“I worked at [a popular coffee shop], and a woman ordered her coffee at 140 degrees in the drive thru. She walks back in the cafe after pulling out and complains that her coffee was 139 degrees because she has a thermometer in her car, and she demands it be remade. I laughed at her and asked if she was joking, and she demanded to see my manager. My manager remade it, but I didn’t get in any trouble.”
“Another time there was a long wait during rush hour in the morning, and I apologized to a guy that it was taking a long time to get his [drink] to him. He glared at me and yelled, ‘you don’t really mean you’re sorry!’ and refused to be cordial. He continued to look at me with disdain for the next few minutes. It made me super sad at the time. I really was sorry! I learned not to be affected by [mean] people so much as I got older.”
“I had a rough looking guy in a beat-up truck try to use one-year-old coupons. I refused to take them. That was a mistake. He held up the drive thru and screamed and screamed at me. Including ‘smarten up son, or you're going nowhere in life.’ Made me feel like [poo] until I realized that someone like that, who is screaming those things at a 15-year-old running the drive thru, did not go anywhere in life.”
“I was a waitress at a pizza place, and an older man and woman flagged me over. They just start yelling at me, going on and on that they found metal in their food. And she's showing me and yelling, and I am trying to apologize and saying we can make you a new pizza, I am sorry, I have no idea where it came from. After several minutes of yelling, the man gets quiet, and he goes ‘oh, I lost a filling.’ Then they tried to be all nice and laugh it off. I just wanted to say screw you for treating me like crap.”
“I worked at [a popular burger chain] part-time while I was in college. One day, I was working the drive-through, and this guy ordered a lot of drinks. One of them was low on soda syrup, but instead of just telling me about it like a rational person so I could give him a replacement drink, he threw the extra-large drink at me. Of course, the lid came off, and I was soaking wet.
The manager, who was actually pretty good as far as fast food managers go, saw this happen. He took off running into the parking lot, flagged down the driver before he could leave, and told him to never come back. Then he [the manager] came back in, found me a dry uniform shirt, and let me have a few minutes on the clock to sit in the break room and calm down.”
“One day, a drive-thru customer had some sort of altercation with a pair of pedestrians who had been walking through the drive-thru. The way I understand it, the customer had almost hit the pedestrians--a man and his mother, and then had started shouting. This is what I heard over the drive-thru headset: ‘YOU WANNA FACE FULLA BICEP?!?! I'LL GIVE YA A FACE FULL OF BICEP!!’
“I had a customer hurl racial insults at a coworker because the coworker did not butter his bagel in the manner he expected.
I had a customer who requested a bagel ‘dripping in butter,’ noting that she would ‘send it back if there's not enough butter.’ I buttered until the butter was soaking the paper. She sent it back, quite livid. I put a BURGER PATTY worth of butter on the bagel. She opened it again, inspected it, was clearly still not satisfied, and drove away angrily.”
“We sold out of pizza, and the next one was six minutes. We had six people ask for pizza, and we asked if they were fine with waiting, so we eventually sold out of the pizza that was still in the oven. Well, it’s finally ready. People are waiting, they already paid, and my coworker took it out of the oven as another coworker was calling his name from behind him.
When he turned his head to see who called, the pizza slid off the peel and fell cheese side down, making a huge splat. The sauce went everywhere. There was just a collective ‘AHHH’ from the people who had ordered that pizza. At first, I was laughing because at least it wasn’t me, but then we had to process six refunds while the line piled up.”
“When I worked at [a sandwich place], this guy asked for siracha sauce on his sandwich. I put the regular amount on, then he asks for more. I put more on. He asks for more.
Eventually, he’s SCREAMING at me to put more siracha on the sandwich, to which I end up emptying out the entire bottle on it. He’s still not satisfied, so I have to get more.
One half bottle of siracha later, he says it’s enough. Still remember him to this day.”
“I used to work at [car-hop restaurant]. On rainy days, especially when it was pouring, people would intentionally park across the lot (the spare spots that weren't covered by awning) and make the car hops walk the food out there to them. We'd be standing there outside their car window with the food on a tray, waiting for them to roll down their window. They'd take their sweet time getting out their cards or cash while we were getting drenched.
All the while, there were plenty of open spots under the awning, closer to the restaurant, and out of the rain. By the time they took their food from us, they would demand the meal for free since it was wet. Mind you, not wet enough to give back the food. Just wet enough to demand a full refund. […] Those people also never tipped.”
“We had a notice board that customers could pin their adverts on.
One week we took everyone's stuff off so that we could use it as a memorial for our coworker who had just recently passed away.
One customer came in and started going ballistic at us that we took her advert down, she didn't care that it was a memorial. My coworker ended up crying out the back for the rest of her shift.”
“Worked at [an ice cream shop] for a bit.
Went to hand an elderly lady her ice cream cone. She took it from me, pulled her arm into her car, took a lick, and then dropped the ice cream down her door. I genuinely felt bad for her, offered to give her another one, and clean it up if she would pull around.
It’s 100+ degrees out, and I’m in full uniform. I begin wiping the side of her door when she throws a plethora of insults my way.
‘This is why your generation is so messed up. You saw I had braces on my wrist. You knew I had arthritis. You should never have handed me that cone. You should ask if I want a cup instead’
‘You’ll probably only ever be a fast food worker. It’s people like you that make everyone’s life hard.’ She said a few more things.
The heat and moment got the best of me. I threw the dirty napkins in her lap, told her to shut up, reminded her I was doing her a favor (and it wasn’t my fault), advised her to order correctly, and told her to ‘clean up her own mess.’
I walked back inside, explained to my manager what I did, and in comes this lady playing ‘I’m a good, sweet Christian and would never disrespect someone’ card. Manager told her to call corporate, but as he wasn’t outside, he couldn’t believe what she had to say.”
“The one that stuck with me was when I made a customer a sandwich, and she requested a side of avocado. Our avocados were not ripe at all. I mean it was like plastic! I mentioned this to her, and she said it was fine. So, I sliced it for her, and gave it to her. She calls up like an hour later complaining that her avocado was not ripe, and she was unhappy.”
“I used to work at an independent theatre, and we ‘served’ coffee. We had this huge festival going on, and we had forgotten to brew up our one pot of coffee for a few hours. So, of course, ONE guy orders it, and I tell him it's going to be cold and gross, and he says that's fine. I felt bad so I didn't even charge him for it. He comes back seconds later, slams it on the counter like I murdered his children, and mutters ‘this isn't even hot.’”
“A woman demanded room (space for sugar, cream) in her latte, then burst back in line demanding more room. Then, [she] berated me for throwing out the one she returned for ‘damaging the environment’ (because I didn't resell them, apparently). Then, [she] demanded less room. Our manager ended up telling her she just had to leave because the line became enormous.”
“Was 15 and working for [a burger chain] in a big two-story location.
An elderly lady came in to use the upstairs toilet, and when she came back down, she had poo caked all over her hands, which she dragged down the banister she used to steady herself on down the stairs. She then went and sat at a table for a moment before leaving.
She clearly had dementia, although I didn't recognise that at the time. I was sent to the bathroom to investigate the damage, and it was a literal [poo] show. I reported back to my manager, who told me I had to clean it all up. No, thanks! I quit on the spot. I was not cleaning up [poo] for $4.85 an hour.”
“I worked at a movie theater one semester in high school. I was scheduled as a porter, which basically means I was responsible for sweeping up the theaters between shows and throwing out trash. When I got to the back row, there was a cup in the cupholder without the top on. It turned out to be filled with pee.”
“I used to work in a bakery in a grocery store. I was the cake decorator, and the cakes were in containers and in a cooler [so] that customers could just take [them] and go to pay.
Two kids, 6 and 8-years-old-ish ran over and started throwing the cakes on the ground. Like ‘happy birthday to the ground’ style. They were on their 6th cake before I could reach them and took the cakes in their hands. Their mom came over, [saw], just turn[ed] the kids around, and started to the produce section like nothing happen. No apology, no acknowledgment, no words to the kids about the $100s they just cost us and my time.”
“Customers at a truck stop were secretly taking pics of me while cleaning one night. My bosses noticed and sent me to the back until they left. I was underage (and looked a bit younger than 16).”
“I worked at [chicken place] around graduation season. He had massive catering orders, like 600 chicken fingers, 500 pieces of toast, 250 coleslaws... Multiple orders like this on the same day while also being our busiest day of the week. We were going nuts, even the owner was there to help.
Of course, this is the day corporate decides to make a surprise visit. The owner got reamed (even though we were consistently scoring as one of the top locations on a regular day), so he reamed the manager, who then reamed us. So, we're already stressed out and tired, and now, we're being shouted at by irate customers, the owner, and our manager. I'm surprised we didn't all quit that day.”
“Someone said ‘Give me some of those fresh baked cookies, I can smell you baking them!’ First of all, we just reheat frozen ones, and secondly, we just put one in the microwave for a guest who asked us to. When we told him this, he started to yell then walked behind the counter to go check. I called my manager, and he started to push her around to go check, screaming ‘I want my fresh cookies!!’ He then tried to hit on one of our team members in the back, then took off his shirt and screamed when she asked him to go away. We had to escort him out after calling the police.”
“I had a very short stint working at [a burger chain]. The soda machine was literally never cleaned. On my first closing shift, I went to take the nozzles off the soda machine, and there was mold literally caked around the inside of each nozzle. The manager told me that the constant stream of soda kept the machine clean, so it wasn't necessary to remove the nozzles. Bull[crap].
I can't drink soda from fast food [places] anymore.”
“I worked for [a burger chain] in a mall while I was in high school, and the worst was Black Friday 1987.
The night before, I had slipped and fallen in my bathroom, and cut open my eyebrow. It needed an ER trip and 7 stitches, [which] left me looking like Frankenstein's monster.
I tried to call in and was informed that I hadn't called early enough. They didn't have time to call someone to fill in on my scheduled shift.
And so, I showed up for work with an oozing eyebrow, a splitting headache, and on about 4 hours sleep. It was also insanely busy, so I barely got to grab lunch (20 minutes in line to order my food, cut from a 30-minute lunch break).
Basic training for the Navy was less stressful.”
“I was working the drive thru and gave the lady her food. Not 15ft down the road from the window is a trash can and a sign that says, ‘please do not litter.’ You can probably guess what happened next. She throws her wrapper right in front of me and as she drives off, I say, ‘are you kidding me...’
Next thing I know, I hear a screech of tires and hear a car door slam. She walks back to the window and starts to curse me out saying, ‘what did you say? you throw your [litter] on the ground, too. Don't [lie to] me.
I just point to the sign and say, ‘no, I throw my trash in the trashcan like a normal human being, have a nice [freaking] day’ and shut and lock the window.”
“It was my first job at [a fast food place] when I was 16. This older guy comes in and orders some sort of weird coffee drink, and I accidentally gave him the wrong drink. He made a bit of a scene and told me that the other female cashier standing next to me [that she] was nicer and better looking. Somewhere in there he actually mentioned that he just came from church.”
“Had a dude puke all over the floor. His wife came up to me and said, I swear to god, ‘My husband threw up on the floor, so, if you could clean that up... that would be great.’
They moved tables and continued eating their lunch and watching while I, lucky fast food employee, cleaned up fresh vomit. Unbelievable.”
“Once, in my first couple of years working at [a burger chain], we had a pretty big snow storm. We were super shorthanded, as a few people couldn't make it in due to the weather. Naturally, we got swarmed with people, so it's me and my supervisor, one manager, and one person in drive through.
We get an odd order for a [fish sandwich] with no fish. We make it and send it out. A few minutes later an old guy comes in, muscles his way up to the counter, and starts screaming about how we're [freaking] stupid and whatnot. The drive-thru girl had taken his order wrong. He screamed at us the entire two minutes it took to make his food (fish was cooking). The manager sent him on his way with a refund.”
“We once received a call complaining about how their [sandwiches] they had just ordered about 20 minutes before were old and had a bunch of concealed grease on them. We hadn't started serving lunch yet. They hung up when informed.”
“Once we got a [sandwich] sent back with a ton of very long hair in it that had clearly been taken from a brush. Of the three people working in the grill one was bald, the other had completely shaved head, and the third was me, and my hair wasn't that color or nearly long enough. They demanded a free replacement and a refund. They got the free replacement.”
