Fast food workers get all kinds when it comes to their customers. Most are perfectly nice. Others are total nightmares. Rude, gross, or just totally unreasonable, these customers are the kinds that all fast food workers absolutely dread.
One Kid Can Ruin The Ball Pit For Everyone
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“I started working at McDonald’s my junior year to save up for college. Our McDonald’s has a PlayPlace with a ball pit and a ton of tubes. I was the one who cleaned tables and crap, so I normally was put in charge of cleaning the PlayPlace. One day, this 300-pound kid walked in and started playing in the ball pit. Things went normally for about 10 minutes until four or five kids emerged from the ball pit, covered in pure poo from the waist down. Turns out, the fat kid crapped himself in the ball pit and refused to stop playing until every ball was covered in it. After cleaning all of that, I decided that I would never work at a McDonald’s again, so I quit a week later.”
She Had To Have Security Walk Her Out Because Of This Creep
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“I work at a food store in the mall.
I was getting ready to close. I was the only one staffed for the evening and business had been dead since 8. As I was getting myself a refill of soda, I noticed a guy at the counter.
‘Nice butt,’ the guy blurted.
I gave him the ‘did you seriously just say that?’ look. I didn’t know if he was drunk or just naturally rude.
‘Wanna come by my place tonight?’
I scowled, ‘No.’
‘Aww why not, babe?’
‘I’m married. Leave.’ My heart was racing. I hate confrontation and this was a first for me.
‘No you’re not, c’mon!’
‘I will call security. Leave right now!’ I yelled loudly to get some attention called to the situation.
The guy backed up and finally left, but he circled in front of my store until security forced him to leave so they could lock the doors.
Of course, after that I had the head security officer escort me to my car. Sure enough, the guy was waiting outside for me. He quickly walked away when he saw me with security. I don’t know what could have happened, but I’m thankful I was smart enough to trust my gut.
I’ll be on high alert when I go to work again.”
No One Gets Paid Enough To Deal With Dummies Like This
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“I’ve been at my job for a few weeks now, and I really didn’t believe people could be so stupid until a few days ago. I work at a slightly more upscale fast food chain (as upscale as fast food gets) and overall it’s not bad. But this little gem took place and so I had to share.
Me: ‘Welcome to [food place], what can I get you?’
Cheese Lady: ‘I need a double cheeseburger with no cheese.’
Me: ‘Oh, a double hamburger?’
CL: ‘NO. A double cheese burger, no cheese.’
At this point, I thought I’d misunderstood her.
Me: ‘Would you like a different kind of cheese than the one listed? We have Swiss, cheddar-‘
CL: ‘NO. JUST GIVE ME THE DOUBLE CHEESE.’
So, I charged her for a double cheese (which is more than a double hamburger) and just told the kitchen not to put cheese on it. They were confused, but go with it.
Ten minutes later, I was cleaning the back counters and heard arguing. I came up, and you guessed it, it’s her. I kindly excused my poor coworker who was newer than I was and asked what the trouble was.
CL: ‘This cheeseburger has cheese and I told you not to put any on it!’ She said this as she shoved the burger practically in my face.
I looked at the burger and there was no cheese
Me: ‘Ma’am, I’m sorry, but I don’t see the cheese you’re referring to.’
CL: ‘It’s that stupid cheese paste! You put it on there!’ She gestured to the bun. ‘Can’t you see the yellow paste?!’
Me: ‘Ma’am, that’s mustard.’
CL glared at me for a moment and then went to sit back down. I don’t know if she was embarrassed or what, but it was mess.”
She Was Furious About The Whip Cream, But The Manager Got The Last Laugh
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“I work at a combo Dunkin Donuts/Baskin Robbins. I was working the afternoon shift. At my particular DD/BR (not sure if it’s the same for every store), every employee wears a headset in the afternoon and evening shifts so we can all work together to get drive thru orders done quicker. I had a lady come in through the drive thru and order her two kids a scoop of ice cream each. We were having connection problems that day, so we all heard something along the lines of, ‘I’ll have two kids scoops of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, with (static) whipped cream.’ We scooped her ice cream, put some whipped cream on it, and got it out to the lady. She paid, took the ice cream (which were not in a bag and had clear lids on them), and drove away. Fast forward three hours later, we got a phone call. According to my manager, the conversation went something like this:
Manager: ‘Hi, thank you for calling Dunkin and Baskin, [name] speaking, how may I help you?’
Lady: ‘I came through your drive thru earlier and got my kids ice cream, but you put whipped cream on it when I asked you not to.’
Manager: ‘I’m so sorry about that, I can give you store credit as reimbursement?’
Lady: ‘No, I’m not going to your store ever again! My kids are lactose intolerant and they’re both sick now because of this!’
Manager: ‘Ma’am, are you aware that our ice cream is not dairy-free?'”
Canes Count As A Deadly Weapon
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“I was working an evening shift at a small mall location of a popular fast food chain that also happens to sell a lot of coffee.
I was turned around, making a cup of coffee for an elderly lady. She saw that I was getting near the bottom of the pot I was pouring and apparently wanted to get my attention. How did she do it? By whacking me very hard on the elbow with the end of her umbrella.
This in a tiny location. I can easily hear somebody say ‘excuse me’ if they wanted my attention when I’m turned around. There were also other staff on the floor turned towards her who could have gotten my attention for her. There was literally no need whatsoever to hit me.
I was pretty shocked and confused at the fact a customer just hit me, and also dealing with that briefly intense pain of being hit in the elbow, but I turned around to address her.
She then went on her spiel about how the bottom of the pot is too strong and I, not wanting to deal with her, just shook the pot to show her there was still quite a bit left, so it wasn’t the bottom of the pot. I turned back around to finish her coffee and handed it to her.
After she left, other customers were staring at me with this WTF look on their face and we all just laughed.
I went to work the next day to see a customer filled out one of our surveys with, ‘Lmao, an old lady hit the girl behind the counter with an umbrella.’
My elbow is bruised now.”
This Oregon Man Found His Transaction To Be Quite Taxing
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“I work as the front cashier, I’m good at my job and I (shockingly) love people. The best part though is that this particular location has an incentive program. Every good review with your name on it is a 10 dollar bonus so in a good week I’m pulling in another 200+ dollars alongside my paycheck, so I have every reason to go the extra mile for a customer, within reason, of course. Yet one thing that happens with infuriating regularity is people who are from Oregon don’t understand that sales tax is a thing in California. Some even say, ‘Oh I have my Oregon ID, do I still need to pay the tax,’ but most understand after I tell them it’s not possible. But then, then there was one crotchety, old man [OM from here on].
I don’t know what crawled up OM’s BUTT and died, but he was in a foul mood.
Me: ‘Hi! How are you!?’
OM: ‘Lemme get a large Buttery McWhopper combo with extra onions.’
Me:[Internally] ‘Alright I’ll just ask him again when I get a chance.’ [To OM] ‘Anything else?’
OM: ‘No. Actually, give me a chocolate shake.’
Me: ‘Okay! Your total is $XX.XX and how are you today?’
OM: ‘Quit asking.’ Okay, so he is just a massive jerk.
And then he pulled out his ID and showed it to me.
OM: ‘Take that tax off, I’m from Oregon.’
Me: ‘Sir, I can’t do that.’
OM: ‘What do you mean!?’
Me: ‘I can’t take off tax because you’re from Oregon.’
OM: ‘I WILL NOT PAY THE TAX. I’M FROM OREGON.’
At this point my manager, let’s call him Dave, came over to investigate the commotion. Cue the old man yelling and hollering at Dave for what seemed hours until Dave got sick of the bull told him to get out. OM lost his mind here and decided to pull his veteran status out.
OM: ‘You can’t do this to me! I served in Vietnam! I risked my life for you ungrateful people!’
Dave: ‘You served in Vietnam and I got hit by an IED in Iraq, so frankly, I think we’re even. Get out or I will be forced to call the police.’
OM stormed out and we got a call from the owner about a complaint from a ‘distraught old man.’ Dave, me and two other employees had to smooth that out with her, but she’s understanding, so we didn’t have to worry.”
Cash Only SHOULD Be Pretty Self-Explanatory
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“Between the lunch rush and the dinner rush at my McDonald’s, our power went out for about ten seconds. After the power goes out, it takes about 8-10 minutes for our register system to come back online so that we can take orders.
In this time, a lot of angry customers left and went elsewhere while others stayed and waited. We began taking orders again, but since our Cashless system was still offline, we were cash only. Now, I know this may be a hard concept for some people to understand, but ‘cash only’ means we only accept cash at the current time. I know, really tough, right? During the time of being cash only, a customer came up and started ordering. Our crew member on the register politely informed him that we were cash only and he said yeah, that’s fine, and continued to order. By the end of the order, the customer went to swipe his debit card. The crew member reminded him that we were on cash only. ‘What’s that mean?’ The crew member explained we had a power outage and could now only accept cash. ‘So I can’t use my card?!’ He was told no, so then he stormed off.
A few minutes later, he returned from a nearby gas station and showed me his ATM slip. I was confused and asked why he was doing this. ‘$3.57. That’s how much you owe me back!’
‘I’m sorry?’ I asked.
‘You didn’t accept my card, so I had to get money. You owe me my ATM fee as compensation.’ I explained to him that while I recognized the inconvenience, I couldn’t supply compensation because he chose to get money out of the ATM. He told me to supply him with the corporate number, (I did), get a manager, (I am the manager, he did not like that) and then proceeded to tell me to screw myself before taking his seat and eating his food in spite.”
He Was Hitting On Her Even Though He Was Twice Her Age
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“This was a couple years ago.
I was seventeen, working the closing shift at Carl’s Jr. It was Sunday, around 7 pm probably, and pretty slow. One of the cooks was in the back washing dishes, while the other one was prepping the food. The assistant manager (Jose) was in the office, working on whatever he was working on, but also out of sight. He was the only male working that night, but as far as customers could see, it was just me and the cook. The dining room was empty, and I was working on cleaning. Jose and I both had drive thru headsets on, over which we could easily communicate with each other as necessary.
Enter customer. Male, appeared to be in his mid-late thirties. He walked in, I greeted him, he responded with something along the lines of, ‘Hey beautiful.’ I ignored it, figured he was just being friendly. After that, he ordered fairly normally, then instead of finding a seat and hanging out until I brought his food over, he lingered near the counter. He put his arm over one of the display cases, leaning against it, waiting while I was restocking. After a moment, I approached him and let him know that I’d bring his food over and he didn’t need to wait.
‘Oh, it’s fine, I don’t mind standing. Is it just you two ladies working tonight?’
At this point, the yellow alert in my head went red. I shook my head and said there were two more people in the back. He nodded, I handed him his food, he wandered over to a booth in the back. I stepped behind a wall and got Jose’s attention over the headset.
‘Hey, there’s a customer here who’s making me somewhat uncomfortable. Just a heads up.’ Described what happened, then went back to working on closing.
At some point, I went out to clean off the tables. I got about halfway across the room before the customer grabbed my attention.
‘Hey, Noelle.’
Jolted me a little bit. Sure, I have a nametag, but very few people pay attention to it. I glanced up in acknowledgment.
‘I was wondering, you seem like you could use a man to come move in with you, take care of you, and pay your bills.’
I froze in my tracks and immediately activated my headset so Jose could hear my response and hopefully figure out what was going on. ‘Um, I’m seventeen and still live with my mommy and daddy. I don’t think I need you to move in with me.’ I never call them my mommy and daddy, but I figured it would help him understand that he was like twice my age.
Jose heard that and immediately responded: ‘Office, now.’
I turned, quickly walked towards the back. Jose passed me on my way and told me to stay back there until the customer left because he didn’t want to creep to see me anymore.
Creepiest customer I’ve ever had, hands down.”
His Refund Was Dead On Arrival
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“For some background, I’m verified to manage graveyard shifts, but I’m not ‘officially’ a manager so my power is limited.
It’s a typical night, and I’m on my break. It’s normal for me to leave my single staff member up front by herself and to have her come get me if needed. She came back to get me to do a refund. Now, typically this wouldn’t be an issue, but this ‘gentleman’ wanted to refund a very large order with no receipt. This is where everything begins to go downhill.
Angry man: ‘My mother bought all of this earlier today, and it all came wrong. I called head office and they said to bring it back and you’d replace it.’ I’m already slightly suspicious, seeing as it’s highly unlikely his three bags of food were all incorrect, and he chose to call head office rather than us, but I proceed.
Me: ‘I’m so sorry about that! May I please see your receipt?’
AM: ‘I don’t have one. Head office said you’d refund me! I have all of my food here!’
Me: ‘I’m sorry, sir, but I unfortunately don’t have the authority to do that. If you-‘
AM: ‘THEN YOU NEED TO GO GET THE MANAGER.’
Me: ‘I am the acting manager for the evening, I’m just not yet verif-‘
AM: ‘THEN CALL SOMEONE. CALL SOMEONE TO VERIFY IT. THIS IS RIDICULOUS. HEAD OFFICE SAID I’D GET A REFUND.’
Now, I don’t do well when people repeatedly interrupt and berate me when I’m trying to be helpful. I would have loved to have given his refund and had him leave, but couldn’t risk losing my job.
Me, now losing my customer service cheer: ‘I apologize for the inconvenience. You can come back tomorrow when a senior manager is here, or I can take down your name and address and we can mail you your refund.’
AM: ‘NO. I’M NOT LEAVING WITHOUT MY REFUND. I’LL STAY HERE UNTIL YOU GIVE IT TO ME.’ He’s blocking my only drive thru window with an open till.
Me: ‘That’s fine, you can spend the night there. Have a good one!’ And I shut the window.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end. He proceeded to sit there while I waved the car behind him around to my next window and gave them their food for free, seeing as the guy wouldn’t leave. While I’m doing this, my poor employee went back to speak to him. I’m not sure exactly what was said, but it resulted in him pulling to the parking lot to wait while she called our senior managers until one picked up. Lo and behold, the manager said exactly what I did. I follow my employee out to the parking lot to make sure she was safe while they spoke.
Employee: ‘Thank you for your patience tonight. I’m sorry, sir, I just got off the phone with our manager and she said you can come back tomorrow for a refund if you’d like.’
AM: ‘WHAT DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND. I WANT MY MONEY NOW. THIS IS A WASTE OF MY TIME.’
Me: ‘Sir, we’ve explained to you multiple times why it can’t be done. Either you can leave now, or I can call the police and get them to remove you.’ He wasn’t listening to me at this point. He was talking over me to my employee as he apparently didn’t want to deal with me anymore.
E: ‘I’m sorry, there’s nothing more we can do.’ I told my employee to head inside as the guy was getting obviously irate and starting to bounce around in his seat, and started to head towards the restaurant myself.
AM, yelling after me: ‘I’LL HAVE YOUR JOB. I’M GOING TO GET YOU FIRED. YOU DON’T KNOW WHO I AM AND WHAT I CAN DO.’
Me, laughing and completely fed up at this point: ‘HA, YEAH, GOOD LUCK WITH THAT, BUDDY.’
AM: ‘I’LL FIND OUT WHERE YOU LIVE, YOU LITTLE TWIT!’
I shut the door on him and immediately headed back to grab the phone to call the cops. I got on the line with them right as he was ripping out of our parking lot.
I don’t get paid enough for this crap.”
Even Through The Rudeness, They Still Had Excellent Customer Service
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“I’ve only recently started my fast food journey, about two months in at the moment. And having now worked both in the kitchen and in the front, I’ve found one of the things that both the kitchen and the front dislike evenly: a customer asking us to make something fresh, then complaining about how long it takes.
A bit of background first. The location I work at is in a big rest stop, so we get lots of people from out of state/overseas on busses. The time in between busses is usually enough to eat, but some only have 5-10 minutes at most between them. And because we get 2-3 busses at a time, all with at least 30 people per bus, it can get hectic, especially since our restaurant gets the majority of them since it’s the most popular.
This specific story happened on a Saturday night when we got four busses and only 5ish minutes until the next ones came. We were slammed. I was on register and near the end of one order, I had this interaction.
Man: ‘And make sure they make that chicken fresh.’
Me: ‘Sir, that will take longer than normal, about 7-10 minutes at best, is that okay?’
Man: ‘My bus leaves in five minutes, so make it faster.’
Me: ‘Sir, that’s not possible. We can’t cook the chicken faster without it being undercooked.’
Man: ‘I said, make it faster.’
So I finished entering his order in, he paid and then started the longest ten minutes of my life. He would constantly stare at me, getting angrier as time went on as if I had any control over how long it took.
Eventually, I moved to helping out on expo to get orders out to customers. And when I yelled out an order number that came after his order, he got even more upset.
Man: ‘I ordered before her, why haven’t I gotten my food yet!? What happened to my order!? What happened to number 23!?’
Me: ‘All she ordered was fries sir, and you asked for your sandwich to be made fresh, that takes longer.’
Man: ‘So what does that mean to me!?’
Me: ‘That means you’ll have to wait a little longer than normal, sir.’
Eventually, he did get his food, but not after making one more little scene in front of everyone.
Me: ‘Here’s your order, sir.’
Man: ‘Where’s my ketchup?! I want ketchup, you’re supposed to give me ketchup! Or is that gonna take longer than normal too?’
Me: ‘Ketchup is going to be on the island behind you with the soda machines.’
Man: ‘Whatever.'”
The Pickles Were Not To Her Liking
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“I had someone talk my ear off on the phone to complain about the size of her pickles.
‘Ma’am, that particular sandwich ingredient mix calls for two pickles, as you described getting. However, as produce is grown, it’s possible not all picked vegetables are created equally, as some may differ in shape or even size, I’m unsure what else I can even say…’
She then yelled for the next several minutes over pickle sizes, and how it’s not fair the condiment on her 4/$4 item would be so small. She proceeded to inform me she’s going to call HR to file a formal complaint and ‘have my job for giving her small pickles.’ Never mind the fact this happened hours before I even arrived for my shift that evening, but I’m apparently supposed to quality control other shifts when I’m not even in the store; I’ve got no words.”
Well, She Technically WAS In A Motor Vehicle
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“It was early on in the day and pretty slow. I was on drive thru and had on my headset, which hadn’t beeped to indicate a guest was at the box.
I heard a ‘tap tap tap’ at the window. I looked over and saw a lady in a motorized wheelchair. I opened the window and this is our conversation.
Me: ‘Um, yes? How can I help you?’
Wheelchair Lady: ‘I’d like to order some food.’
M: ‘Well, I’m sorry, but you have to come inside. It’s fully wheelchair accessible and we’d be happy to serve you inside.’
WL: ‘No, I don’t want to. I want 10 wings, ALL FLATS, and cole slaw.’
Now, we’re not supposed to do all flats. We can make sure you get mostly flats, but company policy is not all. I told her this.
WL: ‘I know, but you’re giving me 10 wings, all flats, and cole slaw.’
My manager said just get her to leave, so the cooks made her order while I took other drive thru orders, asking them to be cautious driving around.
I handed WL her order in a paper bag because for smaller boxes, we are supposed to give out paper.
WL: ‘No no no. PLASTIC. I need a plastic bag, not this.’
I re-bagged her order and handed it to her.
M: ‘Have a wonderful day.’
And nothing, no response, no ‘Thank you,’ no ‘You too,’ after all of her nonsense.”
He Asked If They Wanted Sauce, So They Gave Him Sass
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“I work register at McDonald’s. Due to school, I usually work on Friday evenings and weekends.
One of those Fridays a woman and her kids walked in. They were all wearing nice dresses or suits. It looked like they were going to a wedding. The woman was speaking in hushed, frantic tones to her kids as they walk in.
They approached my counter, and I asked the woman what she’d like. She ordered a soda. I asked her daughter what she wanted, and the woman threw her arm in front of her daughter and told me not to speak to her children. The woman ordered for her kids, and her son wanted a 20-piece McNugget. This comes with sauce. I asked if they wanted sauce, but the mom cut me off. She kept talking.
At the end of their order, I asked if they wanted sauce again. The mom glared at me and went, ‘Do we look like we need sauce?’ I sort of shrugged, and she said, ‘We are riding in a LIMO. You wouldn’t understand. We don’t want sauce.’ So I rang them up with no sauce.”
Some Things Should Really Be Left In The Bedroom
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“This was about three months after I started working at Wendy’s. I was managing the sandwich station (making all the burgers and wraps and such) when this couple came in. The guy was about average height, rather scrawny, and was fidgety, while the lady was rather large, to put it nicely, and wearing tight fitting, revealing clothing. They ordered four of the smaller burgers, which wasn’t too out of the ordinary until the lady leaned across the counter and said in a low, breathy voice, ‘I’m going to eat all of these burgers and get really fat.’
I paused mid burger and looked over at them. I swear the man looked like he was super aroused. My boss, who was managing the cash register, giggled a little bit and gave her the price. After we gave them their burgers, she said it again, pressing her giant boobs into the counter. ‘I’m going to eat allll of these burgers and get really fat.’
Okay…Go to your table already! When they finally head over to their table, my boss turned to me. She looked like she was about to burst out laughing. ‘Did you hear that?!’
‘Yes, I did. I’m trying to erase the memory.’
‘I’m going to go ask if they need anything else!’
‘BOSS, NO!!’
‘BOSS, YES!!!’
So my boss, who was by no means a small lady herself, walked over to their table with the ‘customer service’ smile. The man looked like he wanted to jump over the small table and take his lady friend right there or be the mayonnaise she was licking off her sausage fingers that squished out of the burgers. If only that dang table wasn’t stopping him. His hands were gripping the offending table tightly, causing his knuckles to go white. The lady all the while making bedroom eyes at him as she slowly devoured the burgers. I saw all this while behind the safety of three tables, a counter, and a bun toaster. I don’t know how my boss kept a straight face. When she got back, she told us the details.
The lady gave my boss her number so she could join them one day while mayonnaise dribbled down her chin(s). After that, the couple rushed out and we never saw them again. And yes, she did eat all the burgers.”
