I am at the first speaker at a drive-thru, with a woman sitting in her car behind me at the second speaker. A whole song plays on my radio while I am waiting for someone to take my order.

Woman Behind Me: “Oh, my f****** God, can—” *honk* “—you—” *honk* “—hurry—”  *honk* “—up?!” *Honk, honk*

Cashier: *In my speaker* “Hi. Will you be using our app to order today?”

Me: “No, thank you.”

Woman Behind Me: “Order, b****! Let’s go!”

Cashier: “How can I help you?”

Me: “Can I order a bacon bagel sandwich with extra bacon?”

Cashier: “Sure. Anything else?”

Woman Behind Me: “F***! ORDER!”

The woman gets out of the car, and I quickly close my window. She tries to open my car door but it is already locked. She gives me two middle fingers and turns back to the speaker.

Cashier: “Anything else with your order?”

Woman Behind Me: “I want a f****** burger and—”

Cashier: “I’m sorry, ma’am, we don’t have burgers yet. We are still on breakfast items.”

Woman Behind Me: “F***!”

She walks back to her car and drives off, narrowly missing my car in her getaway.

Me: “Hi, are you still there? That wasn’t me… I didn’t ask for a burger.”

Cashier: “Um… okay. Well… anything else?”

Me: “Can I get an iced vanilla coffee?”

Cashier: “Sure. Is that everything?”

Me: “Yes, please.”

I pull up to the window and see a small, startled girl who can’t be more than seventeen.

Me: “There was a lady behind me waiting — or not waiting, I guess — to order.”

Cashier: “Oh. I wondered what was going on! I’m sorry about your wait. We had someone trying to get behind the cash register up front, so… yeah, I’m sorry.”

Me: “This is a wild restaurant!”

I am standing in line at a fast food restaurant. The restaurant is very empty; the only people immediately visible to me are the cashier and one customer in front of me in line. It’s a far cry from busy.

The customer in front of me places her order and then goes to sit at a nearby table.

Then, my turn comes up to order. I just so happen to be ordering the exact same thing as the previous customer, right down to the drink and side. I, too, find a table and seat myself.

After a few minutes, the cashier walks into the kitchen, and comes back out with a tray of food. She then calls out the order.

Cashier: “Sir, your order is ready!”

I am literally the only male in the restaurant. The other customer is a woman. Going by the process of elimination, I walk over to the counter to pick up my order. The other customer comes following.

Customer: “Hey! What’s the big idea?!”

Cashier: “I’m sorry, ma’am?”

Customer: “I ordered before he did! Why is he getting his food first?!”

The cashier stammers for a bit and then comes up with this gem.

Cashier: “His order is different from yours.”

Customer: “No, it isn’t! He ordered the exact same thing as I did!”

At this point, I’m actually willing to relinquish my order to placate this customer. Even though it’s technically not my business, I have to admit that it’s a little weird that I’m getting my food before she is. Before I can intervene, the cashier decides to roll the dice yet again with her damage control.

Cashier: “Actually, ma’am, he ordered the spicy version of the combo. You got the regular.”

Customer: “Oh. Okay.” 

Crisis averted, just like that. That was unbelievable, for two reasons. First, there is no spicy option for this particular combo; our orders were literally the exact same. Secondly, the fact that the cashier was able to come up with such a bald-faced lie in spite of all the evidence (one look at the menu and you’d know there was no spicy option) and having it work was just amazing.

I go into work early one day to buy and eat a snack before my shift. I get my food and sit in the customer section as I am a customer and not working at the time.

I’m just trying to eat my food and then bam! An older woman comes up to me and drops her bag near my food.

Woman: “Watch my bag while I go to the loo!”

I was wearing a work top but no nametag and was clearly off the clock. I was tempted to ditch the bag in the nearest bin, but I didn’t as it was her first offence. But gosh, the presumption of that woman!

I occasionally take advantage of fast food coupons and indulge in stuff way off my diet. I got in the drive-thru for the place that has one of my favorite french fries and waited, along with the three cars ahead of me. Note that this was before the normal lunch rush, as I also hate waiting.

I waited.

And waited.

At first, I thought the customer at the order stand was just taking an abnormally long time and got frustrated with that customer. But it continued with every customer after the first. I realized that it was a staffing issue, not a customer issue.

When I finally got to the window to make my order, my anger had cooled; I’ve gotten food from this place lots of times and have gotten great service and accurate orders, and staffing issues happen.

Me: “Short-staffed today?”

Worker: “Yeah, just two of us here.”

I looked at my wallet and thought, “You know what? I can afford to help out here.” After getting my order, I checked to see if my receipt was there. It wasn’t.

Me: “Can I have the receipt?”

Worker: “Here you go.”

As she handed me the receipt, I handed her a twenty.

Me: “Tip.”

Worker: “No way!”

Me: “Yes way.”

Worker: “Thank you so much!”

And I was glad I could help out a couple of frazzled fast food workers as I drove off.

Related:
Tipped To Be A Good Day, Part 3
Tipped To Be A Good Day, Part 2
Tipped To Be A Good Day

Recently, my fast food store has added a new feature to earn points with orders. On our most recent “mystery shopper” audit, we lost some points for not asking if they’d like an appetizer, whether they had signed up for the points program, and whether they’d like to do so.

Our “service questions” are already bloated enough as is, but if we want to get a 100%, I’ll have to adapt to asking that. Sigh.

This is what transactions look like now.

Us: “Hello! How are you doing?”

Us: “For here or to go?”

Us: “Would you like a drink and appetizer?”

Us: *Rings up the order*

Us: “Are you part of our rewards membership?”

Us: “Are you interested in learning about it?”

If they say yes, we launch into a lengthy spiel about signing up for rewards: where to sign up, the fact that it’s free, how the points work, and what some occasional offers are.

Us: “Would you like any sauces?”

Us: “Have a good day!”

I miss the days when you could just check out the food and get going. Not a million questions to answer… or in my case, ask!