We have this one customer who comes through our drive-thru several times a week, who ALWAYS claims that we got her order wrong. We think she actually goes out of her way to f*** with us, and no matter how many times we double- or triple-check her order — we know her now — she always gets the “wrong thing” and claims the mistake is ours. It doesn’t matter what’s on her receipt; she will always claim we screwed up and refuse to move until our manager gives up and gives her more food so as not to hold up the drive-thru. (She times her visits during our busiest rushes.)

Our drive-thru has a sign saying all transactions are recorded for training and security purposes. This is true, although rarely is it used for what I decide is necessary.

I set up a computer station near the drive-thru with fast access to the camera footage, both video and audio. When our problem customer’s car comes up, I start recording the feed to a separate file on a solid-state drive that can be accessed immediately.

Customer: “I’ll have the fourteen-piece chicken nugget meal and a medium diet Coke.”

Coworker: “That’s a fourteen-piece chicken nugget meal and a medium diet Coke. Anything else, ma’am?”

Customer: “No.”

Coworker: “So, just to confirm, that’s a fourteen-piece chicken nugget meal and a medium diet Coke?”

Customer: “Jesus, yes!”

Coworker: “Okay, so a fourteen-piece chicken nugget meal and a medium diet Coke. That’s [price]. Please collect your food at the next window.”

She pulls up and I bring the food out to her. She opens the bag to inspect the contents.

Customer: “Unbelievable! This is not what I ordered! I ordered a—”

As I am hyper-prepared, I have turned the screen of my new workstation around so that she can see an HD video with crystal-clear sound immediately play back her transaction from mere moments ago.

Customer: *On playback* “—fourteen-piece chicken nugget meal and a medium diet Coke.”

Me: “That is what you ordered, correct, ma’am?”

Customer: “Well, no, I—”

I play back the video again, this time louder.

Me: “You ordered a fourteen-piece chicken nugget meal and a medium diet Coke. You confirmed three times that you ordered a fourteen-piece chicken nugget meal and a medium diet Coke. You have received, in fact, a fourteen-piece chicken nugget meal and a medium diet Coke. Thanks for eating at [Fast Food Place]!”

She stared at me with the sourest expression, but I simply stared back with my slightly psycho customer service smile, blinking precisely never.

She never came back. We feel sorry for whatever poor drive-thru inherited her, but I can’t lie: it felt glorious.

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The Saga Of Jane Complain

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A customer is calling.

Caller: “I bought a milkshake from you for my ill, bedridden, elderly mother! She lives an hour away, so I had to go a long way! My poor mother dropped the milkshake and a whole live cockroach ran out of it!”

Me: “Do you have any pictures of the roach, ma’am?”

Caller: “No, it ran away.”

Me: “Do you have your receipt of purchase, ma’am?”

Caller: “No, my ill mother threw it away.”

Me: “Do you want to come back and have us remake that shake for you, ma’am?”

Caller: “No, you have roaches in your food! And I live an hour away!”

Me: “What would you like us to do, ma’am?”

Caller: “You need to mail my cash back to me!”

I wanted to ask her to mail the dead cockroach to us first, but I had to simply professionally decline.

In high school, I worked at a fast food chain with my best friend for eight months. Oh, the stories I could tell!

The store was run by a mother-daughter pair, and oh, boy, was it a s*** show. I had waited tables before, and I like to see other people smile, so they trained me in the drive-thru windows because I was “perky”.

The first bad sign was when the managers started a pool with over/under bets on how long it would take for me to stop smiling at people when I took their money or handed them food.

All right, I can live with that.

Our kitchen was made up of entirely illegal immigrants, none of whom spoke English. Having worked in other restaurants, I didn’t really think too much about it other than, “Sweet, another way to practice Spanish!”… until the other women started complaining about being sexually harassed. I went with one particularly timid girl to report it to the managers — they worked every shift together — and the response was for us to “Suck it up and enjoy it!”. I started carrying my pocket knife with me to work after that, which I did eventually wind up using when one of the men cornered me in the freezer — where there were no cameras. When I reported that incident, the daughter threatened to fire me because I was “stealing her men”.

Meanwhile, I was looking for other jobs, but no one was hiring, so I was stuck where I was.

We started experiencing thefts. My best friend reported the men responsible… and nothing happened.

What took the cake was when I was working on a Saturday. My shift started at 6:00 am, but someone called out and I agreed to cover the next shift, because hey… overtime! Well, s*** hit the fan around midnight when we got this huge rush. The only people working were a guy in the kitchen, a shift manager, and me.

The shift manager got a call. Her underage boyfriend had been caught at a DUI stop down the road in her car, with weed on him. She panicked and left the store to go get him in the [Kitchen Guy]’s truck.

Me: “Um… what the f***?”

The lobby was locked, so all we had to do was run the drive-thru, so we buckled down and made it work. [Shift Manager] came back, bringing the boyfriend and his friend, and they all three locked themselves in the men’s restroom to get high.

Keep in mind, I’d been at work since 6:00 am, so I was dead on my feet and really just wanted to leave. I figured someone else would deal with it in the morning. Besides, the office was locked, and it was manager policy to not have your cell phone on you at work or risk getting fired, so I couldn’t call anyone. And again, I NEEDED this job.

I clocked out at 2:30 am. I had to be back at 6:00 am again. (That was not legal for someone under eighteen, but they didn’t really follow laws.) I just wanted to get some sleep.

The next afternoon, [Kitchen Guy] and I were called into the break room for a meeting with the managers. There, we were told how much of a disappointment we were, how we were terrible employees, and how we should have called their cell phones — like I had their numbers. We generally got our a**es reamed. We were too dumbstruck to say anything.

Honestly, I’d had enough. I had dealt with sexual harassment, sexual assault, piss-poor management, drug deals happening at work, watching people steal, and seeing countless other laws getting broken.

On my next shift, I came with a resignation letter. I had just enough money in the bank to get me through the next month, and I figured something would shake loose by then. I handed them the two weeks’ notice letter at the end of my shift. The mom glanced over it, looked up at me, and said:

Mom: “You are so f****** dumb. Don’t come in again.”

The daughter was laughing. Mind you, this was in the middle of the front lobby where there were customers because they refused to talk with me in either the office or the break room. She quipped:

Daughter: “Don’t forget to bring us back your shirt and hat!”

Something in me just snapped. I took off my shirt and hat and threw them over the counter. I walked out and have not been back, even once.

I’ve had some s***ty managers, but man, those two took the freaking cake.

A customer gets in line inside our fast food place and is actively vaping. My manager also sees this.

Manager: “No smoking inside the premises, sir.”

Customer: “I’m not smoking.”

Manager: “Smoking includes vaping, sir.”

Customer: “Well, that’s bulls***.”

He puts his vape away, and my manager continues serving his customers. A moment later, the customer is vaping again.

Me: “Sir, my manager already explained to you, no vaping inside!”

Customer: “Y’all some stupid motherf*****s!”

My manager then approaches the customer with a fire extinguisher.

Customer: “The f*** you doin’?”

Manager: “Store policy is no smoking of any kind inside. Store policy also states that any smoking object inside the store that we can’t put out by normal means has to be extinguished using an extinguisher.”

My manager holds up the fire extinguisher and aims it at the customer.

Manager: “Will I need to use this?”

The customer swore and stormed out of the store. One of our coworkers is a cartoonist and later drew up a special “no smoking” sign showing our manager using a fire extinguisher on someone vaping.

My manager claimed he never would have actually used it (too many legal liabilities) but he was happy the customer didn’t call his bluff!

A customer orders a cheeseburger meal, sits down, eats half of it, and then comes back to the counter.

Customer: “I need to refund this.”

Me: “What is wrong with it?”

Customer: “Oh, nothing. I enjoyed the meal, but now I need to return it.”

Me: “If you enjoyed it, then why do you need to return it?”

Customer: “I should be able to return things if I have the receipt!”

Me: “You can’t return half-eaten meals if there’s nothing wrong with them.”

Customer: “But I have the receipt!”

Me: “That’s not how it works.”

Customer: “Fine, I’ll just go to Walmart. They have better deals anyway.”

Related:
Return Of The Returner: They Want The Earth
Return Of The Returner: Lines Of Anger
Return Of The Returner: Mysteries From The Past
Return Of The Returner: The Buyback