Fast Food Workers From Around The World Share Their Terrible Experiences Working In The Industry
Fast Food Workers From Around The World Share Their Terrible Experiences Working In The Industry
Fast food employees have some of the most under-valued jobs in existence. They have to deal with angry customers on the daily, and for some reason, folks feel like it's perfectly fine to treat fast food workers like garbage. Unfortunately, it gets worse than dealing with an irate Karen who's unhappy with her Filet-o-Fish. From dealing with inappropriate advances to cleaning up bodily fluids, fast food employees have stories to share. Here are their worst experiences.
61. Vampires Aren't Real
Worked at a Wendy's when I was a teen. Guy who worked the grill was a self-styled vampire. Our patties were fresh, not frozen. This guy would cut open the sleeves that the beef was shipped in and then guzzle the blood that accumulated in them. Disconcerting as all get out, not to mention unsanitary. One time a customer saw him do it. That was a fun time.
60. Missing Kid
When I worked at McD's we had to clean the shake machine every so often, and the way the machine works is it turns this liquid mixture into the soft serve or milkshake textures. So while emptying the liquid cream trough, we got to the bottom and found a baseball cap and plastic glove.
59. Tastes Like Chicken
Had to explain to a customer for 5 minutes why we didn't sell any fish burgers in a KFC. Once the manager repeated what I said, she claimed that she was going to take this up with the head office. Not sure how successful that was for her.
58. Too Bad For Baby
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 we were 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.
Pixabay
57. Short And Stout
Embarrassing story here: I worked for an up and coming toasted sandwich chain in Chicago. We used to have these stupid in-store meetings for new product roll outs etc. We also had the biggest witch of a GM in history. If you came in late to these 7-8 AM meetings, she would make you get up in front of everyone and sing/dance to "I'm a little teapot." One time our prep guy, a 40ish year old Mexican man who spoke little English, had a family and worked three jobs to support them, came in late. He had to sing that stupid song to all of us. We were appalled, he was humiliated. She eventually got fired for being a jagoff. Everything went better than expected after that.
Pixabay
56. Mixed Bag
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 of 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.
Pixabay
55. Slow Food
I work at Burger King and a lady came through the drive thru and ordered a small order: just a bacon cheese burger and fries. She stopped at the first window to pay and we asked here to sit there because we were having issues with the registers at the second window and we were going to hand her food out the first window. Her response to being asked to wait there was "no I want my money back since you're making me wait." Now keep in mind the lady had been in the drive thru for less than three minutes at this point and we were in the process of bagging her food. We bagged it and took it back to her and her response was "I don't want it because I had to wait. Give me my money back."
54. Some Like It Hot
I worked at Starbucks. 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 to 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. She was ridiculous, but Starbucks’ policy is to remake anything if a customer asks for it.
53. He Didn't Choose The Pub Life
I was working at a pub shortly after college. During the evenings, things would always get pretty stressful and hectic. People would be snapping at each other, or saying mean things, or arguing, or whatever. Pretty standard stuff in a high-stress situation like that.
One day, though, in the middle of dinner, the other cook (my immediate manager, but not the restaurant manager) apparently just had a bad night. Suddenly, a waitress came back and whined that one of her tables was complaining because the food was cold. First, the manager responded by telling her that if she'd come get her orders when they were done, they wouldn't be cold, but when she made some comment back, he snapped.
He picked up a hot pan from the stove, and I was terrified for a second that he was going to throw it at her. Instead, he swung it as hard as he could at the entire stack of clean plates and knocked almost all of them off the table, shattering them on the floor. Then he literally tore off his apron and stormed out, but not before knocking a tray of full out of another waitress's hands.
Weirdly enough, the store manager was going to let him keep his job if he'd admit to being out of line. She brought him in during lunch the next day to talk to him, and instead of apologizing, he smashed a coffee cup against the wall and left. All told, it was probably for the best.
52. Going Nowhere Fast
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 this gem: "Smarten up son, or you're going nowhere in life!" Made me feel like crap until I realized that someone like that who is screaming those things at a 15-year-old running the drive-thru hasn't gone anywhere in life.
51. Keep The Confetti
Worked at Wendy's for two weeks. Wasn't bad until someone spread poop all over the men's restroom and they wanted me to clean it up. It was on the ceiling, toilet, all the walls. Like someone had a poop-confetti bomb. Just rubber gloves and no mask. I said screw it and quit.
50. These People Have No Fillings
I was a waitress at a pizza place. One night, an older man and woman flagged me over. They just started yelling at me, going on and on about how 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 shuts up and 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.
49. He Couldn't Catch It All
I supervise at a BBQ restaurant and the other day I had an employee get sick while on his lunch in the break room. I'm going over time-sheets and out of the corner of my eye I see him run to the trash can with what looked like some sort of brown liquid in his hands and casually toss it in. I'm under the assumption that he maybe spilled his lunch in the break room and was cleaning it up. So I go to investigate the situation only to hear a loud lurch followed by a loud splat onto the floor. I find said employee holding an impressive amount of vomit in his hands and all over the break room is corn tortilla scented bile.
I make sure he's okay and send him to first aid to make sure he's not dying. Then I glove up and begin the process of cleaning the chunky mess that he managed to spread across the break room and doors. I also find a nice trail of vomit leading to the trash can, and despite his best efforts, he only managed to get his vomit onto the SIDE of the trash can. Had just about finished cleaning the vomit when the guys comes back saying he "usually feels better after a puke a lot."
I'm getting ready to send him home when, SURPRISE, he decided he wasn't done puking. He looks me in the eyes and says, "I think I need a trashca-" and vomits all over the just mopped and sanitized floor. He then runs to the only hand-washing sink and decided it would be great to puke in there. I send him home and spend the rest of my shift mopping and scooping chunks of hot water and vomit from a terribly clogged sink.
Hey, I wanted to be the boss right?
48. Paging Officer Farva
I worked at McDonald’s 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 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.
47. Deep-Fried Special
Worked at McDonald's as my first job at 15. The worst thing I probably saw was one of the guys working the fryer tripped and when he reached out to stop himself falling, he ended up with half of his hand in the fry oil. I think the entire store heard my, "OH [BLEEP]!!!"
46. Face Fulla Bicep
I worked at a popular Canadian coffee franchise almost ten years ago. 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!!"
45. Of Creepy Men And Carhops
I was a carhop at Sonic drive-in through most of high school. I was the only guy that was able to use the roller skates. An extremely creepy old man in a vehicle that might as well have been in a scrap yard called me back to his car after I started to go back inside. Gave me a $15 tip because "that butt needed a second look."
44. Back To Work
Last week, I was on the assembly line at my McDonalds, making sandwiches, when my manager ran up to me and gave me a phone saying there was someone having a seizure in our men's bathroom. I run into the bathroom with ketchup and grease still on my fingers to find a 60-year-old homeless man having a stroke on the floor with a bunch of blood coming out of his mouth. I sit there for six minutes with this dying guy while on the phone with the 911 operator until finally, some help arrived. Then I go back, wash my hands, and go right on back to making sandwiches.
43. The Customer's Always Complaining
I used to work at Sonic. On rainy days, especially when it was pouring, people would intentionally park across the lot (the spare spots that weren't covered by their famous 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 while they shoved the offending fries in their mouth. Those people also never tipped.
Also, we had people who would make us go back inside and replace their 44 oz drink four and five times, even when you insisted it was the right drink. "This ain't diet." "Sir, I poured this drink myself, I can assure you it's diet. "I want you to go back in there and do it again, and I better not have to send this back a third time."
42. Elderly Entitlement
I worked at Braum’s 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 and 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. 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.”
The heat and anger 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, advised her to order correctly next time, and told her to clean up her own mess. I walked back inside and explained to my manager what I did.
Sure enough, in comes this lady playing her “I’m a good, sweet Christian and would never disrespect someone” card. My manager just told her to call corporate.
41. Welcome To The Poop Show
Was 15 and working for the golden arches in a big two-story, city location. An elderly lady came in to use the upstairs toilet and when she came back down, she had poop 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 recognize that at the time.
I was sent to the bathroom to investigate the damage and it was a literal poop 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 poop for $4.85 an hour.
40. That's Not Lemonade
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 the 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 urine.
39. The Customer Played Himself
I worked at Carl's Jr. and this one elderly man ordered a full-sized thickburger meal and specifically asked for no cheese on it. He repeated this multiple times.
So when we finish the meal and take it out to him he goes to the dine-in area and we continue about our business. The old guy comes back five minutes later all red and extremely angry. He's cursing like crazy and is yelling about how there's cheese in his burger. My coworker and I made sure there was no cheese in his burger so we told him there couldn't be any cheese on it but he insisted that there was.
He opened the burger box and turns out what he thought was cheese was the mustard. We show to him that it's just mustard and he realizes he messed up for not looking. He loses his mind and throws a perfectly good burger and fries straight down the trash and kicks the door on his way out while cursing at us.
38. Mobbed For McDonalds
I worked in a small McDonalds during the Sydney Olympics. I was about 15 at the time. There were a series of big screens at Circular Quay showing live Olympic events so there were always large crowds down there. This store was around 500m or so away from my store and because of the demand we occasionally had to take things down there.
Our store was closing and they were running out of buns at the busy store so they sent me down with a big trolley of buns (those pre-split ones). Easy right? I get about 20m from the store and there’s a giant crowd between me and the store. So I start asking people to move and most people are nice until one guy rips open the bag of bags and starts throwing them up in the air, screaming out “Free burgers, free burgers!”
The crowd lurches towards me. Some police notice this and come over and tell everyone to back off and have a few heated words with the free burger guy. They guide me through the crowd and to the store awaiting the buns. I get grilled about arriving with one less tray of buns, but once I tell them the story it’s all good.
37. Powerade-Less
I went to hand a drink out the drive-thru window and the jerk in the car threw a large blue Powerade all over me. My manager said if I went home early due to being soaked, I was fired.
36. There's No Crying In Subway
I used to work for a Subway. It was a really bad fit for me, as I'm not good at interacting with people. My store was slowly losing customers after the owner fed a guy a moldy sandwich (I swear that was the turning point), so I would often be the only person on staff after the lunch rush, which was even more stressful for me.
One night, I was crying while making the sandwiches and the customer complained. The boss pulled me aside the next day and wanted an explanation. I told him how miserable I was. He said to me, "You need to learn to accept your place in life." Accept my place. Making $9 an hour with no sick leave, vacation, or insurance. Screw that. I got angrier and angrier throughout my shift, and come 3 pm, I was the only person running the store again.
I called my fiance and told him to come pick me up, locked up the store, and texted the boss that I quit and that there was no one running his store. He called me back before I even left the parking lot and begged me to reconsider. I told him to screw off.
35. Soda With A Side Of Mold
I had a very short stint working at the golden arches. 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 McDonald's or any other fast food place anymore.
34. Don't Eat The Calzone
I work at a pizza place and one time the cook making the pizzas for the customers lost his bandaid inside of a pizza but didn’t know which one. This guy seriously wanted us to serve the eight possible pizzas that could’ve had a bloodied bandaid in them and just wait and see if someone complained. Yeah, no way.
33. The Real Secret Sauce
I don’t know if any of you remember the grilled onion cheddar burger that McDonald's used to serve, but we used to keep the grilled onions in a heated tray in the grill area. One of the guys I used to work with at McDonald’s came in one day all mad. He used to chew tobacco while working which was gross enough as it is. Well, he got caught on camera spitting his chew into the grilled onion tray. I think he got away with doing that almost his whole shift until someone saw the tape in the manager's office. He was fired on the spot. I’m not sure what they did about the burgers that went out served like that.
32. Krispy Kreme Katastrophe
I worked the night shift at a Krispy Kreme. It was always just me and the manager.
She never helped. She'd just go in the office to do "paperwork," and leave me alone for eight hours to make everything. Because I knew she'd leave me alone, I'd take the trash out multiple times a night and smoke up while I was out there. Well, one night I come back in from smoking and notice the conveyor for the OG glazed is starting to rattle pretty badly. There are several things you needed to turn off prior to stopping the conveyor (glaze fountain, heating elements, dough ejector thingy). So I turn all of those off, but for some reason, the conveyor is in a weird "dieseling" state, where it continues to run, but is disconnected from power. I start to panic asthe conveyor keeps going and continues to get more and more loud.
I start pounding on the manager's office door, but she won't answer. Stuff is starting to fall apart, and my baked butt can't handle this. I finally shoulder charge her office door down, screaming "WHAT THE HECK?! I NEED HELP!" But she isn't in there. I look on her security screens and see that her car isn't even in the parking lot. Once I realize that lady was gone, the conveyor finally went. The motor took out one end of the conveyor line, and gallons of 100% pork lard fryer oil covered the floor of the entire kitchen. I called the off duty manager, told him what just happened, quit, and just left.
31. The Shrimp Skimp
At the pizza place I worked at, we had a pizza that came with shrimp, but only if people specifically asked for it. So naturally, barely anyone ever ordered the shrimp on their pizza. In the pizza prep area, the shrimp would just sit there for days on end, getting frozen every night and thawed out every morning. And whenever someone would order the shrimp pizza, they’d get like two-week old shrimp on their pizza. Makes me wonder what kind of iron stomach these people have.
30. Loud And Proud Litter Bug
I was working the drive-thru and gave this lady her food. Not 15 feet down the lane from the window there's a trash can and a sign that says "please do not litter."
You can probably guess what happened next. She threw her wrapper on the ground right in front of me. As she goes to drive off, I say, "Are you kidding me?!"
Next thing I know I hear a screech of tires and a car door slam. She walks back to the window and starts to curse me out. "What did you say? You throw your stuff 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 day." And I shut the window. Luckily, my manager was pretty chill and didn't care. I just went about the rest of my day.
29. Assault At The Drive-Thru
One of our managers started choking a coworker in the drive-thru window, in full view of customers. Said coworker was supposed to be my relief but she was 20 minutes late and apparently the two of them exchanged words immediately before the incident.
That manager had a history of aggressive behavior. She tried to tackle me, literally, on my first day; I’m pretty sure only being short and hippy and thus having a low center of gravity saved me from going into the fryer. But after this, she was immediately fired, though they didn’t press charges. Afterward, the fired manager called everyone who worked there to cry about how it was all our fault for not supporting her and getting her fired.
She was hired to manage a Burger King two weeks later.
28. Overdue Oil
The fry oil at our place never changed once in the approximately five months that I worked there. By the time I left, it was almost black. Needless to say, I never put anything from that fryer close to my mouth.
27. Holy Health Code Violation
The Wendy’s I worked for blatantly ignored cross-contamination protocol. Grill operator had one spatula for laying, flipping and distributing the meat. One spatula that would lay a raw patty, squish the juice out of it, then immediately lift and serve a cooked patty. I regularly could see drops of red on the bun being served up. I brought it up with the manager and she said that’s how she learned it, so that’s what she wants us to do. A few days later I quit after trying to argue my case and making no progress.
26. But The Five-Second Rule
I worked at McDonald's. Once, my coworker dropped a whole tray of burgers on the floor, picked them all up, put them back in the tray, and made orders with them. Anyone who's worked there knows how disgusting those floors are. I never ate McDonald's again, and that was eight years ago.
25. Pickles With A Side Of Nicotine
A former coworker of mine couldn't eat pickles. He couldn't even come close to them without getting queasy. The story behind it is that as a teenager, he worked at McDonald's. They had one old guy in the kitchen who had been working there for ages. He was a big time smoker, and one day he called my former coworker over and said, "Hey, watch this." Then he took his orangey nicotine hands and plunged them into a bucket of pickles, sloshed them around for a few seconds, pulled them out, and voila...squeaky clean hands! He then slapped the lid back on the pickle bucket and put it back under the counter.
24. Fast Food Workers Aren't Peasants
I was working at Popeye's Chicken and Biscuits. My best friend was working with me, and we had the same shifts because we carpooled since we were both 17 years old and broke.
The day in question happened to be a day when my regional and general manager were at our store. As we closed up for the evening, I realized my wallet was missing. There was only $5 in it, but that was dedicated to the empty gas tank we had to fill to make it the 15 miles back home. My friend and I searched everywhere, but to no avail. Both my regional and general manager were outside waiting for us to close and just talking at one of their cars.
When we finished up, we went over to both of them and asked if we could borrow a couple of dollars to get home. We had both been working there over a year and were exemplary employees, so we figured it wouldn’t be a big deal. My regional manager said sure, reached into his pocket and threw a handful of change at me. Seconds later, my general manager did the same thing at my friend.
He and I bent over and started picking up the change as they watched and laughed. It was one of the worst moments of my life. To this day I’ve never felt that kind of shame and embarrassment. My friend and I VOWED vengeance. Revenge of the nature that made sure nobody would EVER mess with us again. We didn’t do anything.
23. Unwarranted Customer Critique
I was 16, working front line (cashier). A man walked up and instead of ordering, he started talking about how his daughter was in vet school. I smile, nod, say something like, "That sounds nice." He then responds with, "Yes. She did something with her life, unlike you."
22. But Why Is It On The Menu?!
While working at Panera Bread, this lady came up to the counter to order broccoli and cheese soup but we were out. Upon hearing this she goes, "THEN WHY IS IT ON THE MENU? WHY IS IT ON THE MENU? WHY IS IT ON THE MENU? THIS IS FREAKING RIDICULOUS, I CAME OUT OF MY HOUSE FOR THIS SOUP AND Y'ALL THE ONLY PANERA WITHIN DRIVING DISTANCE FOR ME. WHY IS IT ON THE MENU?"
16-year-old me was the only person at the counter, and I started laughing. That just made the lady even more upset. Eventually we had to call the cops. She struck one officer and I got to witness another officer flip her clean over a booth.
21. What A Butt
I worked at a McDonald’s when I was 15. One of the managers there was a 25-30-year-old guy who seemed to thrive on flexing his managerial power over the young men who worked there and also hitting on all the underaged female employees. This McDonald’s was situated between two busy roads and had a long access road from the further one up to the back of the building.
One day, in the middle of the summer when it was 95 degrees and humid, he decided that I should have to go out and walk this road picking up the cigarette butts that people had thrown out on the road. About halfway through my journey, he drove by waving and smiling at me with one of the girls in his car. Next day, I called him a creep and quit.
20. That Would Be Great
Had a dude puke all over the floor. His wife came up to me and said, "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. They weren't remotely apologetic or concerned. Unbelievable.
19. They Never Tip
I worked at a pizza place with my then girlfriend, and some lady had a walk-in order. She tells me what she wants, I tell her the price, she gives me money. I look down and I don't have a key for the till -- my girlfriend does, so I get her and come back. By this point, the customer is ranting that I stole her money. We argue for a bit and she starts pulling out her phone. Her money was on the counter under her purse THE WHOLE TIME. She just stopped arguing and paid for the pizza. Didn't even apologize for needlessly accusing me. And of course, she didn't tip.
18. Drive-Thru TMI
This woman was graphically describing sex she had just had while in the drive-thru. She ordered and continued a phone call with her friend. She didn’t realize that we could hear everything that she was saying while she waited for the line to move. A few highlights were...
“But his genitals was so WEIRD looking.” Also, “And I just couldn’t take it in my butt!” When she pulled up to the window, my friend working the money window says, “Heck of a night, huh?” Nothing can ever equal the embarrassment on her face when she pulled up to me. I handed her the ice cream cone and said, “Careful! That ice cream is WEIRD looking.”
17. Geyser of Grease
I worked at Whataburger for a little over a year. One night, something on the roof had broken. None of the staff were aware, but grease was apparently spraying like a fountain from the top of the restaurant for a while. Of course, a guy came through the drive-thru in a convertible right as this was happening. You can probably assume the rest.
16. Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely
At McDonald's of course. I was one of the first assistant managers. We had a kid who was just promoted to shift manager. He was a very good employee and he knew his stuff. We had high hopes for him.
His very first shift, five minutes in the shift, he does a walk-through of the dining room. He asks a girl who was seven months pregnant to change a trash bag and she tells him that she can't do it. So he walks to the back of the store, gets the trash masher (basically a mop handle with steel plates on the end to compact the trash) walks to the garbage bag, and mashes the trash. He then takes the trash masher and knocks the girl out with it while screaming, "I'm the freaking boss and everyone better do whatever I tell them!"
He continued to yell at everyone about how she needs to be fired for insubordination and no one else better ever test him. Dude was arrested in the store while trying to argue with the police officers that he was in the right. The girl had a major concussion but she and the baby were thankfully ok.
15. Hush-Hush Harassment
My boss (late 30s) made me put my hand down his pants. I was 16. He grabbed my arm/hand while I was getting something in the back and just put it down his pants. I didn’t know what to do -- I was shocked, I guess -- so I did nothing. The look on my face must have spooked him because he told me I could go home early.
The next day, $50 was missing from my till and I was told by the franchise owner (different guy) to make it whole or I would be fired. I didn’t do it and I didn’t have that kind of money so I quit. I never told anyone until now.
14. Sweet And Sour Attitude
I once had some yeehaw country dude rolled up in his rusted out truck asking for more sweet and sour sauce. I told him I had to charge him for it, and he proceeded to cuss me out and rant about “$15 an hour.” He finished it off with “no wonder you work at McDonalds you inbred moron.” At the time, I was 16-years-old and hadn’t quite developed my “customer service voice.” I politely informed him he was short a few teeth and closed the service window.
13. Trail of Terror
I was working as the cashier. Boss came up to me and told me to grab a mop as someone made a mess in the female bathroom. She gave me no other details. She told me I could go home once I was finished. It was still early in my shift and the lunch rush just ended so I was intrigued. I investigated to see what I was up against prior to grabbing the mop and bucket.
There was a diarrhea trail from the bathroom door entrance to the first stall. It had the consistency of chewed up Snickers bars. And when I say trail, I don't mean a smear. Imagine a paint can tipping over. The seat was still down with the poop still undisturbed. I concluded that they hover-pooped from the doorway, across the sink area, to the first stall then over the already lowered seat.
I also learned that day that fast food restaurants have hazmat bags. You know...just in case.
12. McRude
I had just started working at McDonald's and had only been there about a month. At this point, I had only been trained to work in the kitchen. One day the person who was supposed to be out on the lobby wiping tables and all that had called in sick and it was quiet so they got me to do that. Which was fine -- it's not exactly rocket science.
About two hours in, a woman comes up to me and mumbles something about something disgusting outside. Without asking again what it was, I said, "Thank you for letting me know. I'll go out and have a look at it in a minute once I'm finished changing these bins."
After changing the bins, I go outside to discover a perfect log of poop sitting in a chicken nuggets box with a BBQ dip and a note that said, "Mc screw you."
11. Let's Talk About Sex, Baby
One time I was working the register at Burger King and a buff bald dude with his five-year-old daughter came up to order. He angrily goes, "I want THREE rodeo burgers, and make sure there's extra BBQ sauce! And then I want a Happy Meal with a girl's toy!"
So I say, "Alright, sir, three rodeo burgers and a kids meal." Angered, he says, "With a girl's toy, right?" I tell him he doesn't have to worry because the toys are unisex. His eyes bulge and he yells, "WHAT ABOUT SEX?!" I explain to him the meaning of the word, and he mumbles "Okay... Just don't mention sex around my daughter again."
Just one of the many horrific experiences I had working there.
10. Sassy For Salad
I had a dirtbag customer once working at McDonalds in high school. Their "premium salads" had just been released, and the chicken used in them was the same as the grilled chicken sandwich. It took 8 minutes to cook, and we typically didn't keep very many cooked and in the warmer because they didn't sell fast.
At noon on a weekend, during a very busy rush, some entitled lady rolls up in the drive thru and orders 6 of these salads. When some product isn't ready, the practice is to have them pull up into a parking space and we'll run the order out when its ready, so the guy behind her who just ordered a large Coke doesn't get trapped in the drivethru. She refused to pull ahead and forced about 9 cars behind her to wait for between 10 and 15 minutes, even after we explained that this is what was happening.
So inconsiderate.
9. Still Waiting On That News Crew
When I was 16 I worked a pizza place taking orders and doing cashier work. Our credit card machine took a 2% surcharge and there was nothing we could do about it because that was the way that machine operated, it did that since it was a small business and we couldn’t just eat up the cost to run the card. A Karen paid for her food and when she looked at the receipt she yelled “what is this?”. I explained it was the surcharge to run her card. She got angry and demanded a manager. My manager came over and said she would not be issuing a refund because on the counter was a sign that said “all purchases done with a credit card will have a 2% surcharge” so it was labeled.
She then went on to tell us it was illegal to do that and the news had a thing about it last week in California and blah blah blah. She said if we didnt refund her money in full she was going to go to the police and the news about the pizza place, a well known and fairly liked pizza place in a city of ~72,000 people.
She didn’t get a refund and no police or news station came.
Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels
8. Immature Adult
I just started about a month ago at the place with the chicken sandwich. I was pretty lucky to avoid the baddies until this past Monday. She came in with her husband and 2 little children. She orders her, and her husband's meals and all is well. Then she orders the kids meals (this is where it begins). At our particular estabolishment kids meals come with nuggets or strips, not sandwiches. She proceeds to order them with sandwiches and then I tell her we don't do that. I tell her I can ring them up separately, but it would cost a bit more. She said it was fine and I checked her out.
I handed her recipt then she immediately pulled out her phone calculator and got at it. A minute later she came up and told me she would have saved money if she just bought the adult meals instead. (No kidding I told you that). At this point I was beyond stressed and didn't know what to do so I got my manager. Thankfully he worked out the rest of it in around 5 minutes. He came to me later and said "she wasted 8 minutes to get a refund and then re-order to save 75 cents."
The rest of the time she was dining she would just glare at me whilst I worked. Thankfully It wasn't as bad as some other encounters, but sadly I have a feeling this won't be my last.
7. Can't Please Some People
There was this guy who always ordered his coffee "muddy water". I don't know if it was a really thing or just a thing in this guys head, but he had to explain it to everyone. Muddy Water = Black Coffee with 1 drop of milk.
And the guy would complain a ridiculous amount of the time that he was either given too much or too little milk. And he would cuss out whoever made his drink wrong with every bigoted or insensitive slur you could use. All because his 1 dollar coffee was "ruined."
It was always early in the morning before proper managers were in as well, so it was just staff at the time, most of us teenagers who he just scared the pants off of.
He refused the actual solution of 'take it black and we'll give you milk add your own amount" because "I can't get the mixture right myself either."
After way too long they finally let us just refuse to serve the guy and his stupid drink. But it was crazy.
6. Just Can't Win
My most disturbing story is that I am treated as if I am completely replaceable as a human being. Even though I work hard and make a difference at my place of employment, I still can't afford basic health care. I work too hard to get government assistance, yet I don't work in an industry with any respect for it's workers, from either the customers or the owners of the business.
Even though I provide people with affordable and quick meals, with healthy options available, I am the lowest rung on the ladder. Food service is a valuable service to the community, but food service employees are treated like dirt.
I treat food service with respect. I pay attention to quality of product and service. I pay attention to personal hygiene and proper food service guidelines, yet I feel as if I am treated as a being with no value.
I used to like it, and now I hate it. I'm going to have to trade in a faded passion for a soul sucking job with health benefits. I'm feeling like the future is pretty hopeless at this point.
Food service is a disturbing story.
5. They Scream For Ice Cream
I used to work at a theme park in the UK in a fast food area, and, twice a year, the day after the derby at a nearby racecourse, we used to get hoards of a certain type of people visiting to cause trouble, so much so that the theme park used to ban booze sales and introducing x-ray scanners on those days only. These days brought the most absolute nightmare customers I've ever met. I spent most of my time at either a Ben and Jerry's ice cream hut or working in another hut which made giant (like 2 foot across) pancakes. My favourite lines were:
"This pancake was too big for my child to eat. I want a refund for the half he didn't eat."
"That queue was too long. My meal should be free for the inconvenience."
"My daughter is diabetic so you need to give her the ice cream for free."
And of course, the people who wanted to try a tiny scoop of every single flavour of ice cream. But the absolute most Karen-move was when I refused to take her coupon for a free tub of Ben and Jerry's from a supermarket chain as payment for a cup of ice cream at a hut in a theme park which was in no way affiliated with the supermarket chain, the moment I turned my back to rinse off the ice cream scoop, she tried boosting her child over the glass ice cream display to try and grab the ice cream cup I had made for them. Security were called and she screamed that they were abusing her the whole time as they escorted her out of the park.
4. Picky And Sticky
I worked at a coffee shop for while. Now, many people are very particular about their coffee and complicated orders were something we dealt with on a daily basis.
This one woman however, came in every day asking for a “large sugar free vanilla latte non fat milk add 4 equals at 200° no foam double cup”. Fine. No problem. Except there was ALWAYS a problem. As soon as we set the drink on the bar she would take the lid off to check for foam. If there was even a hint of a bubble she would want it remade. No matter how many times we told her it was just a few air bubbles from whisking the drink and pouring the super hot milk, we were always wrong in her eyes and deserved to be insulted.
One day she came in for her usual drink. She took the lid off in front of us to check for foam and it was surprisingly satisfactory on our first try. Yay! Until about 20 mins later, when she calls us from the bagel shop down the street to tell us that we didn’t put her lid on correctly and her scalding hot coffee has now been dumped all over her and the interior of her Jaguar. Even though we know she was the one who took off and replaced the lid, even though we had surveillance camera evidence, even though she made it to her car and a mile down the road to the bagel shop with no lid issues, it was somehow all our fault. So she came in and screamed at all of us about how we burned her so badly and how she would be scarred forever and her beautiful car would never be the same. Corporate ended up paying for her dry cleaning, a professional detail of her car, and an undisclosed amount of money. And by the way, she still came in everyday.
3. Throw Down At McD's
My best friend worked at a McDonalds for several years in high school, and there were two stories she told that stuck with me.
One day her McDonalds experienced some sort of malfunction with the machine that produced milkshakes. Apparently they were coming out pretty much melted. A customer demanded a chocolate milkshake, and said he didn't care if it was melted. She did one up for him, and handed it to him so he could get a look at how melted it was. He freaked out on her for "ruining his milkshake", and threw it at her. She was completely covered in chocolate, and yet was expected to stand there and finish the rest of his order.
The second story is an experience she had as a manager. One cold winter day a hobo walked into her store and went to use the washroom. He came out about ten minutes later, and politely provided the dollar whatever needed for a cup of coffee. She gave it to him at no charge, and told him to enjoy the rest of his day. That pleasant phrase threw him into a rage, and he ended up throwing the hot coffee at her. She ended up calling the cops on him, as he refused to leave the restaurant after doing this.
2. This Is The Worst
This doesn't have to do with McDonald's food, as the store I worked in was fairly sanitary and I never encountered anything gross happening. Then again, I worked the morning/day shift and the people seemed to be much cleaner and more diligent than the afternoon and night crew.
However, I had put in my two weeks notice because I got a different (nicer, thankfully) job. One of my last days of work something extremely messed up happened. A young woman brought her two children with her to the store. Not an unusual thing. The same day a large group of senior citizens from a local retirement home were there as well. One of the old ladies walks up to the counter and tells the boss that one of the bathroom stall doors was locked and she could see a woman's legs on the ground. She knocked on the door to no response and therefore told us. Our managers got in there and found the woman passed out on the ground and she was apparently turning purple and not breathing. She drank a bottle of bleach that she brought with her and left her two kids in the play area while she tried to kill herself in our bathroom. These children were about 3/4 years old. All of the employees were freaking out, crying, etc. The paramedics and police came and there was a huge commotion. Everyone thought she was dead. However, the paramedics were fortunately able to revive her (I'd like to believe it was an adrenaline shot through the heart Pulp Fiction style, but I honestly have no idea how) and she was sent to the hospital. Needless to say, I made sure I never stepped foot in that bathroom again.
1. How To Ruin Pizza Forever
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.
