It’s Sunday and y’all know the deal. Another customer exposé, hot off the presses, here for you.

You might want to strap in and buckle up for this one.

An Introduction:

Now, Mal-Kum has been a customer at my store for as long as I have been working there. (He’s probably been a regular for longer, but who really knows?) He’s a multi-visit kind of guy – he comes at least twice a day, every day – once in the morning and once in the evening. He also sits in most of the time. His visits can span between five minutes and eight hours.

When I first started, I thought Mal-Kum was an alright guy. Awkward, yes, but I thought that might have been my fault. I’m awkward as frick and still have trouble with small-talk these days. But over the last few weeks, I have realized that Mal-Kum is weird, pompous, and may, possibly, be dangerous.

Mal-Kum orders, without fail, a medium chai latte and a slice of banana bread in the mornings, followed by multiple chai lattes at night. When I say multiple, I mean more than three. This guy once bought five chai lattes in one sitting. And before you ask, no, he did not finish them. He often drinks things until they are half full, and then orders another because it is no longer at optimal drinking temperature.

You know what he said when I asked him why he bought so many?

“When money is no object, you can just spend as much as you want.”

Alright, Mr. Rich Guy.  Most of us don’t have that privilege, but GoOd FoR yOu.

*cue intense eye roll*

Mal-Kum has also been caught trying to recruit some of my male coworkers for the armed forces. I don’t know why he does it, considering he works as a security guard, but given that most of the male baristas at my store are pacifists and relatively peaceful guys, it doesn’t make sense for him to do so.

See? Weird.

The First Signs of Trouble:

Mal-Kum has this tendency to stick his card where it doesn’t belong. While I’m grabbing his pastry and preparing his drink, he will stick it in the slot located at the top of my cash register. At first, I thought it was helpful. The card would be ready for me to swipe when I got back from gathering everything. But over the years, this habit has gotten a little unnerving. Nobody else does it. And nobody looks as smug as Mal-Kum does.

It’s annoying now. Just why? Why. Hand the card over like a normal person man.

In for a Penny, out for a Pound:

Normally, Mal-Kum and I don’t really talk. I usually ask him a generic question about his weekend, he will reply that he is working 12-hour days and that his 4-day weekend is coming up, and then he will leave.
Last week, Mal-Kum strayed from our typical line of conversation.

It was both weird and terrible.

The conversation began normally. I asked him whether he had begun his weekend yet, and he answered with a negative. THEN, he launched into a tirade of how terrible my job must be and how shitty my pay is. He MAN-splained my situation to me …

I mean, both of those are true. BUT, it’s the principle of the matter. The only person that can call this job shitty is me. And my co-workers. And other baristas. Mal-Kum needs to hush it. He’s never worked in customer service, and he has expressed a deep desire to never do so.

Since he knows nothing about customer service, he needs to stop talking as if he does.

He’s told my coworkers that he makes roughly $4,000 on a bi-weekly basis. That’s great for him. But we know we make minimum wage. He doesn’t need to rub it in.

The Review:

Mal-Kum has also written a review of our coffee shop on the internet. Some of us managed to find it and you best believe it was circulated real fast amongst us.

Let me tell you what was in this review. Mal-Kum explained that he had been a long-time customer at our store, had enjoyed the service there, but then experienced something strange.

He claimed that one night, my coworker Bunny and an ex-coworker Wilson had slipped something nefarious into his drink.

I mean, nobody actually did anything. And nobody pretended like they did anything either. So why he made such a hullabaloo about it in-store and online is something we will never understand.

You might say…. it’s inconcievable.

The Instagram Life:

The weirdest part about Mal-Kum is his Instagram page. Now, granted, none of my coworkers follow him on this particular social media site, but we do look at it.

It’s really interesting. And if I could guarantee that Mal-Kum wouldn’t know, I would name drop his instagram SO Y’ALL COULD CHECK IT OUT. But alas, I still need my job.

Anyway, Mal-Kum is the type of person that separates words so that they are their #own #separate #hashtags. He is also the type of person that has his own photographer to follow him around, posts videos of himself brushing his teeth in a rather vigorous manner, and demonstrates a level of weird that is unmatched in the world.

He cuts his own hair every Thursday people. And they’re not good haircuts. He also has a photo of himself scaling a fence to stick his head up and peer over it. And calls this moment one that allows him to #think #outside #the #box.

It’s… uh. It’s definitely a moment.

He has footage of himself flicking open a rather dangerous and large switch-blade out in public, and has sat in our store with the weapon proudly on display. He is as smug about his knife as some Americans are about the Second Amendment. Let me tell you, it is NOT a pretty look.

His rationale? He needs to be prepared. If any day could be your last, then one must be prepared. I guess it makes sense if you think coffee shops are places of immediate danger.  He’s ARMED and he’s dangerous.

Anyway, he recently took a picture of our store and wrote an extensive post that explained why opening a coffee shop is a smart investment (which, I will give him, it is), and why he refuses to follow the business plan that our store follows. In the post, he cites those reasons being the #stupid customers, the shitty pay, and the #retarded baristas. He also calls my job a #shitty #ass #job.

Now, I don’t know about you, but someone calling you retarded? That’s offensive. My coworker Bunny commented on his post, asking him to explain what he meant by the “retarded” hashtag.

He meant the “coffee shop employees, who cause workplace dramas [. Employees] who backsta[b] other employees behind their backs, [and] who purposefully make other employees look bad in order to deflect their own mistakes and to lift themselves up in front other fellow baristas and managers.”

I think Mal-Kum needs to look up the definition of retarded again because he definitely does not have it down.

We’re currently in the process of trying to get him banned from the store.

I will let you know if that ends up ever happening.

Have a great week y’all,

T.

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