i genuinely believe most customers have no idea what they’re actually ordering most of the time

I had a lady watch me like a hawk to make her coconut milk no whip PSL because she’s “deathly allergic to milk and almost died from another Starbucks making it incorrectly but they’re so good [she] can’t stop ordering them.”

She didn’t believe me that there’s milk in the PS syrup until I pulled out the bottle and showed her the label. She awkwardly made eye contact while drinking her death trap and walked away..

omfg i swear the number of times i’ve heard about “allergies” so people think they can scare us into making their drinks right. if you are that worried about your dairy allergy you probably should avoid a shop where **everything contains dairy or is in close contact with milk**.

i once had a lady argue with me because her daughter was allergic to chocolate, and she insisted that she wanted white mocha instead because it didn’t contain chocolate 🙄 even when i read that cacao was an ingredient she basically told me she knew better than me like okay lady do you, hope you have an epipen then

So I think it's that people feel more comfortable lying about a preference.
OP's example: the customer just doesn't like whipped cream. Maybe it disgusts her, I dunno. But instead of saying simply that she doesn't like it please take it off, she has to manufacture a reason to be outraged: she's *allergic* to it. Let's say she's allergic to whipped cream (but no other dairy. Yes, I know, it's a fantasy claim just like her allergy, roll with it.) I would think she would have to have the drink remade because scraping would still leave some in there.

But in the real world instead of saying: hey, I'm sorry can you take off the whipped cream as I said no whipped cream when I order, she has to either manufacture a reason to be so angry, or make herself into a victim-- you almost made her have an allergic reaction!


I'm more curious about the reason for the lie and not the lie itself. Because lies like this are supposed to make our lives *easier" right? For whatever reason, just saying you don't like whipped cream makes the customer feel pretty or that they somehow have to justify it with some long story from their childhood when whip cream wounded their soul. Easier to just say they are allergic. Boom. Social interaction sorted.


But this lie doesn't make the person's life easier. *But they do not know it.* It's like watching a five year old seeing their parent lie about getting sick to get out of going to work and then try to use that excuse ad nauseum for the next three months until they figure out how to lie better.

The customer in OP's example is an adult who has not learned to lie passed, maybe, a child's reasoning of what a lie is and what a lie is supposed to do. That....is maybe concerning to me. Maybe less concerning than thinking people run on manufactured anger and martyrdom (which I think is also a sadly common occurrence.) But interesting.


I made my husband read OP's post and gave my truncated opinion. He disagreed and said, no. The customer in OP's example probably thinks that whipped cream makes the drink a "treat" anf her coffee is serious business and no a milkshake. No whipped cream and the probably 50+ teaspoons of sugar drink is back to being a respectable adult drink.

So that reasoning based on optics is also something to think about.

I’m always worried that I annoy my friendly neighborhood baristas by asking what all goes in a drink. I can’t pick the store through mobile as it’s in a Target. I try to be nice to them

The irony here is that whipped/heavy cream has LESS lactose than any other kind of dairy milk.

I had someone come thru, already throwing a tantrum before ordering her drink that she HAD to get a decaf latte because she’s “deathly” allergic to caffeine.

I think people in the comments are misunderstanding similar situations.

It’s possible to be lactose-intolerant and just say no whip+milk sub, if they accidentally put whip, scraping it off and just mixing it around leaves such little lactose that it wouldn’t really affect them(noticeably). Especially since heavy cream and most whips (generally) have extremely little lactose in them in the first place.

But the customer from OP’s post is just a tard.