Fifteen Special Drinks Is Gonna Take A Special Amount Of Time

I work at a popular sandwich, salad, soup, and bagel restaurant. This takes place during the global health event and a time when we are notoriously short-staffed. I am working the opening shift at the front registers: 6:00 am to 2:00 pm. Based on where I am living, this meant I was up at 4:30 to make it to work on time.

We have a regular customer who consistently calls in and orders upwards of fifteen special drinks to be picked up: frozen coffee, smoothies, hot lattes, the works. Almost every drink has some sort of modification that changes how the drinks are made. More often than not, due to her order, on Fridays, we usually have an extra person up front to help out with her order.

Despite the extra people, we usually tell her it will be about an hour before she can pick up her drinks.

On this particular Friday, I am the only person working as front cashier, which includes making all the drinks and grabbing other items like bagels and pastries. We have a line out the door and a drive-thru line wrapped around the building, and the phone is ringing off the hook. I’m working my best to keep up. Most of these customers are my regulars who I know, so I can have their stuff set up ahead of time.

About an hour later, things are still crazy. We’ve had the next cashier coming in call off, so I’m alone until our lunch rush at eleven. [Awesome Manager] tells me to call him up if I need help. In walks in our regular customer, who can see that our line is through the door and that I’m the only one up front.

When she finally gets to the front of the line:

Me: “Good morning. What can I get started for you today?”

Regular: “Hi. I tried to call in, but no one is answering the phone.”

Me: “I’m so sorry about that. I’m the only one up here right now, and it’s been through the door all day. What can I start for you?”

She gives the reward information for the business that orders the drinks and then starts listing all fifteen drinks. After getting her whole order in and repeating it back to her:

Me: “Okay, you’re all set. It will be about half an hour before the drinks will be ready. Have a nice day!”

Regular: “Um. Excuse me? I came to the store. Doesn’t that mean you have to serve me first?”

Me: “I’m sorry, but as this is still a large quantity of drinks and we’re very short-staffed today, I have to make all of the drinks between helping other customers.”

Regular: “But I came into the store to order, so now you’re going to make all the other people in line wait until I get my drinks.”

I am sensing a problem worse than I can handle right now.

Me: “Let me go get a manager for you.”

I go to the back, explain the situation, and for some reason, I start crying. I’ve been up since 4:30, been up front all day by myself, and just can’t take it anymore. [Awesome Manager] comes and talks to the customer.

Awesome Manager: “Ma’am, please understand that, even though you’ve come in to order, you’ve still ordered the same thing you would have ordered over the phone, and it will therefore still take the same amount of time to make.”

[Awesome Manager] stayed up front to help me, and we switched between taking orders and making drinks. The regular showed up to pick up her drinks half an hour later and found me (finally with no line) finishing up her last couple of drinks. As my manager and I had discussed, I went back to let him know she was back.

From that point on, she ordered her drinks online so we could print out her order and start on it as soon as possible. She never gave us any more issues, and a couple of months later, I had a new job closer to where I lived.