I’ll stop the contest for a few weeks while I come up with new contest ideas.If you have ideas for contests on SmartCanucks please use the suggest form on the right to let me know 😀

We’ll certainly continue in July. I hope you’ve enjoyed the contests so far? I’ve had a blast! Thank you to all the wonderful contributions. The entries were very enjoyable to read:

• Week 1: Memories
• Week 2: Ways to Save Money
• Week 3: Most Embarrassing Moment
• Week 4: Employees Bite Back!

Winners List (win a $10 Gift Card or PayPal each)

• May 7 Winner: Week 1 Post 109 by Kitty
• May 8 Winner: Week 1 Post 105 by Connie Walsh
• May 9 Winner: Week 1 Post 25 by Maybe
• May 10 Winner: Week 1 Post 139 by Ivan
• May 11 Winner: Week 1 post 93 by vibrantflame
• May 12 Winner:  Week 1 Post 104 by couponmom
• May 13 Winner: Week 1 Post 192 by Mommy of 3
• May 14 Winner: Week 2 Post 104 by FreebieChick
• May 15 Winner: Week 2 Post 106 FunShopper
• May 16 Winner: Week 2 Post 28 by Tammy Hynes
• May 17 Winner: Week 2 Post 4 by mummyto2
• May 18 Winner: Week 2 Post 161 by Nancy
• May 19 Winner: Week 2 Post 41 by layniejoy
• May 20 Winner: Week 2 Post 1 by Ann
• May 21 Winner: Week 3 Post 53 by ThatguyRob
• May 22 Winner: Week 3 Post 74 by buttercup
• May 23 Winner: Week 3 Post 24 by Sara
• May 24 Winner: Week 3 Post 27 by Amy
• May 25 Winner: Week 3 Post 33 by Weeeooojr
• May 26 Winner: Week 3 Post 51 by meee
• May 27 Winner: Week 3 Post 77 by Melody113
• May 28 Winner: Week 4 Post 44 by Adam
• May 29 Winner: Week 4 Post 12 by ginger150
• May 30 Winner: Week 4 Post 14 by tinkb
• May 31 Winner: Week 4 Post 3 by N.M.
• June 1 Winner: Week 4 Post 33 by Smartfood
• June 2 Winner: Week 4 Post 48 by julyprincess
• June 3 Winner: Week 4 Post 51 by Nettie

One of my personal favourite entries was by monkeyincowtown:

Well Boo you’ve opened up a real treasure trove of memories for me with this one! I’ve worked in the service industry for many years and I have countless stories I could tell. However, there is one man in particular who was the nastiest, rudest customer I ever had to serve. Worse yet, he was a regular so I and my fellow servers would have to serve him many times a week. I was working at a very high end restaurant in downtown Vancouver. This man would come in several times a week. He drove a fancy Ferrari, which was always valeted out front, and quite often wore some sort of matching Ferrari clothing item ie: shirt, hat, gloves. Therefore my fellow severs and I referred to him as “Mr. Ferrari” (only amongst ourselves of course, never to his face) So anyways, Mr. Ferrari had man”charming” things that he did. When I asked him how he was and how his day was going he would reply by barking his drink order at me. No niceties for this one, he really could not be bothered to listen you. If I happened to approach his table when he was having a discussion with his powersuit buddies, he would bark out that I was not to be listening to his conversation and make me stand 6 feet away from the table until he was done talking (sometimes I would be standing there for 5 to 10 minutes! And if I tried to walk away to help someone else in the meantime, he would yell at me to get back there as he was not done with me yet!) Another lovely thing he would do is when his glass was empty he would raise it high in the air and rattle the ice around in the empty glass, while whistling and snapping his fingers for me to come, like I was some obedient dog or something. Occasionally if the feeling struck him that he was hungry, he would simply walk over to the pass through (for those of you who have never worked in restaurants, this is where the food comes out of the kitchen) and help himself to anything that struck his fancy! No, no he did not feel that he needed to order food, Why? when he could just help himself to other people’s orders when he got hungry. I could really go on and on about this guy! I’d have to say that the rudest thing Mr. Ferrari ever did to me personally was this, He had ordered a very expensive bottle of wine (around $500, this was his usual). I brought it to the table with glasses for him and his guests. Now when serving a bottle of wine like this in a high end restaurant, the presentation of the opening of the bottle must be very precise. I started by cutting and removing the foil, and then gently easing out the cork. I then placed the cork in front of him, for his inspection and poured a small taster of the wine into his glass for his approval. Normally someone would would test the cork by squeezing it to make sure it is not too dry, and then sometimes smelling it to try to detect and “Off” aromas. They would then try a small taste of the wine offered them and give their approval for me to continue pouring the wine for their guests. As you may of guessed, Mr. Ferrari is not one of those “normal” customers. I stood there patiently waiting for him to try his wine. Meanwhile my section was filling up around me, and I really needed to go talk to my other guests. I started frantically trying to make eye contact with someone, anyone! at the table to try and speed up up the whole process. Finally one of his female guests spoke up that she thought I might want him to taste the wine. He stops, looks at me, and says “oh, really” He slams back the wine in one big gulp, picks up the cork and proceeds to shove it down the front of my pants! I was humiliated!!! But worse still was the raucous round of laughter from his guests that resulted from his actions. ( typically I had learned to put up with this man’s outlandish behaviour, mostly because of management’s insistence that he was simply eccentric, and because he would spend thousands of dollars a week in our restaurant, which resulted in hundreds of dollars in tips for me) But this time he had crossed the line!!! I stormed over to the computer, printed up his bill, over $1000 dollars, stormed back to his table and gave him the check. I said “It’s time to pay your bill and leave, come back when you learn to treat people with a little bit of respect!” I was furious!!! To hell with his tip, I didn’t care anymore! I was just so angry at the way he had just treated me and even more angry that the people with him just laughed along with him like his little puppets! How would they feel if it were they in my shoes? Well, he left alright. Screaming all the way that this was no way to treat him and that he would never be back. The next day I came into work I was approached by a manager who wanted to have a “chat” with me. Oh great! was all I could think, I better not get fired over telling this guy to get out. Mr. Ferrari had dropped by the restaurant that morning and told the manager what had happened. He asked the manager to give me something. I opened up the envelope and inside was an I’m sorry note and $500!!! I couldn’t believe it, first it was nice to get the $500, second I couldn’t believe that he had apologized!!! I was still super mad about the whole thing, but figured if he was big enough to say sorry to me, a lowly waitress, then I guess I could be big enough to forgive him. So Mr. Ferrari remained a regular customer, and after that incident he would request to sit in my section every time. He’s still a nasty, rude man that treats all people with contempt, but I will always remember how good it felt to stand up to him that one day. And I’d like to think that it may of raised his opinion of me, if only by a tiny bit. He is still rude as ever, but he never went beyond the line again after that.

monkeyincowtown you win a $10 gift card too  for that awesome entry 😀

Winners if you have not already done so please send an email to [email protected] with “Date X Winner” in the subject, e.g. “May 12 Winner”. Let us know whether you’d prefer a gift card (and list some preferences) or paypal and the neccessary info to have the gift sent.

We already sent out many gift cards and paypals so far. Have you received yours yet?