of Frenchiness, they do say they're 'fanatical about food' or somesuch. You're an abstract entity, you language killing cockfarmers! Fuck off to the Mariana Trench the lot of you, and take the schools of marketing with you. And take AMT coffee bars too. Example: White Coffee - excellent (hey! unqualified superlative meaning feck all) and just the way you like it!. What, hot, in a cup? Twats the lot of em.

I just wasn't made for this world...

― Dave B (daveb), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 12:58 (twenty-three years ago)

Marketing - Dud or Dud?

― Dave B (daveb), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 12:59 (twenty-three years ago)

tough morning Dave?

― chris (chris), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 13:05 (twenty-three years ago)

That one's been brewing for some time and it was very satisfying to get it out. Constipation of the mind and all that.

― Dave B (daveb), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 13:22 (twenty-three years ago)

Are you Al Murray The Pub Landlord, Dave?

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 13:23 (twenty-three years ago)

Just say "So you're authentically French then? OK forget the pasty, can I have some fried German boot leather? If you're finished kissing it, that is"

― dave q, Wednesday, 6 November 2002 13:24 (twenty-three years ago)

Snotty faux-superiority is all the authentically French vibe they need.

― Miss Laura, Wednesday, 6 November 2002 13:29 (twenty-three years ago)

I am a one-man revolution.
A Counter Revolution!

Because whenever I'm at the counter I ask for a 'small white coffee' even if what I mean is a 'medium americano with milk'. It's amazing how confused it leaves the poor people (after all, they're only doing their job with their brain switched off - wouldn't you?). But each time I say it I feel the global capitalist network teater.

Join me comrades! Together we can win!

― jon (jon), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 15:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Cue 45-paragraph response from ArfArf regarding the importance of market forces in a 21st-century post-industrialisation consumer-focused society, with the only possible alternative being equality with your neighbouring inmate in the gulag of their choice.

― Denise Lambert, Wednesday, 6 November 2002 15:05 (twenty-three years ago)

I cannot bring myself to say McChicken Sandwich, Chicken McNuggets etc. Somehow the Mc gets swallowed.

Also, I *hate* it when I ask for a coke and they say "Do you mean Pepsi?"

― Madchen (Madchen), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 15:13 (twenty-three years ago)

Is this when you know they don't serve Coke?

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 15:16 (twenty-three years ago)

My Friend in a bakers in Wigan: Could I have a Pain au chocolate please?
Northern Shop Assistant: A what?
MFIABIW: A Pain au chocolate.
NSA: A what?
MFIABIW: (points) One of those.
NSA: Oh, A chocolate pasty! Why didn't you say so?

I have terrible feeling of Déjà vu about posting this - forgive me if I'm repeating myself.

― Simeon (Simeon), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 15:46 (twenty-three years ago)

I normally don't look to see what type of fizzy brown drink they are serving before asking. I just see coke as the generic name for fizzy brown drinks, Pepsi or otherwise. Don't you?

― Madchen (Madchen), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 15:53 (twenty-three years ago)

Not related, but a v.funny conversation I heard in Greggs' in Victoria Centre the other week:

Man : Can I have the tuna mayonaise without the cucumber
Assistant : Sorry, we only sell them like that
Man : Oh come on how difficult can it be to make one up for me with no cucumber in it
Assistant : There's a long line of people waiting behind you, we don't have time to make sandwiches individually for each person.

[Big argument ensues]

Man : Oh come on I want to speak to your manager
Daugher : DAD! STOP IT!
Assistant : Sorry he's not here at the moment
Man : Look I'M THE CUSTOMER, THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT. IF I OWNED THIS SHOP I WOULDN'T ACT LIKE THIS, YOU'RE GOING TO LOSE A SALE HERE!
Daugher : DAD! STOP IT!
Assistant : I'm sorry sir, I only work here - these are the sanwiches we sell, I don't make them I only take your money and give you your change.
Man (calming down) : Ok it's ok luv, I know you're only doing yer job, it's shit innit? That's why I don't work.
Daughter : (hides her face)
Me : Tries to disguise tears of laughter running down my face.

― Steve.n. (sjkirk), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 15:54 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh I guess you had to be there.

― Steve.n. (sjkirk), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 15:55 (twenty-three years ago)

cunts like that shouldn't be allowed to have children.

― Denise Lambert, Wednesday, 6 November 2002 15:56 (twenty-three years ago)

The futile "Me Too" quest, Part 2...

― Plinky (Plinky), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 16:41 (twenty-three years ago)

eight years pass...

They're giving away free 'tasters' of JD mix drinks.

Coke an d Jd, and Gingert and JD.

The coke one is better, I reckons.

― Mark G, Friday, 26 August 2011 13:27 (fourteen years ago)

cunts like that shouldn't be allowed to have children.
― Denise Lambert, Wednesday, 6 November 2002 15:56 (8 years ago) Bookmark

OTM

― Why'd You Wanna Tweet Me So Bad? (dog latin), Friday, 26 August 2011 14:15 (fourteen years ago)

yes, do you think he does that to everyone who ever serves him in every retail outlet?

but I do have some sympathy for the Boyler's predicament when he posted here originally.

How often do people suddenly decide they DO want something else when prompted by the sales assistant, when they didn't originally?

― Grandpont Genie, Friday, 26 August 2011 14:31 (fourteen years ago)

"Now you mention it, I might actually get a pie as well..."

― Mark G, Friday, 26 August 2011 22:28 (fourteen years ago)

When I went to the UK on a hol in the late 90s I was in a shopping mall in the midlands somewhere (that was my first mistake) and I found a coffee stall with an espresso machine - joy! (I'd been depressed by how many places just did Nescaf in a cup). I asked for an espresso, as was on the menu, and the lady peered at me and said "you know it comes in a tiny cup, right?"

― Silent Hedgehogs (Trayce), Saturday, 27 August 2011 11:04 (fourteen years ago)

Perhaps related: I was on a train recently - actually I'm on a train now as well - and bought an item of food that was sold as a croissant but what was in fact an approximately crescent-shaped bread roll, dusted with icing sugar. Could not believe they either don't know the difference themselves, or thought that someone buying it wouldn't be able to tell.

The company was called Le Pain Nouveau and they can, as I instructed via the online form of their website, go fuck themselves.

― Upt0eleven, Saturday, 27 August 2011 11:32 (fourteen years ago)

Jeez yeah, I've been caught out like that many times - it's like a large segment of the population genuinely hasn't noticed that croissants, ciabatte, etc aren't just white bread in a different shape. Nowt more dispiriting.

― Ismael Klata, Saturday, 27 August 2011 11:41 (fourteen years ago)

fwp tbf

Enforced transaction scripts are soul destroying, boyler otm

― Richter scale? I hardly even knew 'er! (darraghmac), Saturday, 27 August 2011 11:46 (fourteen years ago)

jol out

― Ismael Klata, Saturday, 27 August 2011 11:49 (fourteen years ago)

what an unusual reference

― Richter scale? I hardly even knew 'er! (darraghmac), Saturday, 27 August 2011 11:50 (fourteen years ago)

company policy I'm afraid

― Ismael Klata, Saturday, 27 August 2011 12:07 (fourteen years ago)

xpost a bit: They probably had enough of people complaining about "whoa, where's my coffee dude?""

― Mark G, Saturday, 27 August 2011 20:50 (fourteen years ago)

i love the rant at the top of this thread.

― jed_, Saturday, 27 August 2011 22:14 (fourteen years ago)

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