I’m working my first week (and my first job!) at a fast-food place. We’re about twenty minutes to closing, and I’m cleaning up a closed section of the restaurant. The store manager comes over to me. We haven’t actually interacted until this point:

Store Manager: “You’re [My Name], who started this week, right?”

Me: “That’s me!”

Store Manager: “Stop what you’re doing and come with me. I need to show you something.”

Me: “Uh… okay?”

I walk with him outside to a car that has pulled up outside our store. The driver, some guy, has been staring into our store for the last five minutes. The store manager walks up to the car and gently taps on the window.

Store Manager: “Sir, I know you can hear me, so I am going to explain this loud and clear. The store closes in twenty minutes. You are intending to act our your normal schtick of driving through our drive-thru a minute before closing, making some overcomplicated order for the h*** of it, complaining that everything is wrong and demanding it to be remade, and then sitting at the drive-thru several minutes more to check your items, keeping us all back long after closing.”

Driver: *Rolling down his window.* “I don’t know what gives you the right to approach some innocent guy in the parking lot and—”

Store Manager: *Ignoring him and pushing on.* “—So I am making this very clear. If you wish to order through our drive-thru, you do it right now. You are here, in person; there is nothing preventing you from doing so. You can order whatever you wish, but you will accept the order the first time. There will be no do-overs. You will be gone before the store closes. I have ordered my workers to have the drive-thru window closed at 10 PM, regardless of whether you are there or not. There will be no refunds. Calls to Corporate will result in zero reprimands being made to my staff or me. Corporate has been informed of your behavior, and they have decided that the amount of overtime you inflict upon the store is not worth keeping you happy.”

My manager has finally finished, and the driver is silent.

Store Manager: “I’m done. If you’re not in the drive-thru in the next fifteen seconds, you’re not being served.”

The driver gives us both the finger, roars his engine loudly to make some kind of a point, and screeches out of the parking lot.

Me: “What was that all about?”

Store Manager: “One thing you’re going to learn real fast working in the service industry, is that there will always be miserable sacks of s*** like that a**hole I just spoke to. They get their jollies from making people like us miserable, expecting us to have to bow down to them every time simply because they’re the customer.”

Me: “Seriously?! Why?”

Store Manager: “Maybe they have no one who respects them in their regular life, so they take it out on us. Maybe they’re on a power trip and we’re easy targets. F*** if I know or care, leave that to a psychologist. All I know is that people like that will get nowhere with me as long as I am the manager. You’re allowed to tell people like that to go to Hell. F*** what Corporate says, and f*** that “customer is always right” bull-s***, alright?”

Me: “Uh… alright.”

Store Manager: “Good. I’m glad you got to see that on your first week. Feel free to share the story with anyone else who needs to hear it.”

So, I did!

I go through a fast-food drive-through, place my order at the speaker, and pull up to the window to pay. I ask for a receipt – something I always do – but this time, the employee says the printer is out of paper and they haven’t had a chance to swap it yet. I tell them that I’m OK waiting, but by the time my food is ready, the paper still hasn’t been swapped out.

I look in my bag as I’m rolling away from the window, and immediately notice that I’m missing an item. I drive around the restaurant and find a regular parking space, and go inside to ask for my item.

Cashier: “Welcome to [Restaurant], what can I get for you today?”

Me: “I just went through the drive-through, and I’m missing [Item].”

Cashier: “I’m sorry to hear that. Do you have a receipt?”

Me: “I asked for one, but I was told that the printer was out of paper.”

Cashier: “Unfortunately, without a receipt, there’s nothing I can do for you.”

Me: “Is there a manager I can speak with, please?”

It took a few minutes of arguing, as politely as I could, with the manager to convince them that I had in fact ordered the item. No matter what I said, the only thing the manager would tell me was that “without a receipt, I can’t prove that I ordered [item], so he can’t just take my word for it”.

I finally threatened to call corporate and report the restaurant since it was their own fault I hadn’t received a receipt, even though I had asked for one. The manager finally grabbed (item) off the serving window, which had clearly been sitting there the entire time, and handed it to me with a less-than-sincere “There. Are you happy now?”

I still sent in a complaint to Corporate when I got home, but I doubt anything will happen. The only explanation I can think of is that the manager, and probably other employees, were running a scam to get themselves free food by stealing items from people’s orders and then not giving a receipt so they either had to leave without their item or pay for a new one.

I have never left a drive-through without a receipt since this incident, just to make sure I don’t run into this kind of situation again.

I’m outside guiding cars onto the track when a customer in a compact SUV rolls down his window halfway and looks concerned.

Customer: “Uh, does this take the bugs off?”

Me: “Yes, sir, especially with the premium wash. The brushes and pre-soak are made for that.”

Customer: “Good, because I drove through like… I don’t know, a moth apocalypse last night.”

I walk around to check the front of his car, and his description is shockingly accurate. I easily count over twenty dead moths on his windshield alone.

Me: “Were… were you aiming for them?”

Customer: “They were aiming for me!”

We were able to clean his car, but I also asked him where this happened so I can plan an alternative route!

It’s 5:30 AM, and my coworker and I are opening up our coffee shop. There was a blizzard overnight, but as corporate didn’t close the store, we have to come in before the roads were plowed and while the city is still in a “No Travel Advised” state. 

Thankfully, my husband has a pick-up truck and we picked up my co-worker on the way. Even in a truck, it’s super slow going, but we are able to get to the store.

While my coworker does the actual opening jobs, I shovel out the employee door and the front door for customers. The biggest problem is the HUGE snowdrift in the drive-thru. It’s almost completely covered the menu board, and there’s no way a vehicle could get through. So, I leave the menu board light off and head inside to wait for the plow to come clear out the parking lot and drive-thru.

Not ten minutes later, my coworker comes over the headset:

Coworker: “You… you need to come up here.”

I head up front to see her looking out the drive-thru window. Apparently, a little two-door car had tried to come through the drive-thru. They had paused when they saw the drift, but then decided to GUN IT, causing them to get stuck in the snowdrift.

We watch for about twenty minutes as these two people get out, walk around the car, and start moving snow and pushing the car out. FINALLY, they manage to get the car out and push into the parking lot. They then drive it to the front of the store.

One of the guys comes in and, without making eye contact, orders two coffees.

My coworker puts them on the counter and says:

Coworker: “They’re on the house. You clearly need it.”

The guy turns bright red and runs out. We watch him get in the car and try to gun it out of the parking lot, only to get stuck in ANOTHER snow drift in the parking lot.

Since we had no other customers, we pulled up chairs and watched them struggle for another forty minutes before the snowplow for the store showed up and helped them out.

I’m driving up to a fast-food place. At this location, they have two drive-thru lanes: one for regular orders and one for mobile orders (where you skip the line if you use the app and scan a QR code). I always use the mobile lane because it’s way faster. Well… not today.

A woman cuts me off pulling into the lot (red flag #1), but whatever. There’s no one else in the mobile lane, so it’s not a HUGE deal.

I pull in behind her and immediately notice she’s not holding a phone to scan a QR code like a normal person. Nope, she’s sitting there, waving at the attendants. News flash: nobody monitors the mobile lane. So, naturally, she starts laying on the horn like a lunatic. An employee finally comes over.

Before he’s even at her car, she starts barking out her order. And not a short one.

After ordering, she drives off without paying. The guy literally has to chase her down to get her payment. Then she pulls up to the window, where I’m still stuck RIGHT behind her, despite having scanned my code and being ready to grab my food in seconds.

The employee at the window asks her to pull around to one of the waiting spots. She refuses, saying:

Customer: “No! It always takes longer if I pull around.”

Employee: *Very patiently.* “Pulling around won’t delay your order, but it will let us serve the people behind you whose food is ready.”

Customer: “It’s not really fair to prepare their orders before mine when I was here first.”

The employee tries to explain how food stations work, but she interrupts.

Customer: “They should all be working on the first person’s order. I know you just make minimum wage, but this really shouldn’t be that hard to understand.”

After what feels like forever, the manager appears at the window. He leans out and very politely asks her to pull around, even promising to personally bring her food out as soon as it’s ready. To top it off, he offers her a complimentary shake as an apology for the inconvenience.

And what does she do? She knocks the shake out of his hand. It goes flying everywhere; on him, inside the window, total chaos. She even has the nerve to beep her horn at him.

A couple of minutes later, two police officers walk around the front of the drive-thru road, coming towards her. The customer laughs at the manager.

Customer: “Really?! You called the police?”

Manager: *Calmly.* “No, ma’am, they were at the counter when I walked by, covered in the shake you knocked over. They also heard your shouting and honking. I told them it was fine, but they wanted to check on the situation.”

At this point, the officers reach her car.

Officer: “Ma’am, if you don’t pull forward and talk to us, we’ll arrest you for assault and move the car ourselves.”

She finally pulls around… but doesn’t stop. She just speeds out of the parking lot. 

The police laughed. She has a very easy-to-remember vanity plate, and they told the manager that they’re adding obstruction of justice for failing to comply with a lawful order when they track her down.