Sometimes, I consider wearing a t-shirt under my work shirt, so that I could pull my work shirt over my head, like a footballer celebrating a goal, to reveal the following emblazoned on my chest:
I am not a lip reader.
I am not psychic.
Put down your @#?!ing phone and TALK TO ME.
It would, admittedly, have to be a pretty big t-shirt.
People who refuse to halt a phone conversation for long enough to place an order for a coffee will be among the first to be exiled when I am finally proclaimed Queen of the Universe.
Picture, if you will, the following conversation:
"Hi, what can I get you?"
"..."
"Right. Drink in or take away?"
"..."
"Ok. Black or white?"
"..."
"Got it. Decaf? Soya? Single shot? Hot milk? Cold milk?"
"..."
You get the idea. Ordering a coffee is a (relatively) simple process when both parties are paying attention; when one of them is miming their order because they're too pig-headed to put their fucking phone down it's a nightmare. It's like charades at Christmas with auntie Mabel after a few too many sherries, except you're auntie Mabel; baffled, irritated and wishing all these idiots would leave you alone so you could just go back to bed.
The other day, my colleague and I had to deal with a particularly bad example of such a customer. My colleague, an extraordinarily level-headed lady, had managed, via the medium of interpretive dance, to extract two vital bits of information out of the customer (double espresso, drink in), whose conversation was evidently so scintillating ("oh, yah. Yah. Yah. Really? Yah...") that it precluded a 2 minute break to order a coffee. My colleague, quite affronted by the customer's rudeness, left her to it while she made the coffee, came back, placed it on the counter in front of her and, realising that the customer still wasn't paying any attention, did something I've never seen her do before.
She completely ignored the customer.
We went about serving everyone else in the queue, loaded up the dishwasher, restocked the teabags - and the customer was STILL at the counter, STILL on her phone ("yah. Yah."), her coffee completely untouched. She flagged down my colleague, mouthed "soya milk" at her, and my colleague duly obliged, bringing over a jug of hot soya milk.
"NO - cold!" snapped the customer, placing her hand over the mouthpiece and rolling her eyes as if my colleague was behaving like some kind of idiot. I half expected my colleague to pour the cold soya milk over the customer's head when she returned with it, so furious was her expression, but to her credit she poured it in the cup, only lingering a fraction too long after the customer's 'stop' gesture.
We ignored her for a good couple of minutes more before - still on her phone - the customer waved us over with the universal 'bill' gesture (scribbling-in-mid-air, surely soon to be replaced by jabbing-at-imaginary-chip-and-pin-machine). I rang it through the till and pointed to the total on the screen, wordlessly. The customer paid (eventually - it's much harder to rummage through your purse when you're gripping your phone between chin and shoulder) and, finally, sat down, her coffee surely long-cold.
She never once put her phone down, and then had the gall to interrupt me while I was talking to another customer (who was not on their phone) to ask for the WiFi password. There's just no helping some people.
Next time, I'll just wear the t-shirt.
