A bartender was left scratching her head after an odd interaction with a disgruntled customer who claimed she was behaving in an ‘un-Australian’ manner.
The worker was serving drinks at a Melbourne stadium hosting an AFL match when she had a minor miscommunication with a customer who wanted to pay for their beer in cash.
When she didn’t realize he was offering a $2 coin to make up his change, the man started berating her for going against the Australian value of ‘helping each other’.
“I recently informed a customer of the total amount of their purchase and then indicated the EFTPOS, as most people now pay with cards,” the employee explained on Reddit.
“He then repeatedly tapped the fifty dollar bill on the machine to make his point (he pays in cash).”
A customer berated a young bartender after he tried to pay cash for his drinks. He became enraged when the worker failed to see him offering a $2 coin to round up his change
The employee said the man went on a rant about not “talking back” to customers and that they were “un-Australian” for “not helping each other”.
As she was getting the change from the man, she noticed him holding out his hand.
‘I thought he was demanding a quick transfer of the change, so I told him to be patient, please. This man got upset and said he wanted to make it easy for me by giving me an extra two dollars (the total was $42),” she said.
“I said, ‘You could have said something,’ instead of waving his hand at me. I didn’t see the coin in his hand and I didn’t know what he was doing.’
The comment prompted the man to ‘preach’ about the Australian value of ‘helping each other’, which the worker found ‘irrelevant’.
‘(He said) I shouldn’t talk back because he’s the customer and I should just say sorry and move on. “I apologized insincerely to get him out of line,” she said.
‘I know I didn’t do anything wrong. Did he bring up this ‘Australian value’ because I’m not white!? Or he was just one and a half.’
Hundreds quickly sided with the bartender, calling the customer “unnecessarily rude.”
“Australian values, he’s the one who doesn’t have them,” said one user.
“Any other normal Australian would have told you they had the two dollars instead of expecting you to be a mind reader,” a second replied.
“It’s not hard to just say, oh hi, I have the $2 if it helps, instead of just extending your hand.” Or to not be such a dick about paying with cash instead of card. You didn’t do anything wrong and you weren’t rude, but he certainly was,” another agreed.
However, others thought it was the bartender who was rude.
“You were both passive-aggressive,” one man said.
“It sounds like you’re trying to argue with him and lecture him,” another wrote.