Fast Food Restaurants

As our lives become more hectic everyday, we no longer seem to have as much time to sit at the table for a home cooked meal. We tend to use the drive thru more than four times a week. We have already had a bad day and when we order our food, either the order is messed up or they forget part of our meal. What do we do? We take our entire day’s frustration out on this poor cashier. How hard can it be to take an order, cook it, fill it, and hand it out right?

I worked as a manager in a fast food restaurant for over eight years and let me tell you I have seen it all. I have had customers come in, literally stop the whole store, and cuss me out over not putting a fork in a bag. I have had customers try to come over the counter at my minor employees, because of a mistake in their food. I have seen customers make employees cry because of things they said. The sad part is these employees have to take it or they lose their job. I have been called a thief, a liar, a dumb ass, and lots more I would rather not repeat. I, for the most part, kept my cool. I have let a few comments slip out, I told one customer to go to a certain fast food place so they could have it their way. I have had people tell me they would have my job and I said go ahead; I do not want it anyway. You really need to have a sense of humor in this line of work.

People come in and try to get free food claiming an order was wrong a Month ago, or they would sit in the lobby and eat their entire meal and then come up and want a refund because it was wrong. I had one customer come in and tell me his wife came in the night before and ordered chicken and it was not done, I asked him which sandwich it was. He then told me his wife had ordered an 8 piece chicken meal with all the sides. I looked up at the menu and said sir we have not had fried chicken in 5 years. He actually asked me if I was sure. Then of course, he decided it must have been a different store, and just for fun, I told him none of the restaurants sold it anymore. C’Mon, people we may not be rocket scientists but we do have common sense.

Now listen I understand if you are paying good money for your food, it should be done right. People that have worked in fast food restaurants are much more understanding than those who have not. You have an average of 12 people working on the busy shift at the place I worked. These employees are making between $5.15 and $6.00 and hour in which they have to work for 8-10 hours with one 30-minute break. This does not sound like much fun does it. These people are expected to cook, and hand out these orders in two minutes or less. It takes five minutes to cook sausage. How is that even possible to do? This is if all the employees show up in the first place. Most of the time the crew is shorthanded, and always on the busiest days too. Call someone in you say, well most of the time not too many people want to come in on their day off. So here, you have the same expectations on a less amount of people than needed. You have a restaurant full of angry customers yelling at the cashiers because they are having to wait so long for simple orders, drive thru backed around the building, and all the employees are mad because they cant get any help.

So why do people do it? Why do people put up with getting yelled at and being subjected to this kind of work environment? Most of the people who work in these fields are not qualified to do anything else. These people that you chose to yell at are supporting families on $300.00 every two weeks. These employees are taking this punishment everyday and dealing with these long hours. I made a good living as a manager, not as crew. The employees that work first shift in this restaurant have to be at work at 4:00 am. Most people are not even moving at this time. It is not an easy life at these places.

Now I am not saying that every time a mistake is made the fault does not lie in the hands of the worker, sometimes people just screw up. When you have 18 orders needing to be filled, and eight of them are special orders it is easy to get confused. If people are going to work these kinds of jobs they need to be willing to do the best they can, or there is not much since in doing it. There is still a saying about yelling at someone who is making your food, do not do it. How many of us would want to do a good job after we have been called stupid and our jobs being mocked?

The next time you go to a drive thru or in a restaurant and it is taking too long to get the order, think about what the reasons may be besides the workers being incompetent. Ask someone if there is a problem or if the store is short handed, that way you have a reason, instead of getting mad and yelling. Remember these people are supporting families and paying their bills just like the rest of the world does.