The Lemons Are Turning You Dramatic & Sour

There's a lot of people waiting to hear about this customer, Lemon-Lady. It is in fact one of my all time favourtie ones, and I must admit it didn't really piss me off in, just left me dumb-founded. Then again, don't they usually?

King Prawn Cutlets come in a serving proportion of six. There is also a complimentary wedge of lemon served with it, in both Take Away and Dine In. While some customers use the lemon wedge, some actually enjoy it with a side of Sweet and Sour. Everyone is different.

Lemon-Lady is regular Take Away customer. On this unique night she orders her usual King Prawns Cutlets. We receive a call from her later on in the night.

Lemon-Lady: There is something wrong in my King Prawn Cutlets.
Me: I'm sorry about that, what seems to be the problem?
Lemon-Lady: The lemon has no juice in it.
Me: Okay, so the King prawn Cutlets themselves are fine?
Lemon-Lady: No, because now I can't eat them without lemon.

Golly gosh, really now? This was not one that I had heard before. There was nothing wrong with the actual food, yet she could not eat it without the lemon? I stood there kind of dumbfounded, in fact this was one of the times that I really wished our Take Away phone had a loudspeaker, because I'm sure all the other waitress would have loved to hear this one for themselves.

Me: I can give you another lemon, even a a double serving of lemon, if you want to come get more, or I can make a note that next time you order we will make sure that you get a better lemon wedge.
Lemon-Lady: How can you give me a lemon with no juice in it. Don't you guys check it?
Me: We buy them from the local grocery store.
Lemon-Lady: Well, you should quality check them when you give them out.

Oh man. Lemon-Lady was fighting with me over the phone about a piece of lemon! But the funny thing was that at this moment in time, I wasn't pissed off about a stupid complaint as I would usually be, in fact, I thought it was amusing that we were fighting about lemons. That's probably why I started to get a little smart mouthed after that.

Me: Well, we just buy them from the groceries so if there is a problem with the lemons then maybe you should bring it up with them.
Lemon-Lady: I'm not going to go to the groceries to argue about lemons. You gave it to me.

Yet, it seems perfectly reasonable to still be on the phone with me about a wedge of lemon. 

Me: Sorry, but that's where we get them from.
Lemon-Lady: Like I said you should check them.
Me: So, you're saying I should squeeze them, so I know if the are juicy, before I give them out.
Lemon-Lady: Yes, you should check them.

At this point I think Lemon-Lady has eaten too many lemons because it's really gotten to her head. I felt like saying that well next time I will squeeze the lemon and then tell her about all the juice that came out of it, and then give her the wedge because I have quality tested it. But of course I had to hold my tongue. By this time a few other waitresses were listening on this conversation and realised that I was getting pretty fed up with it.

Me: Look, if you don't want to come down and get more lemons, I will just write it down for next time.
Lemon-Lady: Well, I want a credit for the King Prawn Cutlets.
Me: Is there anything wrong with them? [Knowing that there wasn't because she had told me there was nothing wrong with them.]
Lemon-Lady: No, but now I can't eat them without lemons.
Me: I can't give a you a credit for something that has nothing wrong with it.
Lemon-Lady: But how do you expect me to eat them now without lemons.

How about, bite, chew, chew, swallow? Not hard.

Lemon-Lady: I don't mind paying for extra lemons but I can't eat the Cutlets without them.

I like to tell everyone that waitresses do talk about you. You may think that we don't, but we do. Lemon-Lady had previously ordered a whole lemon with her King Prawn Cutlets, we charged her an extra dollar. After all, you don't get extra things for free. She complained about how we charged her the extra dollar for a lemon and never ordered extra lemon again. So obviously she was now lying to me to get her own way. I still had to hold my tongue, so I said nothing.

Lemon-Lady: I always order the King Prawn Cutlets from your restaurant, and I love lemons with them.

So maybe, just as a suggestion, Lemon-Lady should buy some EXTRA lemons on her own so that she can suck on as many of them as she wants.

Lemon-Lady: So now, I can't eat them without lemons.
Me: Look. We make the Cutlets, there is nothing wrong with them. We buy the lemons and when we cut it up it seems fine. So I cannot give a you a credit for the whole serving of King Prawn Cutlets.

It baffles me completely. The wedge of lemon is complimentary, we don't add it to the cost of the King Prawn Cutlets AT ALL. In fact, there are places that don't even give you the wedge of lemon. How can I give you a credit on a wedge of lemon that is not charged when you really plainly just refuse to eat perfectly good King Prawn Cutlets?

Lemon-Lady: Well that's just not good enough.

Lemon-Lady would not get off the phone with me. Really it was just wasting my time. Finally one of the waitresses tells me that if she puts the wedge of lemon in the microwave for a few seconds it might help with the juice issue. So I tell Lemon-Lady this.

Lemon-Lady: Well I'll see if it works.

Then she finally hangs up.


Now don't get me wrong. I love King Prawn Cutlets, I love lemon, and I love to eat the two together. So I do understand that she was a little pissed off that she wasn't getting enough juice out of the lemon. But if she orders it ALL the time, refused to pay a dollar for an extra lemon, and not buy her own extra lemons. What in the world was she complaining about? I understand if it was a case of wanting to inform us, as some customers do, but really she wanted a reward for it as well.


Never, in my line of work, would I have ever thought that I could spend ten minutes talking about a wedge of lemon.


After that incident, she ordered her meals under a different name (she orders the exact same things every week). I think maybe, just a little, that she knows she was being slightly dramatic over a wedge of lemon. She now also gets her son to come in the pick up the order instead of showing up herself. However, just in the last week she has started using her own name again, but she still has not come to pick her meal face-to-face in Take Away, but instead has her son picking up the order for her.

The moral of this? Don't argue for ten minutes on something that is not charged, and assume you will get some sort of credit for perfectly good food that you simply refuse to eat.

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Apologies for not updating in almost a week.

For once there was something else going on in my life that wasn't work/customer related.

It was nice even if it was short lived.