Snakes, Fire, and Hay

 by Marlee Taylor

 

Two teenage boys stood before me trying to take their order. They gave off the vibe of cockiness. You could tell they were the “popular” boys in school. I got through the first one no problem. He’d give me the side smile every once in a while but nothing major until he looked at his friend and said, “Hey, Brad show her your biceps.” Instantly I rolled my eyes and wanted to hand their order out as soon as possible. I didn’t think Brad would say anything since he was already red in the face.

“If you let me take you out back I’ll show you more than my biceps,” Brad said confidently.

I couldn’t believe what he just said. He said it loud enough for some of my co-workers and customers to hear. Everyone looked at me, waiting for what I would do next. I was livid at what he said. He was proud of himself too. I gave him his change and walked away. My boss was angry and ready to pounce, but I told him not to bother.

This is how some customers in a fast food restaurant are, but there are many different categories of customers, some you could talk to all day and some you want to leave right away.

One category would be old people. You never know how an old person will act, so you have to hold your breath and hope they’re nice. You’ll come a crossed a lot of old people who are kind. They will never give you trouble and you will want to do anything for them in gratitude for their kindness. There’s also old people who come in that you wish wouldn’t. They demand for senior discounts and treat you like the dirt they walk on.

“Okay, that’ll be $13.95.”

“Well didn’t you give me MY senior discount?!”

If they’re ordering in the drive-thru they expect you know they are eligible for the senior discount just by the sound of their voice.

“Hey! I get a senior discount!”

It’s hard to make them happy because they already made the decision they would never be happy. With these customers you just have to ignore their attitude and continue to do your job.

Other customers you will serve are children. Whoever is watching the child determines how the child is going to act. Sometimes they do as they’re told and don’t disturb anyone, but other children aren’t so well behaved. Other children will push other people’s buttons to see how far they can go. Normally parents jump right on it and make them stop, other parents are pretty laidback. Letting their children talk really loud, run around raising hell, and let them go to the bathroom by themselves.

“Guys, you need to stop,” most mothers will say but obviously don’t care.

Their kids will stop for a second then go back to yelling and screaming. Smearing ice cream on the windows, running around the place and bumping into other people, and running into the bathrooms together.  I’ve had children run behind the counters where workers are only aloud. I don’t normally become mad because they’re children and are trying to have fun. Being a worker it’s hard since you have to try to gauge when you should speak up and say something, so normally you mind your own business and continue to do your job.

Some of the worst customers are the free-loaders. These customers try to score as much free food/money as they can. This past summer us workers had to deal with difficult free-loaders. A couple mistakenly ordered the wrong thing when they meant to order a cheeseburger, so they wanted to change it and get some of their money back. A co-worker of mine was the one who originally took the order and started to figure out how much we owed them.

“Okay, we owe you guys sixty cents.”

“No, we should get more than that back.”

 I stepped in and started to figure out what the difference would be.

“Sorry, I also got sixty cents.”  At this point the couple was frustrated. I turned the computer around to show them how we were getting sixty cents. With the evidence right in front of their face they still denied it. I went and got a manager and told her what was going on.

She came out saw the difference, got the sixty cents and gave it to them saying “Sorry for the mix up but you do only get sixty cents back.”

The customers blew up, “We should get more back than that! You guys keep it; you obviously need it more than we do!” They stormed out of the building.

We had another lady trying to score more money, but she went about it another way. We had a co-worker dry mopping but she forgot to put up wet floor signs. This lady saw this opportunity and took it. She walked out of the bathroom and walked back to her table. As she was walking she “slipped.” I could tell it was fake. She exaggerated her movements extremely, she threw her arms up into the air and shook them around and staggered all over the place. She limped to the nearest table and sat down moaning. The co-worker who was mopping looked stunned and scared. I went and told my boss, Sha, what happened. She went and talked to the lady. The lady told Sha what happened and said she already had a leg injury. She left and went to Quality Urgent Care. She brought back the bill and said that we had to pay for it and that she could’ve sued us if she didn’t tell Sha that she already had a leg injury. The owner of the restaurant didn’t pay for the bill.

There are some customers, mainly men, who are really creepy. There’s the older men who are too friendly or the teenage boys who won’t stop flirting and sometimes go too far. There’s an old man that comes into orders food a lot, and sits down so he can watch the workers. He’s a fragile, skinny old man who has a crooked smile that will make you cringe. You can catch him staring at female’s butts and when you look at him he just gives you that creepy smile. He’s been coming through the drive-thru lately. One time when I was collecting on his order I caught him staring at me. I had already given him his food, when I looked behind me he had his head stretched out looking at me and slowly drove away.

We had another incident recently where a man grew a liking for one of my co-workers. It got to the point where he would always ask if she was working and would ask for her to take his order, “Hey, is Alissa around?” or “Could I talk to Alissa?” One night he came in and she took his order but didn’t take his food out to him. After he was done eating he asked to speak to her but she didn’t want to. She stayed in the back and pretended she was busy. The man was persistent in wanting to talk to her to the point she was in the back crying. The manager went out and told the man, “Sorry, she is busy right now talking to her mother. She seems pretty upset, so please leave her alone.”

The man waited until she was off work to confront her in the parking lot about it. “Alissa… Why did you make such a big scene?” She was able to get in her car and leave quickly. The man hasn’t been seen at my work again.   

There are customers you love to see because they brighten your day and are regulars. We have an old lady who comes through the drive-thru and orders a cup of coffee and a chocolate cone. It doesn’t matter what time of year it is, she come in a lot. She is really kind and always says “Thank you.” We also have an old man come through who order a large Mountain Dew and sometimes a Life Water. He’s sweet but rarely says anything. There’s a woman who comes through who has at least four children and always orders drinks. She never buys anything else and is always happy.

Working in a place where you deal with the public can always be tricky. There are always those customers who aggravate you to the point of wanting to quit but there are also those customers who cheer you up and make you see the joy in working. Working in fast food isn’t as easy as people make it seem, especially dealing with some of the customers.