I was at a gaming convention in Cork over the weekend and the bar at the event had the plastic pint glass substitutes out for the occasion.
I was less than thrilled at getting a pint of Murphy's in plastic, but the only other beer they had that I would drink was Paulaner and I really wasn't in the mood for a weiss, so I paid up and shut up. When I got down to the table and got a better look at the cup, I thought it looked a bit small. Upon closer inspection I noticed that it did not have the excise mark I would expect and as a matter of fact, had no indication of volume whatsoever. This was the first night of the event the place was thronged with thirsty gamers, so I was not going to make an issue of it.
Just after lunch the next day I was back and having another "pint". I was about half way through when I noticed that this one came in a slightly different plastic cup, which looked like it held about the same as the first but, while it also lacked the customs mark, it did have a volume marked fill line.
The line was marked 0.4l. They were charging the full price for a pint according to their price list and giving us 400ml as opposed to 568ml.
Now, I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. In my experience, if something can be explained equally well by negligence or conniving, negligence is the most likely explanation.
With this in mind and I approached the bar staff (it wasn't busy). I was directed to the woman in charge and asked her if the drink I had was supposed to be a pint. She said it was, so I pointed out the 400ml fill line and explained that a pint is 568ml.
Her response to this was "Well we get those in as pints."
A little taken aback I replied "Well they're not pints, their 400ml." She then proceeded to fill one of the plastic beakers to the brim with water, pour this into a proper imperial pint glass (with excise mark) and plonk the resultant short measure in front of me as if she made her point!
"Look! There's a gap!" Was the only thing I could say.
"Yeah, a bit of one." She replied, exasperated with the unreasonable customer. "Look, what are you drinking? Murphy's is it?" She said snatching my half full "Pint". This was generously topped up, thus making up for the fact that they were short measuring on every draught pint they poured over the weekend.
I sat down and fumed.
What would you have done in my place?
