We have a regular who really likes pickles. He’s ordered just about every sandwich on the menu multiple times, but one thing that’s consistent is he always asks for extra pickles.

I see him coming one day, and after he orders his sandwich, I ask:

Me: “Would you like extra pickles?”

Regular: “I don’t just want extra pickles. I want a prodigious quantity of pickles. I want you to go to town on that extra pickle button on your cash register like you’re playing Diablo on your mom’s old computer with your friends on LAN. I want you to punch that button like you’re in a martial arts movie doing lightning punches. I want more extra pickles than you’ve given anyone before. I want you to take my sandwich and present it to me in a jar full of pickles.”

He pauses.

Regular: “I know that’s not something I can get, so I’ll settle for ‘extra’ pickles.”

Me: “Actually, I might be able to do something for you.”

Regular: “Really?”

Me: “One moment.”

I went back and discussed my idea with the boss, and he gave us the approval to do it. We made his sandwich and put it in a pickle jar full of pickles. These things are huge.

I presented it to the customer and he started laughing. He was really happy about it! We took a picture together — him, me, and the pickle jar. The boss had the picture blown up and laminated and put it on the wall of the store.

The regular still comes in for his pickle sandwiches, though he’s never requested a jar full of pickles since.

Our fast food restaurant closes at midnight on Sundays. At around 11:15 pm, we start transitioning to close and to get ready for the delivery we get every Sunday. Then, we play a game of “How many fries do we think we’re going to sell in the last forty-five minutes?” and put the bags of them up front. We know the delivery takes the last hour of our shift like clockwork, and we can’t access the big boxes of french fries during the delivery. Plus, our manager specifically says to not go in the walk-in during the delivery, not that we could anyway tonight.

I’m usually pretty good at guessing, and we had a car pull up who needed two large fries, so I dropped four large fries — half a bag, the last half we had up front — just in case another car pulled up. It did.

Customer: “Hi, I’d like a [burger], large, with fries, and I need those fries fresh.“

Me: “Well, today’s your lucky day because I just dropped some fries right now.”

Customer: “I don’t care about those fries, yo. You’d better make me some new fries, fresh. Don’t give me those fries; make some new ones.”

I could have just as easily given him the fries I had JUST dropped, because they take around three minutes to cook, and he was pulling up JUST as they were finished, but he clearly said he didn’t want those fries, so what’s a cook to do?

Me: “It’s going to be a while for new fries.”

He waited.

I cleaned the ice cream machine, a six-minute job (I’m quick and thorough), right in front of the window.

He honked.

Me: “I sincerely apologize, sir. The fries are inaccessible until the delivery driver can get everything moved. It shouldn’t be that much longer, and then we can drop them. Maybe ten minutes.”

He waited.

I stocked the nugget sauces. I was mindful that I was being watched like a hawk, so I pretended to look off in the middle distance of our restaurant like there was something going on there.

He waited some more.

Finally, my coworker ran up with the box of fries and we tossed them into the fry bin.

All of a sudden, the customer honked more emphatically, and I went to the window.

Customer: *Yelling* “What?! They’re frozen?! I wanted fresh!“

He screeched off into the night, no food in sight.

Then, a police officer — a regular customer here who stops by for his usual every night — pulled the customer over. He gave the fry guy a ticket for aggressive driving — a big no-no with a huge fine here in Arizona — before getting in line to get his freshly-made fries.

My stepfather has a bit of a temper. He gets extremely peeved if fast food places get his food wrong. My family went through the drive-thru of a certain fast food place. They got our food wrong and my stepfather asked for a remake. They remade the food.

It was wrong again and my stepfather got angry. Remake. Wrong again. My stepfather went nuclear — screaming, cussing, demanding people be fired, the works.

The next day in class, I happened to overhear two classmates talking.

Classmate: “Some son of a b**** came in screaming and got half the staff fired. Including me. I’m officially out of the job.”

Cue me sinking down in my seat and mentally screaming.

I worked at a chicken fast food restaurant for about six months as my first job, and this happened toward the end of my stay.

One of our managers was pretty strict with us in order to keep up with time and company policy, but we didn’t mind as he usually worked on the line with us rather than sitting in the office all day. And he did not have patience for rude people.

On one typical military payday Friday (in towns next to military bases, all soldiers come in force on payday), we were slammed, and [Manager] was working the register when a lady ordered one of our twelve-piece buckets, biscuits and all.

Usually, you can save some money by ordering them as a meal, and it gives you drinks, as well. So, as usual, he asked what drink she wanted, intending to make it a meal automatically. She declined the drinks. He tried to explain.

Manager: “Ma’am, if we make it a meal, you’ll—”

Customer: “I don’t care. I don’t need drinks.”

As I said before, he hates rude people, so he immediately shut up and smiled at me.

Manager: “[My Name], can I get a twelve-piece family fill-up? And don’t worry about the drinks.” 

Then, he turned to the customer and proceeded with the order, which took a moment as he couldn’t simply press the combo button anymore; rather he had to ring up all items themselves. He then had to ring up every single item individually, which racked up the price given the number of items. And then, he finished the order, which was well above what the normal price would be.

It initially went off without a hitch, but unfortunately for us, the family behind her ordered another twelve-piece family fill-up, but they ordered the combo.

As [Manager] was finishing up the second family order, the first one stepped aside to check the bags for everything, and then they heard the second family’s price. [Manager] rang the second family for almost half the price of the first family’s, and the woman stormed over.

Customer: “How come theirs is so cheap? We ordered the same thing!”

[Manager] replied, wearing the standard-issue customer service smile.

Manager: “You said you didn’t want a combo, ma’am, so I rang them up individually, ma’am, so you paid for them, not as a combo, but as the order you insisted on me making, ma’am.”

She then asked for the manager, claiming we were scamming her, to which [Manager] responded by walking behind the wall and coming back two seconds later wearing his manager vest.

Manager: “Hello, I heard we had a problem and I came to see what I can help with.”

The woman grabbed her food and left.

I’ve gone into a popular Canadian fast food chain to get some food on my way home from work.

Me: “Hi. Can I please get a grilled chicken sandwich with cheese and bacon, with a [side] and [drink]?”

Cashier: “No problem, that’ll be [price that’s almost $10 more than what it should be].”

I look at the order screen and see she’s rung in the chicken sandwich combo without cheese or bacon, and a separate bacon cheeseburger.

Me: “Sorry, no, just the chicken sandwich combo, with cheese and bacon on it.”

Cashier: “Right, a grilled chicken combo and then a bacon cheeseburger.”

Me: “No. Just the grilled chicken. I want the cheese and bacon on the grilled chicken. Just the one sandwich with [side] and [drink].”

Cashier: “Yes, that’s what I have here. The grilled chicken sandwich combo and a bacon cheeseburger.”

Me: “That is not what I’m asking for. I just want one grilled chicken sandwich, and I want the grilled chicken sandwich to have cheese and bacon on it.”

Cashier: “So, two grilled chicken sandwiches and a bacon cheeseburger.”

Me: “No. There is only one chicken sandwich. That’s the only sandwich I want, and I want it with cheese and bacon on it.”

Cashier: “So, you want the bacon cheeseburger as a combo, too?”

I’m seconds away from just walking out.

Me: “There is no bacon cheeseburger. At all. I do not want a bacon cheeseburger. I just want my grilled chicken sandwich to be made with cheese and bacon on it.”

Thankfully, another employee can sense my agitation and comes over. I repeat my order one more time in front of the second employee. They can definitely tell I’m annoyed, but I’m still maintaining a polite, if firm, tone.

Employee #2: “[Cashier], they want cheese and bacon on the grilled chicken sandwich. Not a bacon cheeseburger.”

Cashier: “That’s what I put in!”

Employee #2: “Just let me do it.”

They shoo the cashier away and start ringing everything in properly.

Employee #2: “Sorry about that. I have no idea why that happened.”

Me: *Starting to relax* “It’s okay, I don’t mind clarifying my order, but I really don’t know how else I could have said it.”

Employee #2: “I understand. Thank you for letting me help make it right.”

I don’t necessarily hold it against the first cashier, but if someone is saying they didn’t order something, why keep insisting you’re correct?