Unfiltered Story #57202

My second job ever was working for a fast food/ sit-down diner combo known for it’s milkshakes and burgers. I wasn’t physically capable of being a waitress, so I was tossed into the back upon start. At first, it seemed like a promising job, but over my five months there I could fill this entire website, and it all centered around two managers.

Our GM was one of those managers who thought everyone was inept and incapable of their job despite not knowing how to do anything in the store himself. He often would come in, take over a station, mess everything up and then abandon it without telling anyone so he could blame everyone else for the backlog he created. He also had a short temper and if he decided he didn’t like you for whatever reason, he would force you to quit. My offence, it seemed, was because Shift Manager #1 hired me personally, and he didn’t like him.

My stay in what was apparently the Bates Motel of fast food began with being taken off the schedule for two weeks only two days after starting because GM “got my name mixed up” with someone who’d called in to quit, despite them being male and having spoken to him personally. After that didn’t work to get me out the door, the next tactic was to ignore all thirteen notes about scheduling me shifts I had told Shift Manager #1 I couldn’t work, until I had to miss one and take a no-call-no-show.

Upon GM attempting to terminate me, Shift Manager #1 had to step in and personally pull up the paperwork and stand up for me. This was the tune of the first four months, with GM getting more and more creative about trying to get me out the door as I slowly became everyone’s favorite co-worker, and the only person on night shift who could keep drive times low.

Basically, my popularity went up, and then suddenly I was “calling in for shifts” I didn’t have, or pulling “no call no shows” when I had called and had the records on my phone. Both were fireable offences. I needed a job, though, so I stuck it through.

The final grand standoff between me and GM happened in December. I was working Outside Dress, which basically means I assembled the sandwiches, fries, and otherwise into the bag for drive through. This also meant that if someone ordered anything “to go”, I was in charge of that as well. GM had a very strict rule about never, EVER working on a “to go” order when there was drive through orders, a rule that caused half our complaints online and a wait time of thirty minutes for a sandwich.

On this particular day, I was on outside dress when eleven back to back orders came in to go, and I had about as many for drive through. I am but one lonely fast food worker, but I plowed through as quickly as I could on the drive throughs while attempting to work on the to go’s in between. Every time I did, though, GM would yell OVER the back room at me about not “touching those d*mn tickets!” and I would have to go back to ignoring them. Other co-workers tried to help me, but he’d yell at them, too.

Forty minutes passed, and finally he came over and screamed at me for NOT working on them, then physically pushed me aside and read each thing aloud like you would to a toddler since I was “obviously inept at doing it”, then began to make the sandwiches and pushed me over to fries. About five minutes later he realized that in picking up and reading aloud the tickets, he’d put them all out of order and didn’t know which sandwich went where, so he made me come back and do it, however he kept yelling at me for every little move I made.

I’d grab the mustard–

GM: “NO! It’s KATSUP and mustard! do the KATSUP first!”

Or, I’d grab the katsup–

GM: “NO! It’s MUSTARD and katsup! Do the MUSTARD first!”

Everyone was staring at us like we were growing second heads, both employees and customers alike at this point. I was completely done dealing with this giant mess of his creation, so finally when he looked like he was going to boil, and was screaming at me, I made my grand move.

A sandwich came through that had NO KATSUP on the ticket.

GM: “You see that?! THAT means that THIS sandwich gets ABSOLUTELY no katsup! NONE! NADA! DO NOT PUT–”

Me: *Maintaining eye contact, squeezes the katsup bottle as hard as I can directly over the burger, flooding the burger and counter with katsup*

GM: …

GM: “Get the f*** back over to fries.”

After he sorted out the mess and left I was given a round of applause by both my coworkers and a few guests at the counter who’d seen everything. He never got in my face again after that, although I knew my days were numbered and began looking for another job.

My employment finally came to an end when, on Christmas, I was rushed to the ER for a severe kidney infection and had to call in to work. I was excused by Shift Manager #2, who’d picked up the phone when I called in, however six hours later I received a call from my GM telling me I no longer had a job for “skipping my shift”. I asked him if he knew I was in the ER, and he said he didn’t care and hung up, despite how firing an employee while they’re admitted to a hospital is illegal in my state.

It’s been four years, and I’ve never worked food again. GM was eventually demoted by corporate, only to be re-promoted under new corporate management a year later. Figures.