One would think that working in an ice cream shop, or a restaurant that offers ice cream products as an option, would be a relatively fun to place to work. Well, they would probably be wrong based on the following stories.
People who work in ice cream shops recently revealed their strangest day on the job, and boy, the results were something else. Ever wondered why McDonald's shake machines don't ever work then look no further, as that answer and many other crazy experiences are shared throughout the following stories. Stories have been edited for formatting and clarity.
How She Got Banned From The Ice Cream Parlor
“I worked at an ice cream shop for a month. Within that month, I got a promotion.
My first night closing by myself, I was also tasked with training three new hires on how to do everything, and then train another employee how to count the cashbox. While I was teaching how to count money to the first guy, two of the new hires managed to lock not one, but TWO keys to the bathroom inside the bathroom. While I was dealing with that, apparently the third new hire did not shut the freezer properly… however I didn’t discover this until the next day when all the ice cream in the fridge was half melted… and we still didn’t have a way into the bathroom.
I called the manager several times and he would not answer. My entire shift, there was a line out of the door, so I was attempting to put soft ice cream in our ‘deep freezers’ and thaw out ice cream that was rock hard from being in the deep freeze.
I was still trying to call the manager about the ice cream and the bathroom. My new hires were making lots of little stupid mistakes all along the way.
Someone else called the manager and he answered right away! I called him again and nothing. So now I knew he was purposely ignoring me and this situation.
While we were closing, a bunch of roaches crawled across my foot and that was my last straw. I came into my shift the next day (knowing the manager was working) and told him I was done. We screamed at each other for a while and I left.
I am no longer allowed in that ice cream shop.”
They Just Wanted To Go Home, But Then These Old Women Had Other Plans
“One summer, I worked at a fast food restaurant, where I would be on the clock anywhere from 9:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. We would close at 10 p.m.
One night at around 9:59 p.m., these two old ladies walked in to place an order before we closed. At that point, I was exhausted after taking over 300 orders throughout my shift and I just wanted to go home. However, I threw on my poker face and proceeded to blandly say, ‘Hi, welcome to Derp and Herp, how may I help you?’
Apparently, I sounded a little rude to them, so for the next two minutes, they started mumbling and complaining about how this generation is a bunch of disrespectful brats. It was 10:01 p.m. at that point, and we were supposed to be closed. They proceeded to order eight large Oreo polar swirls. Polar swirls are pretty much our restaurants take on DQ blizzards. Since we only had one ice cream machine, only one person could make it. Also, it was at the end of the day, so there was hardly any ice cream in the machine. I put up the closed sign, went to the back, got more ice cream, and after 15 minutes, I finally finished.
I handed them the ice cream and then we had one of the worst conversations I’ve ever had.
Old Lady: ‘What do we look like, morons such as yourself?’
Me: ‘Excuse me, ma’am?’
Old Lady: ‘We saw you stick your fingers in the Oreos, make us another.’
On the first one, I stuck my fingers in to scoop a bit of Oreo out because it was stuck in the container. My shift manager just told me to make them again. So I had to run through the store again, 15 more minutes of making them, the whole time they were making rude comments such as ‘Stupid generation, can’t even get a little bit of respect out of it,’ and ‘You can’t stick your fingers in the food, I would get so sick.’
Finally, I finished round two and I got them to pay for it. As they were walking out they said, ‘Have a horrible night, you little prick.’
Here’s the best part: they dropped one of the polar swirls on the floor and stepped on the side of the cup so the ice cream splattered everywhere. So there I was at 10:40 pm with none of my closing work completed having to mop up melted ice cream because of two old crabby women.”
The Third Time Isn’t Always The Charm
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“I worked at Coldstone Creamery one summer and loved the job through and through. It was the best job ever. I lived in a desert town and people were so stoked to be getting something to cool off that they didn’t even complain about long lines.
One day, a girl came in and ordered an item that had hot fudge. I would always mix in the other ingredients and put the fudge over top of it so that it wouldn’t melt the ice cream. She requested specifically that I mix in the fudge. I handed her the ice cream and she looked at it and said, ‘It’s all melted.’
I told her that I was sorry and that I could remake it with the fudge over the top. She agreed to have it remade but still insisted on mixing in the hot fudge. I pointed out that we were probably going to be having the same conversation in about two minutes, but she insisted.
I remade her order the way she requested, she looked at it again, and predictably enough, complained that it was melted. I apologized again but told her I was unable to keep hot things from making ice cream melt. She told me ‘no offense,’ but she would rather have a coworker remake it.
I got my manager and explained what was happening. He offered to remake it. You can guess what happened.
After the third bowl of melted ice cream didn’t meet her approval, she said she wanted a different item. The manager said he was not giving her a fourth item if she only paid for one. So she demanded her money back. He refused, so she called us both pricks and stormed out.”
Nothing Goes Together Quite Like Blood And Ice Cream
“My store closes at 9 pm. One night, an elderly lady walked up to the register with a basket full of ice cream at 8:56 pm. She was pretty old and slow, but I let her hobble over.
Before I started ringing her up, she said, ‘I’m allergic to the scanner. You can’t scan anything.’ I was like, ‘What?’
And then she repeated herself and made me physically type in every barcode of every item one by one. I don’t know if she was serious about it or just crazy, but I was in disbelief either way.
Another time, an old lady that looked like she was out of her mind came into the store slobbering down an ice cream cone and bleeding profusely from her hand. Watching her eat the cone while her blood was mixing in with the ice cream was gross. It obviously didn’t bother her because she refused the paper towels we tried to give her.”
When A 5-Year-Old Is More Adult Than The Adult
“I work at the Costco food court, and there are a plethora of stories, but one sticks out in particular. We usually have the option of chocolate or vanilla ice cream, however, our shipment of chocolate ice cream didn’t come in one day, so we were left with only vanilla all day. Most people wanting chocolate were slightly upset but went on their way. But here came in a mother in her 30s with her son who was maybe 5 years old who were more adamant than the usual customer.
Mother: ‘I’d like two chocolate ice cream cones, please.’
Me: ‘I’m very sorry, ma’am, but we only have vanilla at the moment.’
Mother: ‘Oh, then I’ll have the twist (Mixture of chocolate and vanilla).’
Me: ‘I’m sorry, but we just don’t have any chocolate ice cream right now.’
Mother: In shock ‘So how am I supposed to get chocolate ice cream? Today is the day we get chocolate ice cream.’
Me: ‘I’m not sure what to tell you. Our shipment might come in for tomorrow or there are other stores that could sell you ice cream.’
Mother: ‘That is unacceptable. Where is your manager?’
I then proceeded to call the manager, who quickly came over to see what was happening.
Mother: ‘Your worker here told me that I can’t have chocolate ice cream and I should go away!’
I stared at the manager like the woman was a complete psycho.
Manager: ‘Ma’am, our shipment for the ice cream never came in, so we can’t serve you any for today.’
Kid: ‘I’m okay with just vanilla ice cream.’
Mother: Yelling at her kid ‘Are you kidding me? This is chocolate day. We always get the chocolate ice cream. We are leaving right now. This place is awful.’
Then what happens next is something I’ll never forget. The mom dragged on the kid’s arm pulling him towards the exit. The kid turned to us with the saddest look and mouthed: ‘I’m sorry.’
Sometimes, a 5-year-old can be more adult than some adults.”
They Didn’t Have To Go Too Far To See These Fireworks
“It was the Fourth of July and the small town ice cream store I worked at had a ton of unused parking, so we decided to charge $5 for all night parking.
This family came in and the mother basically said, ‘Get bent’ and parked in our lot without buying ice cream or paying for the parking spot. The family left for the fireworks and my coworkers and I were pretty salty. We didn’t really do anything until we were about to close for the night because as you can imagine, an ice cream shop on the Fourth of July was pretty busy. We called in for the car to get towed and that’s when it happened – right when the tow truck arrived, the family walked up to see their car getting put on a tow truck. My night manager went out and told them why we were towing them and apologized for any inconvenience.
The family ended up pressing trumped up charges against my manager, claiming that he was calling them names, and was in possession of a weapon. During a court appearance, my manager presented our security tapes, which revealed that everything they said was bogus.
I’m not entirely sure how the rest unfolded, but I do know that we all got this awful letter from the family and haven’t heard from them since.”
And He Thought The Games Would End With The Happy Meal
“It was the lunch rush in an eight-hour shift, and I was hungover working the register at McDonald’s. People kept ordering the ‘happy meal,’ but not specifying which happy meal, just saying, ‘happy meal.’
Me: ‘Which happy meal would you like?’
Parent bends down to their child to ask, child mumbles, hides head in shame. Meanwhile, the line is growing longer and the customers more disgruntled. A bead of sweat begins to form on my brow as the mother tells her child to tell me which meal. An eternity elapses before a mere infant utters its first, incomprehensible words.
Me: ‘I’m sorry, could you repeat that?’
Once again, the child whispers something in Gaelic.
Me: ‘Uh, I’m sorry, I didn’t quite get that.’
The small baby babbles, and the parent will not clarify. Time to guess! She also orders a large sweet tea, three McDoubles, and a large fry. She’s watching her weight so she asks for no salt on the fries, but she sees no irony in this. We have to make a whole new batch of fries for this request. She stops talking.
Me: ‘Will that be all for you?’
She says yes, but what she meant to say was no because she continues to order more food almost as soon as I press the pay now button on the register. Orders more lard.
Me: ‘Alright, will that be for here or to go?’
She looks to the child, gazes towards the dining room, looks up for something, anything, she just wants a sign, ‘Uhh, for go.’
My brain has now melted. Blood trickles out of my ear. There is no ‘for go’ button on my register, so I make a guess once again. I know there’s no way I’ve gotten this order correct. I accept defeat.
Me: ‘Alright, that’ll be $23.67.’
The woman’s face drops. The room is absolutely silent except for the racing beat of my heart.
Woman: ‘I thought sweet teas were a dollar. They used to be a dollar all over the country.’
Her rage is building as I stutter, ‘They used to be, but now they’re $1.19.’ Those extra 19 cents is blood money in this business. Nostrils flare, a ticked off sigh, she wants me to change the price even though I am clearly a minimum wage employee, not the CEO of McDonald’s.
Woman: ‘You people are robbing us blind!’
She has obviously mistaken me for a commissioned salesperson instead of a cashier. She now proceeds to go through the price of every item she ordered only to find that yes, indeed, our register is capable of simple addition. She hands me a 23 one-dollar bills and a bucket of change that somehow only amounts to $0.65.
Me: ‘I’m sorry, I still need two more cents.’
She rolls her eyes but forks it over.
Me: ‘Alright, your order number will be 267!’
The order has taken all but two, maybe three minutes tops, but by now, the once orderly line has turned into an impatient mob. They feel hunger, not for McChickens or those precious McNuggets, but for blood. I, on the hand, thirst for liberation. My lips manage to bend awkwardly into a smile as I say, ‘I can help whoever’s next!’ A large man walks over and O Fortuna begins playing.
‘Are you guys still serving breakfast?’
It is 2 p.m.
‘Oh, alright then. I’ll just have a shamrock shake.’
It is December.”
That’s An Unusual Request
“Once while I was working the register at the DQ in town, a guy came in and scared the daylights out of me. He was a short man, probably 45 years old with his oppressed wife and sad child by his side. After ordering for his family, he declared, ‘I want a milkshake…IN THAT!’ I Looked over my shoulder to see what he was pointing at. All I could squeak out in my pubescent voice was, ‘But sir, that’s our half gallon bucket.’
He gave me this ‘Did I stutter?’ look. A couple of minutes later when I gave it to him, he took out his pocket tool and cut an x slit in the top of it and poked a straw in it and started sucking away. It was the most bizarre thing ever. We didn’t even know how to ring it up, so we made three larges and dumped them in the bucket and added up the cost.”
When Did Dairy Queen Become A Frat House?
“At my Dairy Queen, we have a small office in the back, and when I was 16 (my first year there), I made the mistake of walking into the office to watch a basketball game on a break. Little did I know that at DQ, the standard ‘sock on the door’ was a cup on the door.
I walked in on the owner and his wife. The weird part was that he tried to fist bump me (40 something-year-old man) and the wife looked back at me and just said ‘Hi.’
I gave the owner a fist bump, by the way.”
All Of That Over A Dime? A Dime?
“A little old lady in an unbridled rage absolutely red in the face started screaming at a teenage Baskin Robbins employee because she wanted $0.10 off a $0.99 ice cream cone. The deal was only available on Sundays, and it was Thursday.
She made us wait in line behind her while she argued over a dime, but the cashier couldn’t do anything because the register was electronic and wouldn’t apply the discount. I was about to pay the lady in loose change to move along, but someone stepped in to assist us off to the side.
We were in and out in a few minutes, and the irate octogenarian was still raging when I left.”
At Least They Know Why The Shake Machine Is Acting Funny
“People always ask about the shake machine not running. I can recall one time our shake machine was running but it wasn’t running well, the shakes would come out very slow, and they took forever to fill the cup. It was like that for quite a while before someone finally came to fix it.
When management finally brought someone in to take it apart, he discovered that a cockroach was stuck in the shake tube, meaning that all of the shakes we had been serving during that time were filtered through that dead roach.”
You’ve Got To Watch Out For Those Yelpers
“I work at a small ice cream shop. First and foremost, our store has had, like, a huge wave of people nursing or pumping right near the front door. It’s like some new moms are playing an elaborate prank on us. They usually spill some on the tables too. Nasty! I have no problem with feeding your child in public, I’m just saying it’s kinda disgusting that they spill it on the table and leave it for others to clean up. Why would I want to touch someone else’s bodily fluid?
When we give out samples to customers in line, we always have someone say, ‘It’s okay, you can put my second sample on the same spoon.’ They’re obviously thoughtful enough to understand that we go through about 1,000 plastic spoons a day, but not thoughtful enough to realize why that’d be a health hazard.
And then we have the ‘professional’ Yelpers, like the ‘365 reviews a year challenge’ kind. They leave bad reviews to be funny for their followers, and it really hurts our business.
The worst, though, is when people lie about their order after I scoop it just to get free ice cream. For example, a few weeks back, I was taking a customer’s order. He said he wanted pannacotta and limoncello, but when I gave it to him, he was like, ‘Oh, I meant mint chocolate chip! Sorry, can I have some mint chocolate chip, too?’ I had another customer like this more recently who said, ‘I need half an ice cream sandwich, my child is too small for a whole.’ I made the ice cream sandwich, rang it up for half price, and sent her on her way. About 10 minutes later, she started yelling at me because ‘I want the second half of my sandwich!’
I reminded her she paid for half and she left. A few days later, we got a one-star review on Yelp and Tripadvisor from her.”
This Customer Didn’t Have Any Time For Religious Greetings
“I work at Dairy Queen, and we’ll have some crazy customers from time to time. The one that comes to mind though was the customer who came in on some religious holiday, I think it was Ash Wednesday or something like that.
Anyway, one of our managers told the customer, ‘Have a good day, Jesus loves you,’ and the customer yelled back from drive-thru loud enough for front counter and every employee to hear him and said something along the lines of, ‘Maybe Jesus loves you, but keep your religious nonsense to yourself’ and drove off.
I am an atheist and have to deal with the whole ‘This is a Christian based and operated establishment,’ rhetoric all the time, so it was nice to see the manager get called out on it for a change.”
