I came in for a quick three-hour shift for the dinner rush on Christmas Eve. Things were pretty slow but we had several timed orders for 4:00, 4:15, 4:30, 5:00, etc.

I took a couple of normal deliveries, and people were being a little generous, having a good time.

I grabbed a normal bag, a 4:15 timed order that was several large pies with a $91 cash pay, and a 4:30 timed order that was another cash order of two full sheets, and I rushed out the door on my trip.

The ticket didn’t say the 4:15 order was at a church; I only noticed that when I put the address into my GPS.

I got there on time, and they asked me to wait as they were finishing singing a song. The place had a full congregation and a live band with a singer… and I thought I was just waiting for whoever had the cash to pay to come out after the song was over. And, I gotta admit, I was getting a little ticked I was made to wait when it would make the next delivery a few minutes late.

But they asked me to go inside and take the bag up to the stage! As I was unloading, the preacher started thanking me and all food service personnel for working on Christmas Eve in front of the entire congregation. This felt all very strange, to say the least, because here I was in the spotlight in front of everyone.

But he asked if he could say a quick sermon. He said that the spirit of Christmas was about giving, announced they were giving me a $500 tip, and handed over an envelope!

Totally shocked and embarrassed, I managed to say thank you and that I appreciated it, hopefully, loud enough that most could hear, and with my head swimming, I followed a lady to the door.

I completed my other delivery and got back to the shop still dumbfounded. I asked the manager how many people were employed there, and he said twelve. I told him what had happened and asked that he split the $500 with everyone.

At close, they wanted me to take $100 of the $500, and we all were still super surprised about what had happened.

Merry Christmas, indeed.

My very first job is at a fast food place in a mall food court. Working during the Christmas season is Hell on Earth, and we get a constant stream of some of the most irritable, irate, and unreasonable customers ever.

A mother with five out-of-control children comes up and orders a huge amount of food. I wish I could remember the exact order because it is massive. It’s crazily busy with lines of ten people or more at each of the five registers, all waiting for their food, and this mother and all five of her children are literally yelling, “Where’s my food?” and, “Helloooo?” the entire time they are waiting. Other customers are staring at them and wondering what their problem is.

Finally, they get their huge order, which amounts to two very large bags full of food, which is what was holding everything up to begin with. They head off to one of the tables in the food court to eat.

About ten minutes later, the woman comes back, with all five of her children by her side, holding her receipt and yelling.

Customer: “We didn’t get the food that we ordered!”

Me: “What do you think is missing from the order?”

Customer: “All of it! All you gave me was three bags of waffle fries and a package of chicken nuggets that were already chewed!”

That’s right; she said the nuggets were “already chewed.”

She throws a nugget box on the counter at me with what is definitely chewed-up chicken nuggets spat back into the container. First off, we obviously did not give her “already chewed” nuggets, and the entire kitchen staff has just madly scrambled to complete everything in her large order, and we handed her two huge bags of food with everything in it.

She starts making a gigantic scene.

Customer: “You ripped me off! Give me the food I ordered! Do it, or I’m calling the cops!”

There are gigantic lines of really angry people waiting behind her. At the point when she is threatening to call the cops, some random guy comes walking up and taps her on the shoulder to try and get her attention. She turns and he says:

Random Guy: “Miss, you left your bag of food under the table when you left.”

With that, he hands her a huge bag of food, the very food she is in the middle of accusing us of not giving her.

At this same time, one of her children yells:

Customer’s Child: “Those chicken nuggets tasted funny! I hate them!”

Customer: *Looking at the kid* “Shut up!”

She dragged her children away with her food. No one clapped, but plenty of them laughed!

I once worked at a semi-fast food restaurant that had a daily special on certain days. It was close to Christmas and we had a meatball sandwich. It was around two bucks. It came with red sauce, and if you wanted, you could also get sweet or hot peppers; you just needed to tell us.

A customer ordered four of these sandwiches and didn’t say she wanted any peppers. She called later, crying and screaming.

Customer: “I wanted sweet peppers on these sandwiches and didn’t get them! I’m so upset!”

Me: “I’m sorry about that, ma’am. We can offer you some free replacement sandwiches to be picked up tonight or tomorrow.”

Customer: “You’ve ruined Christmas! I’m going to have to miss my son’s concert to get them!”

The customers were crazy there, but this was the only one who said I ruined their holiday.

I’m taking orders for the drive-thru, and this man makes an unusual request.

Customer: “Hey, if I order a [Chicken Sandwich], could you cut a hole in the middle for me? It’s for a joke.”

Me: “Let me go check with the kitchen staff.” *Does so* “All right, we can do that; I’ll just ring it up as a special request.”

The man gets his food, and I don’t think much of it. Later, however, the man comes through the drive-thru again and identifies himself as being the man from earlier.

Me: “Oh, I remember you. How did the joke go?”

Customer: “It went well. See, every year, I give my wife a flower for our anniversary, but this year she was insisting, ‘You don’t have to get me a flower. Just get me a [Chicken Sandwich] or something.’ So, I got her a [Chicken Sandwich] and stuck a flower through that hole you cut in it for me!”

Many years ago, I worked at a restaurant that had soft-serve ice cream items on the menu. I worked the drive-thru window and also made all the ice cream items and the cold drinks.

The restaurant closed at 10:00 pm, and all the workers except the cook had to be out of there by 10:30 pm as the owner wouldn’t pay us past that time. In order to clean the soft-serve machine and be done by 10:30 pm, we had to turn the machine off at 9:30 pm; we emptied and cleaned the soft-serve machine every night. You could still get ice cream out of it for about fifteen minutes, but anything after that was liquid.

One night, two teens came in just before 10:00 pm. The server brought me their order.

Server: “They’d like two hot fudge sundaes.”

Me: “The ice cream machine is off, and we can’t serve anything that has ice cream in it.”

The server left and came back.

Server: “They’d like two milkshakes.”

Me: “Milkshakes have ice cream in them. I can’t make anything that has ice cream.”

The server left and came back.

Server: “They’d like two vanilla cones.”

The teens finally left without ordering anything, which was good because, by that time, the cook had also turned off the grill.

I think the teens really wanted ice cream, but I am still amazed that the server apparently had no idea which menu items had ice cream in them.