“The Customer is Always Right” a Short Story by Stephanie Rabig

The Customer is Always Right
by Stephanie Rabig

“Did you hear me? I said I want to speak to your manager!”

Mallory Montoya kept the pleasant, toothy Customer Service Smile on her face, though it was a near thing. “It'll just be—”

“Hey!” the woman said, snapping her fingers in Mallory's face. “I didn't ask for excuses! I asked for your manager!”

“And I'm trying to tell you,” Mallory said, taking a deep breath to keep the irritation out of her voice. “She's assisting a customer at the drive-thru. We're short-staffed today, but as soon as she's free, I'll—”

“Oh, so now I can't get help because your coworkers were too lazy to come in?”

It wasn't laziness, Mallory wanted to snap. Shanna was sick. And it had to be serious, because her friend had been fired from fast-food work for calling in sick before. It wasn't exactly legal, so far as she knew, but what was Shanna going to do? Sue the place using the money from her now-nonexistent paycheck?

Lynn was a much better boss, but taking sick days still made poor Shanna twitchy.

“I can help you,” she told the customer. “I'm very sorry I got your order wrong, but I can remake—”

“No! I know what you people are like! I don't want you touching my food!”

You people? She unconsciously straightened her shoulders. “If you don't trust me to handle your order professionally, perhaps you'd feel safer going somewhere else.”

The woman's mouth dropped open in outrage, and Mallory resisted the urge to drop behind the counter to take cover.

“Manager! Excuse me!” she shrieked. “Your employee is trying to kick me out after she messed up my order!”

Lynn gave a placating smile to the person in the drive-thru, waved at them as they drove off with their order, and then came up to the counter. “What seems to be the problem?”

“Your employee is disrespectful and incompetent! First she screwed up my order—I am on a 45-minute lunch break; I don't have time for this—and then when I complained she...hey!” she exclaimed, when Lynn turned to Mallory with a questioning look. She snapped her fingers at Lynn. “You look at me when I'm talking to you! First she refused to get you, then she told me to leave!”

“What was the original problem with your order?” Lynn asked, sounding for all the world like she was just discussing the weather with an acquaintance. Mallory envied her that calm; raging customers made her want to cry. The first time she'd had a customer scream in her face, only for a previous boss to simper about how they were so sorry Mallory hadn't done a better job, she'd actually had to go to the bathroom and throw up.

“She asked for no pickles and I forgot,” Mallory said now, handing Lynn the receipt for the order.

“How do you forget something that simple, right?” the woman asked, looking to Lynn for solidarity. “I mean, did she even graduate high school?”

Smoothly ignoring the insult, Lynn moved away. “I'll remake this as quick as I can. Wouldn't want you to be late.”

“And I'd like a gift certificate for next time,” the woman said. “Maybe that'll convince me to come back after dealing with all this nonsense.”

“Of course.”

“There,” the woman said, giving Mallory a triumphant smile. “That's how you treat your customers. Are you paying attention?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Some people aren't as understanding as I am, you know. I'm sorry I raised my voice, but you need to learn if you want a future in this industry.”

“Understood, ma'am.”

When Lynn came up with her new order, she opened the burger wrapper and made a point of checking for any rogue pickles. “See? Perfect. Thank you very much—” She checked her nametag. “Lynn.”

“You're welcome. Have a good day.”

She nodded and walked out of the store with her head high, a modern-day queen who had just finished putting the peasants in their place.

Once she was gone, Lynn and Mallory went to the deep-fryer. Lynn whispered a few words, and the hot, bubbling grease turned into a clear mirror, showing the customer as she wolfed down her burger and fries in the car on her way back to work. As she took one bite, mustard dripped onto her pale green work blouse, and she let out a soft, high hiss of rage.

“Nice,” Mallory said. “You going to teach me that one?”

“Soon,” Lynn said. “I want you to perfect the drink carrier trick first.”

Mallory nodded. That one was deceptively simple—a few grains of what looked like salt in the bottom of a drink carrier, and it was guaranteed to slip out of a problem customer's hands as they got out of their car. But the measurements were very delicate, and getting them wrong meant the carrier would break while still in the store or just not break at all. “Is that it, though? I mean—”

Lynn jostled her young employee with her shoulder, grinning. “You should know me better than that. Let's just say she's not going to be snapping at us like we're dogs anymore.”

Mallory laughed in delight as the woman pulled into her designated parking spot, only for all of her fingers to go limp. Not like she'd lost the strength to grip anything, or like they'd fallen asleep, but like all of the bones had simply melted.

The woman stared at her jellyfish hands, her mouth opening in a silent scream as she tried uselessly to open her car doors, finally resorting to throwing her body against the driver's side door, shrieking.

“How long will it last?” Mallory asked. 

“Until someone comes to check on her.”

“You're the best.”

“Thank you, thank you,” Lynn said, giving her an exaggerated bow as the deep-fryer shifted back to its usual form, signaling that a customer was coming in.

The witch and her apprentice turned around, watching as a young mother with four children, one of them a wailing infant on her hip, came through the door.

“Two pinches of energy and one of peace,” Lynn murmured, and Mallory nodded, waiting to see what the woman would order. Peace was easy to sprinkle on top of food; it melted immediately upon contact, but energy always left a little bit of crunchy residue. It worked much better mixed into a drink.

The three older children bounded up to the counter, babbling excitedly about what flavor shakes

they wanted to get, and Lynn smiled understandingly at their mother. “What can we get for you?”

When Stephanie isn't writing, she's marathoning Prodigal Son or making her way through a ridiculously huge TBR. You can check out upcoming projects at stephanierabig.weebly.com or keep in touch on Twitter @stephrabig.