Has 20/20 Derision

(I work the early morning shift at a 24-hour fast food restaurant as an opener doing all the prep for the day. Because we are 24-hours, we still take and prepare orders while we prep and are constantly looking up to the front counter to check for customers, even if the cashier is in the back doing prep at four am. We have a regular who always comes in during this time daily, knowing that we are all in the back. He isn’t liked much because of his consistent bad attitude, general rudeness, and fit-throwing, but we still give him top-of-the-line service and are kind to him. He never lets us know when he is there and hides from view while he “waits.” One day he comes in earlier than usual and stands to the side of the registers where no one can see him, a usual habit of his. We see no one up front and keep prepping. The customer waits an undetermined amount of time, makes no attempt to let us know he is there or make himself seen, and leaves. Two hours later, the regular comes back in, approaches the employee behind the register, and orders his usual breakfast item.)

Employee: “I’m sorry, but we’re actually out of the sausage patties today. We thought we were going to get more on truck, but we didn’t. Do you want to get it with ham or bacon, inste—”

Regular Customer: *throws hands in the air angrily* “WHAT? I was in here two hours ago, waiting for over twenty minutes for my order to be taken, and now you tell me you’re out of sausage!”

Employee: “I’m sorry. We didn’t know you were here. You should try to let us know—”

Regular Customer: “Ugh!” *throws hands in the air again and storms out*

(The next day he apologized to another employee who wasn’t even there during his outburst, ignored the employee he WAS rude to, and then said that that morning he also came in and was stuck waiting twenty minutes to order while we prepped just like the day of the outburst. Today the employee he snapped at was outside on break and watched him walk in and then back out two seconds later. We’re still waiting to hear about his twenty-minute wait he “suffered” through today.)