There are several vending machines at work located near my
office and they are a source of endless laughter and frustration at work. Dealing with students is never boring, but throwing vending machines into the mix definitely adds to the load of ridiculous questions/requests we receive.
I think that most people would agree that vending machines
are less than reliable and that you use one at your own risk, but apparently
students are not most people.
You might think, from the long stream of students coming in to complain about vending machines, that our office was labelled ‘Maintenance’ or ‘Complaints Department’. My co-workers always try to be helpful and polite, but occasionally listening to the long stream of complaints- about how 'the machine ate their money', how 'the coffee was too hot' or 'the coffee wasn't hot enough', how 'there isn’t a decaf hot tea option', how 'the machines are out of coke', how 'the soda wasn’t cold enough'- is enough to make you feel like beating your head against a wall would be a better use of your time.
We tell the students that we will contact the company
responsible for maintenance of the machines, but that we can’t fix it
ourselves, nor can we issue refunds. And then they complain that we aren't being helpful or suggest that somehow we are too lazy to deal with the situation.
The best story of all though, is the lady who came in and rudely interrupted the whole office to announce that the hot drinks machine was not working properly and had eaten her money, and she 'demanded to be compensated immediately.' She became belligerent when we explained that our office wasn't able to issue a refund, and she suggested that one of the staff might have the money in their purses to reimburse her. (She was pretty offended that no one jumped up to volunteer.)
We asked her which machine she had used and she responded, 'It was the hot drinks machine with an out of order sign on the front. The sign was covering the coin slot and I had to remove before I could put my money in. I saw that the sign said 'Out of Order', but it is the only hot drinks machine on this level and sometimes people put signs up like that even when the machine is still working...'
The best story of all though, is the lady who came in and rudely interrupted the whole office to announce that the hot drinks machine was not working properly and had eaten her money, and she 'demanded to be compensated immediately.' She became belligerent when we explained that our office wasn't able to issue a refund, and she suggested that one of the staff might have the money in their purses to reimburse her. (She was pretty offended that no one jumped up to volunteer.)
We asked her which machine she had used and she responded, 'It was the hot drinks machine with an out of order sign on the front. The sign was covering the coin slot and I had to remove before I could put my money in. I saw that the sign said 'Out of Order', but it is the only hot drinks machine on this level and sometimes people put signs up like that even when the machine is still working...'
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