How The Cookie Made It To His Lips
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“I worked at Subway for about two years when I was in high school. There was a lady I worked with who I will never forget. Picture this: A 72-year-old woman who constantly coughs up chunks of m&m cookies onto every surface available – including subs.
She and I were chatting in the back of the store once, and while she was talking to me a chunk of cookie flew out of her mouth and landed on my lip. I almost gagged. She also would wear the same pair of gloves for cleaning, prep and for serving customers. It was disgusting. For some reason, my boss never said anything to her about it. I guess he felt bad that she was so old and still working.”
Savage Separation Equals Toilet Pizza
“I was working as a driver for a Papa John’s when I was 18 or so and we had an eccentric manager. He would swing from pleasant and sweet to a generally overbearing a–hole in a second. Apparently, people thought it was because he was going through a divorce…
His ex-wife kept ordering pizzas for some reason. So my manage would take the thin crust dough (pre-made, hard as a brick and in pizza shape) and rub it all over the bathroom floors before making it up and serve it to her.
After he got fired for that, it came out that he was doing a lot of drugs at work, hence the mood swings.”
Who Wants Lettuce From The Garbage?!
“Not extremely disturbing, but when I worked at Wendy’s during high school, my manager was a cheap jerk who would regularly pull lettuce out of the garbage and rinse it off before sticking it into a salad. He would scream at whoever was chopping salad lettuce that they were wasteful and then inspect the garbage to see if there were ‘usable’ scraps. He also found a disgusting package of sweet n’ sour sauce under the fryers and served it in the drive-thru.
Also, I once blacked out while using the grill and my face landed three inches away from the grill top. I had a nasty bruise, but I shudder to think what could have been.”
Pregnant And Trapped
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“I worked at a Subway in high school and a few weeks before I started the place was robbed. The robber forced the only employee who was working (a pregnant woman in her early 20s) into the walk-in freezer and moved a huge metal prep table in front of it so she couldn’t get out. Eventually, another customer came into the store and figured something was up, he was able to get her out of the freezer and she was totally fine.
Maybe 2 months later Subway was robbed again after the store was closed. The only thing they took was a jar of money we had pooled to buy gifts for the same employee’s baby shower. Poor girl.”
Chopped Fingers And Heated Arguments
“Worked at Wendy’s when I was a teen. Had a guy with a grill spat with several pieces of grilled chicken stacked on it drop them all over the floor. He simply picked them up and put them in the holding bin to be served.
My then boyfriend – now husband was attempting to fix the frosty machine because it wasn’t spinning properly. Dummy sticks his finger up in the dispenser and the thing started spinning again. Chopped off the tip of his finger.
We also used to have a gentleman come in that was mentally handicapped. He would order 1-2 extra meals for his ‘friends’ and then proceed to sit down and put the meals in front of empty chairs. He would then carry on a conversation, often heated, with his imaginary friends.”
When The Manager Won’t Even Close During A Fire
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“A hooker went into the bathroom and locked herself in there. I pounded on the door, the manager pounded on the door, eventually, she came out running and screaming and the walls were covered in strawberry shake…and blood. I clocked out and just left, absolutely refusing to clean it up. F—ing nastiest thing I’ve ever seen…and this was a LOT of blood. Like if you loaded up a cat with firecrackers and blew it up kind of thing. Crazy spatter too…
Also, the cook when I started working there, made a TON of people sick. We only found out a couple months later. Really old people from nursing homes, little kids. he never EVER washed his hands, and would apparently just scratch his bare a– crack and s— while he was cooking. He never used gloves either! He and the other (massive s—head we all hated) cook would get in fights and throw burgers at each other, and smear food all over the kitchen…then just keep cooking. Seriously, a LOT of people got sick.
The place caught on fire, grease fire on the metal splash shield. Neither of us wanted to pull the fire extinguisher lever because the boss would probably just fire us because of the mess, or we’d have to clean it up. There were no customers in the store when it happened and we gave ZERO f—- about the place. He ran in and threw a TON of water on it. It was a grease fire, we almost became insanely disfigured from the splash/blowback/etc. The entire restaurant was THICKLY full of smoke and he acted like nothing had happened and the manager just kept cooking food and serving customers. We thought he was a f—ing nutter.”
Something Was Moving In The Pizza
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“Back in college one summer, I worked at a pizza place in Ithaca, NY.
The sanitation was pretty questionable, and while there were timers hanging above the pizzas to symbolize that we were supposed to throw pizzas away after being out two hours, those were just decorations for the health inspectors.
Anyway, I’d get a free slice of pizza during my break. I’d normally go for the cheese since it was almost always fresh (and thus the least likely to kill me), but I decided to go for the baked ziti pizza one day because pasta on pizza fulfilled a carbo-load dream of mine.
So I throw the pizza in the oven for a few minutes, take it out, and take a few bites…only to realize something was WRIGGLING in the pizza. Between the gooey, saucy ziti pieces were a half dozen or so larvae who were rather alarmed at having just been thrown in a 500-degree oven.
Management always left the door open in the summertime, and apparently that invited fruit flies that laid eggs on the pizza. After gagging and spitting and contemplating what possibly was wriggling down my esophagus, I showed the wormy slice to my boss, who claimed it was just ‘garlic,’ and then yelled at me for throwing the slice away. It was a long time before I ate pizza again.
What’s was almost as disconcerting, however, is that one time a customer (drunk Cornell frat guy) got a wormy slice and came to the counter. Instead of asking for a refund, he asked FOR MORE PIZZA.”
Even Literal Feces Couldn’t Close The Store
“I worked at a McDonalds in Iowa for around 3 years. One Sunday I got called to come in and help with the lunch rush as they were ‘having troubles’. Figuring I would only be assisting them through rush I would come in for a couple hours… Dear lord, I had no idea what I was in for.
The second I walk into the place I get the uttermost disgusting and gut wrenching smell I’ve ever faced. The sewer had backed up and was coming up through drainage grates in the floor all throughout the back of the store. There were literal turds floating in s— water, about 1 inch high, from behind the counter all the way to the back by the storage.
I told the managers that were working we had to close down immediately because this violates countless health codes. I was told to call the owner and tell him this (everyone else was afraid of the old money hungry hag). After explaining the situation to him he basically told me to nut up and squeegee the s— out the back door. So that’s what we did. There were countless comments from customers about what the smell was, so I blatantly told them exactly what it was. Not a single one left. Not a single one gave a f—. They all ordered their food even though they could see the feces. This is also the day I lost hope in people.
I got so many stories about this hell hole. If you live in Iowa take notice, the same guy owns 3 different McD—s.”
Pepper Hatred At A Pita Joint
“I had a customer that must have been schizophrenic or bipolar have a mental breakdown while I was the only person there at night. It was a sandwich/pita restaurant subway-style except that we prepared all the veggies and bread fresh (no bagged lettuce, we cut it ourselves, same with everything).
A customer came in at a very slow time and ordered a pita with extra peppers. He asked more and more, and his hands were trembling. He paid for it, sat down, took a bite, then went insane. He started screaming obscenities and how much he hated peppers. He threw the pita at the wall and started rubbing the peppers all over and took off his shirt to rub them on his chest – must have burned like hell.
So I called the police as he trashed the cooler full of drinks, they came and restrained him and took him away. Damage to the business was only about 200 dollars worth of broken bottles and a screen in the cooler. Never heard from him again.”
Don’t Mess With Wendy’s Employees
“I worked at a Wendy’s while in high school… One morning after prepping chili for the day one of the girls was carrying the buckets into the cooler and dropped one, but instead of remaking that batch she just shoved most of it back in and pretended it never happened. (This was before I started so I didn’t witness it for myself)
Another day this lady comes through the drive through and is being a complete b—- for no reason other than the fact that she was hungry an hour before she decided she would go get some food. Basically, the girl making her sandwich was tired of hearing her attitude and after accidentally dropping the bacon that was supposed to go on her sandwich she picked it up and put it on the sandwich anyway.
I also worked as a server for a little over a year and let’s just say I never let my fork touch the table. Always place it on your napkin. Also, never drink straight from your glass, use a straw if possible.”
The Old People And The Hot Heat
“I worked at a Burger joint in high school and I have a few stories:
I had an old man pick up his biscuits and gravy, and seeing how it was 6 AM with no one else and I was working the grill I was bored and watched him take it back to his seat. I watched him flip the carton over then open it, causing the entire inside to be coated in gravy. He looked at is for a while as if thinking about it, then brought it back for a new one. Wash, rinse, repeat. This guy came back no less than three times. No idea why he did that.
The second one was an old lady mumbled her order on the first and last day I was at the register. I repeated it back to make sure and she hurriedly said ‘yeah yeah yeah’ as I was rattling it off. I put in the order and waited for the grill guys to assemble it. When I handed her the order I didn’t think much of it until she stormed back up, interrupting me and yelling something about too many pickles or not enough pickles or she wanted a pickle in her bum or something and then hurled the burger at me. I started to calmly explain I could get her a new one but my manager heard her say the word ‘refund’ so she ran over and took over for me. I opted to stick to the grill after that.
Lastly, I have a story about my co-workers. It was 115F outside and suddenly our AC for the kitchen broke…1 hr into my 8.5-hour shift. As the heat rose the other two grill crewmembers re-assigned themselves to other jobs. I didn’t have a problem with it until I saw all the orders I was sending forward to the counter were piling up. A panicked newbie, who had just learned to be at the cash register, was running around trying to assemble everything. I looked around and realized we were the only two working during the lunch rush. I kept working through the orders when I ran out of paddies so I went into the freezer and found the entire crew. 2 managers and 5 crewmembers just chillin’ in there because of our lack of A/C. I quit the next week and got a real job.”
We Use “Clean, Fresh Water” Here
“I used to work for a pretty big pizzeria based in Chicago. They’re famous for their pan pizza, and it’s damn good stuff. Before putting the dough into the pan, adding toppings, and baking the pizzas, the cooks always liberally line the pan itself with oil or butter to prevent the pizza from sticking inside the pan once it’s baked. They’re really good at flinging the pizza out of those pans and right on a tin foil-covered cardboard circle before putting it all into a box. If the pizza doesn’t come freely out of the pan when the cook flings or flips it out, you’ve got a problem…and sometimes those pizzas stick to the pan.
So they would have to use a metal spatula type thing to kind of scrape the pizza off the pan without tearing through the dough, just to free it up. Then the pizza could be tossed out of the pan without a hitch. The gross part about it is that metal spatula was always sitting in a little murky bucket of ‘clean water’ which I’m pretty sure had soap or some other detergent s— in there. So anytime you had to get in there and pry a pizza out with that thing, you were using a spatula covered in this s—– gray water to do it.
I am a sucker for their pizza and still eat it, but I always thought that was super gross.”
Train Wreck Fights And Lies At Popeyes
“I worked at a Popeyes for nearly three years. Surprisingly the only thing I would disturbing would be the time a prostitute came into b—- at and try and fight a female employee. It was like watching a train wreck.
Some people might be disturbed to find out that the oil Popeyes fries things in are in fact lard. For those who haven’t seen it, picture a solid white brick of fat with the consistency of hard ice cream.
Interestingly enough, there’s nothing particularly horrible in any of the products. However, the beans for the red beans and rice are not vegetarian contrary to what Popeyes employees are supposed to say, so vegetarians/vegans take heed.”
Taco Bell Bug Attraction
“At Taco Bell, we had a bunch of the mild stuff that seems to occur everywhere. Piss us off in the drive-thru? Burrito gets a triple dose of onions, etc. Supposedly we were the better of the two in town. Rumor was the other site had problems with hand washing being optional. Meanwhile, at our site, it was the bugs that were a problem.
You know the soda machine that’s always stationed by the drive through window? The one with that nice big stack of paper cups that are kept next to an almost constantly open window? Well, ours always attracted gnats. I’m not sure if it was the paper or the moist humidity, but those f—ers loved climbing inside of the paper cups and waiting to be covered in shining dark soda. “Straw always picks up the bottom of the cup first right?” My manager would say.
Our other big problem was the ants. Now this town has a fairly significant problem with the Argentine ant and we could never keep the food line clear and clean long enough to not attract a line. We’d find them almost daily crawling through one of the open containers, swarming at whatever piece of old chicken that wasn’t pushed into the trash bin below. I’d chuck the whole bin if I was the one to discover it, and only if the manager wasn’t around to notice. Oh how she hated ‘wasted’ food, so more often than not, the ant bins were kept in service.
The worst incident, however, was the beetle burrito. Ever see a beetle crawl out of a burrito you just took a bite out of? Nice writhing legs, shiny wings, & a crunchy taco-like shell, luckily neither did this poor bastard who ordered it because the beetle crawled right out of the burrito right as one of my co-workers was wrapping it up (honestly much to both of our surprise). He was about to toss it when the manager asked him what he thought he was doing. Needless to say, ‘there was no wasted food in her restaurant’, and because ‘the beetle crawled out and not in, the burrito was fit to serve’.
I put in my two weeks notice that night.”
The Fallen Pickles And Idiots I Work With
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“I used to work for Burger King when I was in high school. One day I was prepping for customers for the morning rush and went in the back to get creamers. I saw one of my co-workers accidently tip a big bucket of pickles on the floor, where some cleaning fluids were.
Not a lot fell out and he started picking them up and putting them back in the bucket. I facepalmed and told him to throw them out. The day shift manager comes over to see the commotion and goes, ‘meh, it’s not that bad, I’m not throwing them out’ and let him put them back for food use.
Surprisingly nobody got sick…at least if they did I didn’t hear about it and it didn’t come back on us.”
Slipped And Shed Some Skin
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“I work at a Zaxby’s and one night we were understaffed so a manager, from another store, dropped by to pick up some ice for his BBQ. He saw how busy we were so he decided to give us a helping hand by making some salads for us. He was taking a dish back to the dish pit. He wasn’t wearing non-slip shoes and he slipped and tries to march himself on the side of a fryer.
He missed the edge of the fryer and stuck his whole hand into this burning hot fryer and grasped his hand on the heating element. He pulled his arm out and went to the sink, thinking it wasn’t as bad as it was, he started to rinse his arm off and then he got down to his gloved hand and he pulled off the glove to have the skin of his hand be pulled off with it.”
Raising The Manager’s Rage
“I used to work at McDonalds for about 6 months, back in 1997. My manager shot some kids with a BB Gun while on shift. Dude was in his 30’s… dating a 17-year-old too… So these teenage kids were making a mess of our lobby; Opening up salt and pepper packets, and sprinkling them all over the table, unwrapping straws, etc. They never bought anything and asked for water. The manager gives them carbonated water.
They get pissed, and take their bicycles and start riding them around the drive through, like a bunch of Apaches attacking a covered wagon. The manager then takes a BB Gun and opens up the drive through window, and starts to fire. The kids call the cops, and they come and investigate. The manager stashes the BB Gun in the big box of mustard packages.
The manager gets fired the next day anyways.”
Arby’s And The Naked People
“I used to work at an Arby’s that was attached to a gas station. One of the truck guys needed to go to the bathroom. When he walks in, there’s a guy who’s completely naked from head to toe, not even wearing socks.
The truck guy put his hand in front of his eyes and goes running out when the naked guy says, ‘No, wait! Come back!’
Truck guy’s response is, ‘NO!’ as he runs away.
I don’t know why the guy would be naked. I don’t think anyone saw a naked guy come in, and I don’t know why a guy would get naked in a restaurant/gas station. Really weird.”
