Always Be Polite
“A long time ago, I was a trainee grill man at a fast food place in California. One day my trainer (Ray) and I had the lunch shift and we were short on staff, so we switched off between flipping burgers and managing the drive-thru window.
Some yahoos pull up to the drive-thru, most or all of whom appear to be wasted (a lot of yelling and laughing picked up by the mic). As they order, the driver starts yelling insults at Ray: ‘Will you tards get this order right? Make sure we get a lot of ketchup. Hey did you flunk out of 4th grade?’ Just very random and senseless insults.
The car drives around to pay, and Ray calmly tells them it will be a couple of minutes. More yelling and insults result. Ray fills their soda cups, walks to the grill and picks up the burger patties I’m flipping. ‘Come with me,’ he says.
We go to the restrooms. Ray takes the burger patties and wipes them around the inside of the urinal. Then he zeroed in on the splash area (you know…the wet spot under urinals) and rubs them into the floor with his foot. But that still wasn’t enough, so the contents of Ray’s nose were added.
Burgers were then wrapped, bagged, and handed off to the party people. Lesson I learned that day: Always be polite to food service workers.”
Extra Bacon
“I’m not proud of this. In high school, I used to work at a pizza place in my town. There was a family who, because of religious beliefs, could not eat meat. They always would request that we re-wash the pan (already clean but they wanted to be sure) and clean the pizza cutter (to avoid residual meat juices) before making their pizza. This was frustrating, but we did it. The third time they came in, they called an hour later and said that THEY COULD TASTE THAT WE HADN’T WASHED THE PIZZA CUTTER!!! They demanded a free pizza, which my manager gave them. From then on, every time they came in, my co-workers and I would grind a bunch of bacon down to a powder and dump it in with their sauce. Someday, when they don’t get into heaven, I’ll be to blame.”
Onions With A Side Of Burger
“When I worked at Burger King, there was this one middle-aged lady who would come in once or twice a week and order a burger with extra onions. And no matter how many we put on, it was never enough. I’d put a sizable handful on (even though you’re only supposed to put like 4-5 onions on it and then add a few more if they ask for extra) and it still was never enough.
So one day she comes in, and the store manager told me to put a lot of onions on, so I put a huge handful on and my manager handed it to the customer while making sarcastic comments over the internal channel on our headsets. Sure enough, the lady comes back and complains that it’s not enough onions (keep in mind we already put, no joke, at least 20 times more onion than we should have). So my manager (while swearing under her breath) hands me the burger and tells me to put some more onions on. Then before I got a chance to put any on, she was like, ‘Actually, no; forget this. Give me some of those gloves and I’ll do it.’ She then proceeds to take almost half of the 2.5 kg container of onions, dump it on the burger, and rewrap it. The lady took it back to her seat while we all went out to the register to watch. The look on her face when she opened that burger was priceless, and as far as I know, she never complained about not having enough onions after that.”
Tim Allen, Coffee Connoisseur
“Tim Allen would frequently stop in at the coffee shop I worked at in Colorado. When he came, he always had a good 6 to 10 people in tow and would always order these super high-maintenance drinks (i.e., 2 and a half shots, 30% foam, 165 degrees…just stupid stuff), and worst of all, after doing this he would never tip…never. I’m talking not even the leftover change. Anyway, I had decided to move back home and was leaving this place of employment in a few days. In walks the tool man himself with his 8 friends and family, and they all order their drinks. After we made his drink to his precise specifications, he took one sip and made a stupid little lemon face and complained that it was too hot. So I made him another drink, and then he complains that it wasn’t stirred enough. So I remake the drink again, and he looks at me and says, ‘I can taste the decaf you know’ with a smug little look on his face. ‘I’ll give you something you can taste,’ I think to myself. I took the lid for his drink and under my apron proceeded to rub every part of the lid on my hairy balls…inside and out. I gave it to him along with a free drink coupon. He loved it.”
Mustard Mishap
“Some guy yelled at the cashier while I was working the grill at Dairy Queen after she repeated his order to make sure he didn’t want mustard on his burger. He kept saying she was ‘stupid AND dumb.’ Well, I wanted to keep my job, so the best I could do was insert the mustard bottle tip into the underside of the top bun and fill it up….making a huge bun mustard packet.
When he bit into it, it covered his lower face, shirt, and lap. I got reprimanded but played dumb, saying that with all that yelling about mustard, I got confused and thought he wanted extra.”
The Go-To Tool
Puttida Channum/Shutterstock
“When I used to work at a baseball park as a fry cook, this one time this super difficult woman came in and ordered a cheeseburger. No problem. Now keep in mind, this is a small, little-league, non-profit, run-of-the-mill baseball park with a concession stand, so don’t expect 5-star quality stuff. So she orders a cheeseburger and I grabbed one off of the heating plate we had to keep all the food we made hot. I had cooked those burgers not even five minutes before she came in, so they were still very fresh. She then says, ‘Umm…excuse me? I want a FRESH burger, not that one that’s been sitting there.’ I proceed to explain to her that I had just recently put those burgers out, but she wasn’t having it, so I said forget it and went ahead and made her a fresh one.
So when I give it to her, this charming woman proceeds to say, ‘What? There isn’t any lettuce or tomatoes or anything on this burger!’ Like I said before, rinky-dink baseball park, don’t expect 5-star quality. I pointed out the fridge that held all the condiments and told her they’re all right there and that you just put what you’d like on your burger. She then threw the BIGGEST fit ever screaming things like, ‘I’m not the one who works here! It’s not my job to make my own burger! You’re the one who gets paid for this, not me! Now you either fix my burger or I’m getting your manager’ Again, I complied because it was my first job ever, and I was only 14 at the time, so of course, I didn’t want to get in trouble. Finally, I put all her toppings on her burger, still trying to be as polite as possible, wrap it up and hand it to her. And AGAIN, she’s still not satisfied.
She then tells me she wants her burger cut in half. By this time I’m completely fed up. I ask her why she needs it cut, hoping that this entire ordeal was for her child, in which case I would have gladly complied. Her reason: ‘Because that’s how I like my burger’s, and I won’t eat them any other way.’ By this time, I’m screaming in my head, ‘THEN STARVE!’ but again—I was a timid 14 year old, I complied. But, like people say, you should never annoy someone who handles your food. So I took her burger to the back to cut it, and instead of getting a clean knife, I grabbed what we called our ‘go-to tool,’ which was an old knife we used to dig out dirt or caked up grease from the grill and deep fryer. Basically, every disgusting place you could think of, that knife had been there. Just for good measure, I scraped off some more gunk from anything I could find in my vicinity and then cut her burger for her and wiped the knife off in it, as if the burger itself were a cloth I was using to clean my knife. I came back, served her the burger with a smile, and said, ‘Enjoy your burger!'”
Is That Hot Enough For You?
“When I was a teenager, I worked at Burger King. This guy started verbally attacking me, saying his burger was cold. I apologized, assured him we’d make another, etc., but he wasn’t satisfied and continued to complain about it. Fine. I assured him his next burger would be piping hot.
I went and got a burger right off the grill and stuck it in the microwave for 2 minutes. Made the burger and carried it out to his table. Asked him to try it to make sure it was hot enough for him. Stood there sweetly smiling as he took a big bite and promptly burned his mouth. As he was frantically gulping down water, I asked him if it was hot enough. He nodded jerkily while still gulping down water. Still smiling, I said, ‘I’m glad,’ and nodding as if I was proud of a job well done. Turned on my heel, walked away, and felt like a queen for the rest of my shift.”
It’s In The Bag
“I was working until close at McDonald’s, and 5 minutes before we were going to close up, a car full of wasted kids comes through the drive-thru. They are being loud and obnoxious and ordered a ton of food that we didn’t have ready, so it took us like 20 minutes past close to make it all. Meanwhile, one of the kids gets out of his car and is leaning in the drive-thru window being a total jerk the whole time, snapping his fingers at us to hurry up. The guy who was going to hand out his food takes the bag, perforates the bottom of it, and hands it out the window while holding the bottom. The kid grabs it forcefully by the top which causes the bottom to drop out and spill his food all over the ground. We slammed the drive-thru window shut and killed the lights.”
Try Not To Mess It Up This Time
“When I was working at my parents’ restaurant, there was this lady that came in almost every day with nothing but complaints about everything. (I don’t understand why you’d keep going back somewhere if you don’t like it—unless you have nothing better to do than make people’s lives miserable every day.) So anyway, she comes in this time with three of her friends and before she even sits down she was going off about how cold it was in the restaurant and then while I’m trying to take their orders, she’s telling all of them all the ‘horrible stuff’ about the place and how no one knows what they’re doing etc. Then she started ‘correcting’ me when I was listing the options to her friends. Then when I finally finished she grabbed my arm and said, ‘And try not to mess it up this time.’ That was it. I’d put up with this lady for months and months and that was the day I got my revenge. (I should mention that I have never and will never do this to anyone again, as it’s one of my fears when eating out, but this lady deserved it.) I took her bread and wiped my sweaty armpits with each slice, then my co-worker made the rest of the sandwich and I topped it off with a nice big pile of spit that I’d dredged from the foulest depths of my throat, cut it and added a pickle that I slid across the floor a couple times. I’ve never worked so hard at maintaining a poker-face while serving a table.”
Caffè Al Mop Water
“When I was in high school, I had a very quiet and shy friend. I would frequently decide to fight her battles for her.
So, she dated a guy who ended up cheating on her. Shortly after, he came through the drive-thru of a local fast food joint I was working at.
He ordered some fancy blended coffee drink thing, and I mixed a bunch of dirty mop bucket water into his drink before serving it to him.
He deserved it.
Other than that, I have never messed with a customer’s meal/service, no matter how difficult they were.”
Burger Beatdown
“While I was working at a well known fast food place, my older brother was beaten up by two guys. I was around 18 at the time. He was walking home from a mate’s house at around 3 a.m. on a Saturday morning.
He turned a corner and these two pricks jumped out from the bushes, punched him to the ground, and started kicking the crap out of him. He managed to flee to a nearby bar where the staff was closing up.
He wasn’t too badly hurt: he had a black eye and some broken ribs and needed some dental work.
He recognized one of the guys who did it, as he worked for a local real estate agency, but decided not to press charges or anything like that. He did show me his picture on the agency’s profile, however.
Aaaaaaanyway, now for the good part.
I was working the drive-thru, and this guy comes in. I do my thing over the speaker and he orders two burgers, fries, and a drink. I start to get the order together. I’m sure you can see where this is going.
I will point out at this stage that I look very much like my brother.
I hear his car roll up to my window. My back is turned as I am putting his order together. I grab his drink and bag and turn around. Our eyes lock. He must’ve thought I was my brother because his jaw dropped. He looked like he had seen a ghost. He sat there, speechless.
I didn’t know what to do for a second. So I stood there, staring at him. I put his burger bag down on the bench.
I wanted to say something witty, but I was slightly upset at seeing this guy that had bashed my brother. Also, I was just a weedy 18-year-old kid, what was I going to do?
So I smashed his bag. And smashed it again. And again. And again. I smashed his bag until his burgers and fries were about 2 centimeters thick. He just sat there dumbfounded.
When I decided that his burgers had taken enough punishment, I handed his bag through the window and said, ‘Have a good one.’ He took it without a word and drove off.
It was at this moment that I realized I hadn’t charged him for his meal.”
When You Say You Want A Pizza With Everything On It, You Get EVERYTHING
“My boss once spit in a pizza. The customer was obviously trying to get a free pizza, so he deserved it.
First, he called and ordered a ‘garbage pizza.’ Upon further questioning, I discovered this meant he wanted every topping we offered, not just the usual ‘supreme’ toppings. I listed the toppings, told him they were 25 cents per topping, and gave him a total.
He got the pizza and apparently took a bite in the car, came back in waving a slice, and claimed that the green olive ruined the flavor for him! He wanted his money back and a free pizza of his choice.
I told the guy that we weren’t going to give him a free pizza in addition to refunding his money, the policy was simply to issue a refund. He went on a huge rant about how it wasn’t fair and how he was hungry so having his money back didn’t make sense and just giving him fresh pizza doesn’t make up for his ‘pain and suffering.’
My manager came out of the office, basically called me incompetent in front of the customer to make him happy, then started making his free pizza herself.
She spat in it right before she put it in the oven, looked at me, and said something like, ‘The customer may always be right, but we can still have our small victories.'”
Decaf Her, Boys
“If you’re a difficult customer at Starbucks, they’ll decaf you. Every Starbucks has a way for the cashier to signal the line person to decaf someone. At the Starbucks I worked at, we would add a nose on the smiley faces we drew on the cups sometimes.
One lady was an enormous pain who came in 5 days a week, multiple times a day, and would more often than not demand we remake her drink, even if it was the most perfectly made drink on Earth. So we finally started decaffing her, and she kept increasing the number of shots she got in her drink because she was still sleepy.”
Chili Burger
“When I worked at Wendy’s we used the overcooked burgers for the chili. If they looked like they’d been on the grill for too long, we would just throw them into a pan in a heated drawer. We usually stayed open until 1 a.m., and one time someone came in just past 1 a.m. I had already cleaned the grill and had no burgers left on the grill. The manager took the order because the woman complained and demanded that we take the order. ‘Fine,’ I thought, ‘I’ll use this overcooked, dehydrated burger that’s been sitting in a pan all day.’ Not exactly proud of it, but I did it.”
Crispy Bacon
“I worked at a Subway and a lady came through the drive-thru (my Subway has a drive-thru, yes, what the heck), and she drove past the order mic and honked and knocked on the window. Slightly irritated, I open it and take her order. She got bacon on her sandwich and asked for me to make sure that it was crispy. Okay sure. I give the order to my co-worker and tell the lady it would be done in a jiffy. She restates that she wants it crispy and that the idiot working last night when she drove through was too stupid to know what crispy was. I soon realized that I was that idiot. I tell her, ‘Okay, I’ll be sure it’s crispy.’ I walk over and take the bacon myself, and charred the greasy heck outta that bacon. It essentially just crumbled and looked like flakes of pepper. I don’t like having my intelligence insulted by someone who won’t see me making their food.”
Doughnut Holes
“I worked in a grocery store bakery when I was still in high school. One night, a crabby woman came in and asked for 6 different doughnuts, which I got for her, and placed in a bag, and handed to her, smiling. Then I went about my work packing up what doughnuts were left for the night in shrink-wrapped trays.
She comes storming back from somewhere else in the store, saying, ‘The cashier said this should be in a box.’ I told her that we’re supposed to put it in a bag unless the customer asks for it in a box. She’s snarling at me the whole time and starts yelling that she wants her doughnuts in a box and saying how ridiculous I am and how awful it is that the bakery hires kids instead of responsible adults while I am getting the box out and folding it.
I keep smiling at her and pull each donut out of the bag, one by one, and jam my thumb into each one before dropping it in the box. Then I told her to have a great night, turned my back, and continued cleaning up.”
Perforated Pizza
“I deliver pizza.
Sometimes, if I know that someone is going to stiff me on the tip, I don’t cut the pizza all the way when I take it out of the oven.
To clarify, what I do is cut the pizza how one normally would, but I only apply enough pressure so that the melted cheese is cut, along with about half of the layer of crust. That way, the customers have to tear apart their pizza to have slices.”
Something’s Screwy
“I once accidentally served a customer a smoothie with a bolt in it. It came off of our ice making machine, and it had a plastic part to it. A couple of minutes after I served him the smoothie, the customer came back in and showed me some of the plastic.
I dumped the smoothie out in the sink and saw the big bolt.
He asked me if I found anything else. I lied to him and made him a new smoothie while feeling very thankful that he hadn’t found the entire bolt.”
