If you ever get the chance to work at an airport you’ll find that no matter where these people come from they are truly rude as hell! Don’t get me wrong I’m a people kind of guy yet my experience dealing with customers was truly challenged when I worked 6 years at the airport and to make matters worst when they hire you they warn you about the unruly guest and they instruct you to deal with it.
The company I worked for (Concessions International) told us that “you will have people lie on you, call you racial epitome, and just down right talk to you any way they see fit and just to deal with it with a smile”. Sounds easy breasy huh, well it was 6 grueling years yet with this economy and a slow job market where are you gonna go? For instance when I was in line heading to work a guest who was in the same security line was trying to get my attention to go ahead of him yet he got my attention by saying “yo burger king boy” needless to say I worked at a Sam Adams bar and not burger king although our shirts were the same color. Another occasion was when the Presidential race was going on and I had a bar packed with guess yet three business men were referring to at the time presidential candidate Barack Obama is “that Koon”; you hear it all and see it all.
On other occasions if you don’t move fast enough when they’ve realized they don’t have time to eat their meal and wana cash out in seconds your called a moron or my favorite an idiot. You have to have tough skin to even walk in that airport yet to make matters worse the company we worked for doesn’t back you on anything that happens with the guest. I had a friend who had a guest who had 5 beers and paid with a credit card, his bill was 19.80 cents. The guest was truly a butt hole because one he never sat down at the bar and two he intended to leave her a .20 cent tip. The problem was that instead of rounding off the receipt to 20.00 he did it for 25.00 yet a week later he called back and complained about his tab being 25.00. When the so-called managers investigated the problem they learned that the guest indeed wrote out the receipt for the 25.00 and signed it yet when this same guest called back 2 days later after being proven wrong he told the so-called managers that he didn’t get good service so they fired her on the spot.
Even though the guest never sat down at the bar because he kept running to check on his flight he was able to get my dear friend fired even though the cameras showed he never sat at the bar the whole time. There are many war stories like this yet the sad part as I said earlier is that the company that I worked for has taken an Uncle Tom approach in dealing with guest who are truly rude, racist and ridiculous. Most of the frustration is coming from delayed flights, missing connecting flights, or cancelled flights none have to do with the bar area yet if they can’t talk to a ticket counter person they can surely piss the hell on us with the blessing of Concessions.
They made their employees a cess-pool and a dumping ground and no matter what a guest may be upset about it sure ain’t the alcohol. Any company you work for has a duty and obligation to make sure that their employees have a safe working environment and that threats of any kind or insults for that matter will not be tolerated. An employee should be able to perform their job effectively with out being disrespected, after all Lincoln helped freed the salves. So if you ever get the chance to work at any airport for that matter just remember get plenty of rest, drink lots of fluid and pray like hell!!!!! Whoo-saaaaa….
what does little water means? 