Failing The Pop Quiz

I’m working the drive-thru. A customer comes through to collect an online order, which means they made the order themselves, and I cannot change anything on the written order. My only options are the buttons to send the order to the kitchen and to accept it from the app.

The drink on this order is the default drink, the one you get if you don’t select your drink. But plenty of people like this drink, so I think nothing of it.

Me: “Here’s your drink and receipt. You’ll get your food at the next window.”

Customer: “Can I get [different drink]?”

Me: *While I am putting back the drink he ordered and taking out the new one.* “Okay, but remember to order the correct drink on the app because it messes with our inventory.”

Customer: *Angrily.* “It’s not that hard to just switch it!”

He snatches the drink and drives off.

I would have liked to have said: Actually, sir, this one switch is three lots of paperwork. The first is to explain to corporate why one [different drink] has gone missing, the second is to explain to corporate why we have one extra [default drink], and the third is to change our deliveries so they don’t keep replacing the drinks we haven’t sold while we run out of the others.

I love it when people tell me how my job is “not that hard.”