Hold Everything
I work at the drive-thru for a burger place. Our menu up front has a speaker that allows us to take the customer’s order there to speed things up. A customer has given me a complicated meal combo order with lots of substitutions.
Me: “Okay, that’s [combo meal] but hold the onions, burger sauce on the side, unsalted fries, and a milkshake upgrade on the drink?”
Customer: “Yeah. For my next meal, I want…”
Cue another complicated combo meal with more substitutions, plus extra sides with their own substitutions. I read this meal back to her also.
Customer: “Yeah, cool. Okay, for my next meal, I want—”
Me: “—Ma’am, how many meals are you planning to order?”
Customer: “Twelve. So, I want—”
Me: “—Ma’am, we kindly ask our customers who have large or more complicated orders to please order inside the store. Our drive-thru lane is single-lane, and we have a line building up.”
Customer: “Where does it say that?”
Me: “At the bottom of the menu you’re ordering from.”
Customer: “Huh. Oh yeah. Anyway, it says you “kindly ask”, so it doesn’t sound like you’re enforcing it. So anyway, for my next meal, I want…”
Yup. She put in the order for all twelve meals, all with heavy modifications, totally ignoring the line building up behind her. My manager and another guy had to go outside and start taking the orders of the other drivers with a clipboard to make sure they weren’t sitting there for fifteen minutes with nothing happening.
Annoyingly, this woman came back at the same time a week later, with yet another complicated order, this time fourteen sandwiches. She was likely ordering for an office or workplace and gave no concern at all for ours.
We figured she would be back again a week later, and we were right. This time before she starts ordering:
Me: “Ma’am, how many meals will you be ordering this time?”
Customer: “Thirteen. I want a—”
Me: “—Ma’am, we kindly require that large orders such as yours be made inside the store so as not to clog up the drive-thru.”
Customer: “Yeah, we had this discussion already. I want—”
Me: “—Ma’am. We kindly require, not ask.”
Customer: “Your menu doesn’t say that.”
Me: “Are you sure?”
Customer: “Yeah, it says you kindly ask—”
She stops mid-sentence. She’s just noticed that we printed out an update to that part of the menu and have taped it over the “kindly ask” bit. She pauses but regains her composure.
Customer: “Looks like you did that just because of me.”
Me: “It kinda does, doesn’t it?”
Customer: “Well I’m here now, so I want—”
Me: “—Ma’am. We kindly require, not ask. You need to come inside to make an order the size of yours.”
The sound of silence fills the speaker airwaves, and then she revs her engine aggressively before pushing forward and around the store. She parks up, storms in, and orders angrily, but hey, she still orders inside, so we take that as a win.
