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!

I am working an after-school shift at a fast food joint. I clock in and am set to hand out drive-thru orders. As I give my first customer of the day his food, he has a request.

Customer: “Hey, can I talk to her?”

He gestures behind me. I turn around to see one of my managers. This manager is fairly young and also about five feet tall. From the tone of the guy’s voice, I think he might know her, and since he can see her, I’m not giving him confirmation that she is at the store. I go over to my manager.

Me: “Hey. This guy wants to talk to you.”

Manager: “Nope. Just send him on.”

She sounds annoyed, and I’m a bit surprised because the guy hasn’t been rude to me.

Me: “What do I tell him?”

Manager: “Just send him on. I’m not talking to him.”

I go back to the window and tell the guy that my manager won’t talk to him. I forget how much protest he makes, but he leaves. Afterward, I talk to my manager again.

Me: “What was that all about?”

Manager: “Oh, he asked for a manager at the pay window and refused to believe I was a manager because I’m so small.”

Warning: this is a tale of hubris and man-destroying arrogance that defies rationality and the gods. Do not attempt at home.

I’ve got a pharmacy that can fill up Not Always Working for about a month, and their latest trick is “Our machines are randomly disappearing people’s prescriptions.” I was hoping for a nice long break from it…

…until I had to go to the doctor and ask, “Hey, Doc, why am I suddenly producing snot unlike anything this world has ever seen and not waking up until 2:00 pm?”

I was not really surprised to hear that I had a sinus infection. My sinuses, for reasons I will never know, sweep up various bacteria and viruses and just play host to them for months. I’m not working due to disability, so it’s not really an issue beyond annoying me — I’m not leaving coworkers in the lurch or anything — so off I trundled to find some caffeine while I waited for the pharmacy to receive the prescription.

Normally, I would go to [Coffee Chain] because, well, a blast of sugar and coffee wrapped in caramel sauce will actually wake you up pretty well before the heart attack kicks in. But alas, my PCOS — a condition that affects, among other things, how well I process sugars and insulin — was acting up, so sugary drinks are off-limits for a few months.

“Hmm,” I thought to myself. “There’s a [Fast Food Restaurant] right over there, and they have [Restaurant] Cafe drinks.”

So, what the heck? They’ll sell you bunless burgers on shredded lettuce anyway, and even if they don’t have sugar-free coffee, eating something will help. I mosied on over there and approached the cashier — who looked about seven — to ask my questions.

Me: “Can your [Restaurant] Cafe coffees be sugar-free? Preferably a caramel one?”

Kid: “Uh… yes? Only French Vanilla, though.”

Me: “At this point, if it has caffeine, I will ingest it via IV. You just go ahead and give me what you’ve got.”

Kid: “What size?”

Here, I made a crucial mistake.

Me: “Eh… medium? No ice, please.”

Now, I had no idea how [Restaurant] drink sizes worked because I almost never eat there, so I was thinking of a size something like a tall glass. And ice usually just dilutes things, which I wasn’t in the mood for.

I ordered some food and then went and sat down, they provided me with beef, and I devoured my food like a feral Neanderthal.

Kid: “Here’s your coffee.”

The skies opened. The angels sang.

I am pretty sure this kid gave me an entire bucket of coffee, in a cup that looked comically large.

I asked no questions. I did not mention that they had clearly stolen this cup from an alternate reality. I politely thanked them and sat back down to drink the nectar of the gods.

Half an hour later, the stomach cramps hit.

Two days later, I am in much less agony and have avoided a heart attack. I regret nothing.

This is a story told to me by one of my dad’s best friends. I’m going to call him “Bass” because that’s the instrument he plays in my dad’s band.

Some time ago, he was working for a boss who was super strict about clocking in. If you were one second late back from lunch, you were LATE.

Bass drove down to the nearest [Fast Food Place] for lunch, went through the drive-thru, and ordered a [Burger] meal, only extra pickles. Bass parked in the [Fast Food Place] parking lot to eat it, but when he opened the sandwich, it was just a regular [Burger]. He walked in and asked again for a [Burger], only extra pickles. They made him a replacement sandwich, he went out to his car and opened the wrapper, and it was once again just a regular [Burger].

Running low on time to eat lunch, Bass stormed back in, slammed the open sandwich down, and then spread it across the countertop. Then, he pointed at the mess and shouted:

Bass: “ONLY EXTRA PICKLE!”

It was made with all haste. He ate his meal and got back to work in time.

Some years later, however, he was working a new job as a kitchen inspector. He happened to be inspecting that particular [Fast Food Place] and found a note in their break room with six words on it:

Note: “DON’T PISS OFF THE PICKLE GUY.”

CONTENT WARNING: Gross, Soiled Menstrual Products

When I was a teenager, I worked for a little over two years at a fast food place. There was a rich and entitled woman who came in almost every morning around 8:00 am to eat breakfast, drink coffee, and talk with her friends until past 10:00, or sometimes 11:00 am.

The whole time she was there, she had her grandson with her. At first, he was in a stroller. Months later, he was walking all over the place, but she would not watch over him. Quite a few times, I took the toddler’s hand and took him back to her because I found him eating things he found on the floor.

Another time, he got his hand caught in the door, trying to go outside when someone came in. Each time I took him back to her, she looked really mad at me but never said anything or even responded to me when I was telling her what happened.

I told my manager about her, and it turned out that she was a friend of the owner, so he would not do anything about it and would not tell her to watch the kid. He told me to just do my job and that it did not include babysitting and not to worry about it. Every day, the toddler was wandering around the restaurant by himself for a couple of hours.

One day, because of an early rush, my manager asked me to help out because one of the cashiers was on her break. After all the clients were served, I went back to my lobby duties and found the toddler in the ladies’ room. He was playing with the content of the trash can inside one of the stalls. This particular trash can is used for… dirty tampons and pads! I almost puked when I saw what he was doing.

I took him to the sink and washed his hands and face thoroughly before taking him to his grandmother. I did not care if she was mad at me and told her, in front of all her friends, where he had been and exactly what he had been doing. Everyone was shocked, and she looked in disgust at the little boy and did not want to touch him.

I told her I had cleaned him up and added that I needed to go clean up the mess left behind in the ladies’ room. I left and went back there. I did throw up when I was picking up the mess and putting it back in the trash can, but only because I kept seeing the little boy playing with it in my head. Toddlers at that age, unfortunately, like to put things in their mouths. 

When I was done cleaning, she had already left with her grandson. I did not see her that much and she did not bring him as often after this incident. She never stayed as long as she usually had and did not let the boy wander around like she’d used to, either. She also avoided eye contact with me.