The Most Annoying Pranks People Pull in the Hospitality Industry
When I was fifteen, I stood holding a serving tray for the first time, and about five seconds later I dropped one for the first time in my life. No, hospitality wasn’t a job I mastered right away. I found it terrifying too. It probably didn’t help that my first hospitality job was at a restaurant owned by Herman den Blijker (how was I ever hired there?!) and nobody actually expected that I couldn’t do anything at all. Still, I lasted three months — and swore never to work in hospitality again.
I did keep that promise for quite a long time, by the way: about two years, because at eighteen I decided to give it another chance. With clearly more success, because I worked in hospitality until I was 26. The only thing I didn’t learn in all those years was to believe people a little less quickly. I literally fell for everything (and I still do, by the way).
8 Most Annoying Pranks in the Hospitality Industry
All those lame hospitality jokes… Yes, bring them on. There I was, going around the various neighborhood cafés again to ask whether they might have Irish coffee beans, because we had run out. Sound familiar? These are the absolute lamest pranks people pull in the hospitality industry, and yes, I fell for almost all of them.
1. ‘Can you ask the neighbors if they have Irish coffee beans?’ was the first one I fell for. All the surrounding cafés were in on the joke and sent me on to the next one. ‘I think they do!’ It also works with cappuccino beans, by the way.
2. ‘We’re out of Corona glasses, can you ask next door if they have a few?’ Same story — and once again you get sent to all the surrounding places. Luckily, I didn’t fall for this one, but that was only because I wasn’t the one asked; it was the newer girl. Lucky me.
3. Sending new staff off in search of the next beverages: bottles of Chateaubriand or a Chateau de Migraine. Even more awkward if they have you order them from the supplier.
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4. Being sent to the supermarket because you’re out of yellow and/or green bell pepper powder. Of course, they make sure to emphasize that it’s really important that you don’t come back empty-handed.
5. White cocoa powder for white hot chocolate. Very essential and virtually impossible to find. Because it doesn’t exist, that is.
6. A kluts to whip the cream, because we’ve lost the kluts. Very tricky to find a kitchen utensil you’ve never heard of and (hopefully quickly) realize doesn’t exist at all.
7. I even saw through this one immediately — and that says a lot: going to the shop to get tomorrow’s newspaper. I felt so sharp, honestly.
8. HA, this one’s a thing of the past, because it exists now: a keg of 0.0% beer. But back when malt beer was only available in bottles, plenty of newcomers were sent out to get one of those kegs…
Read also:
- This really isn’t okay: reserving a table and then not showing up
- Dear hospitality thieves, stop stealing
- 8 things about being short and working in hospitality
