I worked in fast food for about four years, paying my way through college. I started as a cashier, but quickly climbed the prestigious ladder to management. It always amazed me that people would obviously take out more deep seeded problems in asinine ways usually under the guise of disatisfaction regarding french fries.
- At least once a month (the times I actually heard about), someone would do a Number 2 in the Mens' room sink.
- A lady successfully sued the company for tripping on a beer bottle that fell out of her own car. I wrote up the initial complaint. There were plenty of empties. The fact that only one fell out was surprising.
- At least once a week, a co-worker of mine would get hit by something thrown by an angry customer. Items include cartons of french fries, sandwiches, bags of garbage. One guy threw a large cup of ice water on a girl I was working with because it didn't have enough ice in it. He cussed at us as he walked away, not giving us enough time to explain that both water and ice were free and of no consequence to us. I felt bad because I had filled the cup, not her.
- A very drunk gentleman came in one night and threatened to kill one of my teenaged employees because he felt the kid had been "laughing at him" as he went through the drive-thru. The best part was, he brought his wife and young child inside to share in the festivities.
- I watched in horror one afternoon as a lady drove too close to our cautionary barriers breaking the driver's side mirror off her brand new car. She calmly ordered food and then proceeded to scrape the cement structure down through her door into her rear quarter panel. She paid for her order, parked, and then came inside demanding money "because she had just bought the car." The barriers had been there for years. No one had ever hit them before. They were actually behind a curb. She demanded that we call the police. The officer that showed up explained to her that, if she had simply turned the damage into the insurance company, she wouldn't have received the reckless driving ticket he now had to write her.
- I don't remember a day passing without some customer using fowl language directed at us.
- I remember the first time a guy came in that was obviously in a huge hurry. Before getting to the cash register he very loudly asked what we had "ready to go." We explained that we typically made everything fresh to order. He agreed to wait for a sandwich and fries. About two minutes in, as his sandwich was already half scarfed, he started cussing because he didn't have time to wait any longer. He had important places to be because he had an important job, not like ours. He demanded a refund on the fries, which took longer than the fries needed to finish cooking. Whenever these people would come in, I'd wonder, if you knew you were in such a big hurry, if you had to be somewhere that soon, why did you even stop?
- We had a local judge that frequently came through drive-thru. He was very particular. He always ordered the exact same thing, and acted like we should always know what his "usual" was. The problem being, we had thirty employees that rotated shifts regularly. Not to mention it's hard to tell who someone is when they're in a car twenty or more feet away speaking through a hard to understand speaker system. He always demanded his drink be placed inside his bag with the rest of his meal. We messed it up once. He called on the phone to tell me how "f-ing stupid" we all were. I told him he had no right to talk to us that way, no matter who he was.
- A guy came through drive-thru one night and he was exposed. Even more disturbing was the fact that his wife and children were in the car with him. It was summer. They had apparently been to the beach, but dad apparently didn't like to wear a suit. Luckily, I didn't have to verify this one myself. There was another manager on duty that just couldn't resist handing the order out.
- One of my first customer complaints as a manager was from a guy that we had watched enter the store, rummage through our garbage, and then approach the counter claiming that he'd been given empty cartons through drive-thru. In his hand he had a ketchup smeared bag full of used cartons and fry containers that we'd just watched him fish from the trash. Now, we'd been taught that the customer was always right. Part of me wanted to laugh so hard, but another part of me was very, very angry. I explained that the cartons were dirty, and had therefore, at some point, contained food. I told him that, if he couldn't produce a receipt, he'd be out of luck. The person working drive-thru, also trying hard not to laugh, had never seen the guy before.
- A minister came in one day wearing all white, surrounded by 10 to 12 nuns also in all white. As he ordered food, they stood protectively around him, never ordering anything for themselves. He leaned in to the female cashier and explained to her that men were not allowed to wait on other men, therefore I was not allowed to put anything on his tray. I took a short break. The nuns sat quietly while the minister ate his lunch.
- We opened around 10:30 a.m. About ten minutes after opening one morning, a station wagon pulled up in the drive-thru. A lady in her thirties paid for the food, and we noticed she had a very large, obvious 40 oz. beer between her legs. As we asked her a few pleasantry questions (do you need sauce?), it was obvious she had already been hitting the bottle. The part that made us call the police was the five kids of various ages not buckled in residing in the back seats.
- One guy threatened me and my 16 year old janitor with bodily harm because he claimed to have seen our American flag touch the ground as it was being hung. He wanted it immediately burned because many of his good friends had died for their country. Did I mention it was about 6:45 a.m. and his wife was with him? I explained that I'd have to check with my supervisor prior to destroying company property and starting fires. When that didn't work, I told him we'd let the police hand it. The janitor swore up and down that there was no way the flag touched the ground, and no way the guy could have even witnessed it if it had.
Good Times!
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