I used a fast food bakery’s app to order soup for my mother and a salad for me. I walked into the bakery, saw a bag with my name, checked the list on the bag, and took it to my mother’s house. We sat down and opened the bag and pulled out a mac and cheese and two steak sandwiches.

After checking the tag again and seeing my name and my order, I decided I should call and let them know what happened as there would be an upset customer who paid more than I did and got less food.

Employee: “Hello, [Bakery], how may I help you?”

Me: “Hi. This is [My Name]. I wanted to let you know that I got the wrong order. It had my name and my order listed on it, but it’s two steak sandwiches and a mac and cheese.”

Employee: “You must have picked up the wrong bag.”

Me: “No, it has my name on it and my order.”

Employee: “I have been filling orders for six years. I know what I’m doing. You picked up the wrong bag.”

Doubting myself, I check the paper again.

Me: “No, I’m looking at the paper and it has my name and my order on it, but it was someone else’s order.”

Employee: “You must have picked up the wrong bag.”

Me: “I picked up the bag with my name on it.”

Employee: *Sighing* “Well, I suppose I’m going to get another call.”

Me: “Yes, I just wanted to let you know.”

I work at a regional fast food joint as a cashier-slash-maker of shakes and other cold treats. We have a customer come up and demand our manager. When he comes over, she gives her complaint.

Customer: “I want another burger and a refund; I found a hair in my [Signature Burger]!”

She holds up a strand of blond hair from the burger.

The manager makes a slow, deliberate glance at me with my solidly dark red hair and the other cashier with frizzy black hair. Then, he steps aside so the customer can see the grill where our two cooks with their shaved heads are working on an order as he runs his hand over his close-clipped brown hair.

Manager: “Ma’am, do you notice anything about our employees?”

Customer: “What are you talking about? I want a refund and another burger!”

Manager: *Tersely* “Ma’am, the only blonde here is you. That hair belongs to none of our employees. I am not giving you a refund or a replacement.”

She looked like she was going to argue but apparently thought better of it, as she grabbed what was left of her meal and left in a hurry.

Related:
Hair Apparent, Part 2
Hair Apparent

I’m a shift manager at a fast food restaurant. Every so often when we are seriously busy, we’ll have an entitled customer come up to the counter on the side, put some money down, and say:

Customer: “Hey, get me a [food item]. I’m in a hurry. Here’s the exact change.”

We always point to the end of the line and say:

Us: “You need to wait your turn like everyone else.”

We then proceed to ignore any protesting they may give.

There was one persistent princess who would come to the side of the counter, put some money down, and yell something like:

Customer #2: “SWIRL ICE CREAM!”

Being that he had pulled this stunt no fewer than five times that I know of, I would give him a dirty look and continue past him.

Then, one day, I was reviewing footage in the kitchen after an employee was injured. By chance, I noticed someone outside standing at one of the open windows and putting two fingers in his mouth in a whistling gesture.

A crew member walked up to the window, and the two very briefly exchanged words before the crew member angrily slammed the window shut.

I backed up and zoomed in to get a better look, and wouldn’t you know, it was the aforementioned persistent princess.

I called in the crew member and pointed to the screen.

Me: “Tell me he didn’t…!”

Employee: “OH, YES, HE DID! He whistled at me, and when I came over to see if there was some kind of problem, he tossed a couple of dollars on the sill and told me to go make him an ice cream sundae and to hurry up! I’ll take the write-up for shutting the window in his face, but nothing says I have to—”

Me: *Loudly interrupting* “You can go right back to your station because no, nothing says anyone here has to put up with that! You did exactly what I personally would have done!”

Thankfully, it was after that incident that the princess learned to wait his turn like everyone else.

On Friday mornings, I work alone at a takeout counter. My usual routine is: I take the order, they pull out their credit/debit card, and as they’re paying, I place their order, pack their order, and give them their order and receipt. I’m fast, and the kitchen is fast, so this whole process after they order takes less than two minutes.

A lady comes in and places her order. I let her pay and walk away. Two minutes later, I get back to the counter and she’s yelling at me.

Customer: “Where were you? It won’t accept my card!”

Me: “Do you have a chip on your card?”

Customer: “Yes, but it won’t accept it! I’m not stupid, you know!”

Me: “Ma’am, may I see your card, please?”

I check the front and back, and I hand it back, looking her dead in the face with a very neutral expression, and kindly inform her:

Me: “Ma’am, this is your metro pass.”

By this time, there was a line behind her, and she knew how stupid she looked after yelling at me, so she kept asking if I was “suuuure” she couldn’t pay with her metro pass, but this time in a jokey way to try to save face. She could’ve apologized for yelling at me, but no, she just continued to waste my time.

As a summer job, I used to work the midnight-to-8:00-am shift at a popular twenty-four-hour fast food place. On quiet weekdays, I usually worked alone, which suited me perfectly.

One night when I clocked in, my manager was waiting to introduce me to my new trainee. I later heard from the day shift that [Trainee] was a friend of the manager and needed a job because he was on probation, but [Trainee] and I never really talked other than for me to tell him how to clean and for him to tell me that he knew a better way.

The way I showed him to clean the sidewalk along the front of the store was to hose it off, scrub it as necessary with a stiff push broom, and then hose it off again.

But [Trainee] knew a better way.

A few nights later, I was cleaning the grill and heard a crash and a muffled obscenity. I looked out the window to see that [Trainee] had been mopping the sidewalk and as he had lifted the mop to put it into the wringer, he had smashed the broom handle through some fairly expensive overhead neon lights.

He swept up the broken glass and disappeared into the manager’s office for the last couple of hours of our shift.

Fine with me.

As usual, the manager came in while I was busy serving breakfasts and disappeared into his office with [Trainee].

When I clocked out, [Manager] called me into his office to discuss the consequences of my having broken the neon lights.

I probably shouldn’t have smiled, because that triggered a lecture about trivializing the damage.

I pointed out that only an idiot would use the mop on the sidewalk. I looked at [Trainee], who looked at the floor.

I pointed out that [Trainee] is dangerously stupid and dishonest, so I would never have left him alone inside the store while I went outside long enough to clean the sidewalk.

I pointed out that only one of us still had glass fragments in his hair, and that it wasn’t me.

Regardless, [Manager] told me that he had no choice but to fire me for negligent damage to the store.

I told him that, since I was going back to school in two weeks and was tired of working with liars and idiots, I was absolutely fine with leaving him with [Trainee] as his graveyard shift.

I guess tradition requires me to say that the franchise went bankrupt the next month, but in all honesty, I never looked back.