PSA: You Better Buy Something Before You Ask For A Spoon At The Tea Lounge

A friend o'FIPS wrote in about a horrible experience she had at the Tea Lounge recently:

I walked into the Tea Lounge after my coop shift – after stopping there for a coffee earlier in the morning – and asked if they had a plastic spoon (for my yogurt). They said no, and I said, “Oh, well, then can I borrow a metal one, I'll bring it right back. And the manager said, with a whole lot of attitude, "no." And I said, “Really? Why?” And she said, "no." And I was like, “I don't understand, can you explain why?” And she said, “Well did you buy anything?” And I said, “Well, yes, this morning on my way to my coop shift, I got a coffee.” So then she gave me a spoon. As I was leaving, the OWNER came up to me and said, “You are so rude. I can't believe you would ask us to borrow a spoon and not buy anything. Would you go into a pizza joint and order a hamburger?" And I said, "YOU are being rude."

What I didn't say, but felt like saying, was that I nursed my freaking baby in that grotty place, and I met my stupid mommy group there, and I finished writing innumerable articles there, and always make coffee runs for my shift-mates there, and always buy drinks and even sometimes food there, and I just needed a spoon and I didn't have one. 

I think they made some kind of judgment, based on my appearance, that I was a certain kind of person who just went around willy-nilly borrowing spoons and such, like some kind of entitled spoon user who thinks the whole world owes her a spoon. Needless to say, after ten years of being a regular customer, I am never going there again.

I gotta say, this seems pretty ridiculous. Are people constantly coming in and asking for spoons? I've totally been in a situation where I've gotten a salad somewhere, realized I forgot a fork, and gone in somewhere else and asked for one. I mean, I get it, you sell food, this lady brought in her own yogurt and then came in and asked for a spoon, and maybe you legit don't have plastic spoons, and said no, but then she had the AUDACITY to ask to use one of your metal spoons without buying something right in the moment! AW HELL NO! The horror that must have caused you! I could understand if this was a sit-down restaurant, but you let people sit there all fucking day working on their laptops, and MAYBE they buy one drink while they're there. Or do you monitor that, too? And, you, Mr. Tea Lounge Owner, making a terrible analogy and calling a customer rude for asking for a spoon. A spoon! 

Get over yourselves Tea Lounge. You're drunk. 

Comments

[Brittany]

And now the place is closed. Happy?

People get used to the "everything's free on the internet" way of living and then get shocked when brick and mortar businesses need people to pay for things in order to make the lease.