Fast food workers never get enough credit. They deal with a lot of terrible things, including terrible customers, and are still expected to get food out in a quick period of time. These horrible customers expect a 5-star meal made in under five minutes. Something that is nearly impossible.
In this piece, fast food employee redditors share the most shameful customer meltdowns they have ever seen. Keep in mind content was edited for clarity.
Gotta Have That Sauce
“I’ve been pretty much a drive thru worker for about 13 years now. Right now I’m the night manager at Taco Bell/Long John Silver’s. Situated in the nook of a rather ridiculous 3-way intersection, I am blessed with pretty low volume work. I spent most of Black Friday night thanking the retail/customer service gods for making our drive thru completely utterly dead. There’s a Walmart less than quarter mile away and the streets are packed… And I have one customer. My heart goes out to all the retail employees getting spat on for their ten dollar TV coupons! So, it’s 20 minutes to closing time, I’ve had maybe 5 orders in the last hour…. and I knew I wouldn’t get away with no problems today… 10 minutes to close this guy in the drive thru wants 50 of EACH hot sauce with his 2 bean burritos.
I said, ‘No, our policy is one per two items ordered but I’ll give you this (giant handful of packets, probaby 20).’
He goes, ‘C’mon baby, you can do better than that.’
I just growl and walk away to get his burritos. I ask one of my two crew members to hand them to him because I’m going to yell at him when he asks for even more sauce.
She returns a moment later saying, ‘You gotta come talk to these guys…’
So as I return I’m psyching myself up for an argument. Just as I reach for the window latch, the guy gets out of his truck and punches the window, twice, hard! I recoil and suddenly realize no way am I opening the window now!
I scream, ‘Did you just punch my window?! I’m calling the police!’
He levels a finger at me with a death stare. I grin and stick my finger on the window like I’m E.T. and start giggling. His face squeezes up with rage, and he takes off….I think I freaked my crew out… One girl was all, ‘I never seen you get mad like that…’And I thought about it and regained my composure and said to her, ‘If that’s the worst thing that happened to us on Black Friday I’m pretty good with that.’
She agreed.”
Karen And Her Snotty Nose Brat
“I was recently at a local McDonald’s behind a woman and her child. The child had a face full of snot so you can imagine how well this encounter was going to be. After ‘Karen’ asked her snotty child what he wanted, she placed her order. The young slave behind the register was being the normal happy-go-lucky servant you’d expect. After placing the order, Karen goes to pay. But wait, the brat has changed his mind. My mom would have told me to shut up and it was too late. Karen however has the worker change the order….4 different times. After the money was paid, the child ran off to play in the playground, surely sharing his snot with the other kids while mom waits on the food. She gets it, and that’s when things hit the fan. Apparently between the 5 different orders is Karen really doesn’t remember what she ordered…only that what she got was wrong.
Karen begins cussing out this poor worker. I can tell that this is a relatively new worker as she doesn’t know how to respond to this verbal assault. Now, I was here with my girlfriend, so I was not in the mood to step in. All this, of course, until Karen grabs a tray and throws it across the lobby. At this point I still really don’t know what she is so angry about as McDonald’s manager is trying to fix her problem. However, her vocabulary seemed to be limited to ‘dumb witch’ and ‘stupid hag.’
Well I’ve had enough. I started feeling bad for the worker and even the manager who was cowering away. I step in between Karen and the counter.
Now, per our policy. I must carry my badge and weapon everywhere I go, even when off duty. She hasn’t seen this yet.
Me: ‘You need to stop.’
Karen: ‘You need to effing move out of my way before I bust you in the face.’
(Seriously…still haven’t figured out why she’s so mad)
Me: ‘I got a better idea. How about you get your crusty behind out of this store before I put you out myself.’
(At this point I roll my shirt over my belt so she could see the badge and weapon)
Karen: ‘This dumb broad can’t get an order right and won’t give me what I want but you’re throwing me out?’
Me: ‘Yep.’
I could have probably had a better come back but, hey, it worked. She attempted to grab the bag of food sitting on the counter. I snatch it away from her.
Me: ‘Nope, you’re going to leave that here since apparently it wasn’t right.’
Karen: ‘I already paid for that!’
Me: ‘No, you apparently paid for something else that they couldn’t get right. Now consider that a donation to McDonalds Fund for the trouble you’ve caused here.’
Karen: ‘Aw nah, I’m not leaving here without my money or my food!’
Manager: ‘Ma’am, here’s your money.’
I block her from getting it.
Me: ‘Listen here, either you go get your kid from that playground and get your smelly butt out of this restaurant or I promise you the fines I will have you paying will make it to where you can’t afford the dollar menu here. On top of that, this poor girl you’ve been yelling at won’t have to worry about cleaning the floor for awhile because I’m about ready to put you on the ground.’
I was close enough to her face now that I realized that when I called her smelly it apparently wasn’t just an insult. Karen gathers her brat, and they drive away in their beetle car. The manager thanks me and the poor employee who’s visibly shaking at this point, gives me my meal for free.”
Hitler Reincarnated
“I work as a barista at a drive thru coffee chain. Now, one of our biggest issues is the fact that people purchase WAY too much stuff in drive-thru. If you’re getting more than five items (and by this I don’t mean five donuts or five bagels but rather, five separate units), go inside.
So it’s around 11AM on Saturday morning and my best friend and I are working sandwiches. We’re incredibly busy and can’t believe how hungry people are that morning. We have huge orders from the front as well as drive-thru orders that need to be made quickly.
A lady comes to the drive-thru and orders a plethora of drinks and 13, count them, 13 sandwiches. This is ridiculous. Even if it came from the front, I’d be aggravated but drive-thru? You’re holding up the line, hag. My co-worker kindly informs her to wait inside while we make the sandwiches as to not hold up the line. She complains for about a minute or two until she concedes.
She comes inside and stands right where we’re making sandwiches and starts complaining about how she has to wait inside. I don’t want to hear her. My best friend is annoyed, too.
Me: ‘It’s not fair to the other customers that you take up their time because they can’t order if your car is in the way.’
Her: ‘It was your co-worker that told me to wait in line again.’
Me: ‘He didn’t because: a) I heard him and b) that would be stupid and pointless.’
(Let me just point out that waiting on line or standing right near us is not going to decrease the amount of time it takes for us to make her order.)
She calms down for a bit and then starts saying, ‘I’m a good person! I’m a good person! I don’t deserve this treatment!’
Me: ‘I’m sure you’re a good person and that we’re treating you fine. It’s not our fault that you ordered 13 sandwiches on a Saturday morning at 11AM.
She keeps repeating that she’s a good person. My best friend got testy and told her to knock it off. She didn’t. She kept going on and on and on.
Finally, I lost my patience, put her bagel down and said, ‘Ma’am, you could be Hitler reincarnated and I wouldn’t care. You’re a paying customer and you’ll get your food as soon as you be quiet and let us do our job.’
She shut up after that.”
But My Troubles
“Busy Friday night, a guy comes up to the counter and asks for me (Manager).
I go over to him and ask him what’s up, and apparently we made 4 food items wrong the last time he was here. Without a receipt, without proof, I just quickly go off and remake his stuff because it’s a Friday night and it’s super busy and I can’t be arguing with a customer for 10 minutes right now. Besides, the stock only costs us less than a dollar anyways.
So I made his food, and went back to give it to him but he wasn’t at the counter. I had no time for this, so I put it in a warmer drawer and began other orders. I eventually spot him in the crowd 5 minutes later, and give him his remade food. As he takes it, he has the audacity to ask, ‘Do I get anything for my trouble?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘No, because you have 0 proof that the order was made wrong the first time, 0 proof that you’ve even been here before, and I remade your stuff for free.’
He looks angry, like he’s about to yell, but leaves. Later in the night, he calls the store’s phone to put in a complaint about me. Obviously he forgot my name, because he goes on and on about how bad the service was, making up lie after lie about how his chips (which weren’t part of his replacement) were cold, how everything was made wrong, how he was overcharged. Imagine his shock when I said that I was the one who served him.”
Overcharge Of Sauce
“Guy came in, and ordered a couple of spicy sandwiches. Which, for the Land of the Kings, are normal chicken sandwiches with spicy sauce on them, instead of the patties themselves being spicy.
Co-worker: ‘Here are your spicy chickens.’
Guy: ‘Can I have the sauce with them?’
Co-worker: ‘The…sauce? There’s already spicy sauce on it.’
Guy: ‘No! The sauce! Ranch! I want ranch sauce!’
Co-worker: ‘Oh, Ranch! It will be $.11.’
We’re one of those stores that charge for sauces and have a sign up saying so. The guy proceeds to flip out, claiming that he wanted sauce for his sandwich, and he shouldn’t be charged for it. Eventually my manager came into the story and tried explaining to him our policy. At that point he flips out more, claiming we don’t have a sauce policy and that it’s not written down anywhere. My manager walked a foot to her left where the sign was and pointed it out to him. He flips out more and says this little gem: ‘You don’t even work here!’
At this point, she looked down at her shirt that has a decent sized logo on it, walks to the phone and tells the guy to get out, or she is calling the police. This guy apparently was raving mad over a sauce and causing a pretty hefty scene for a decent amount of time. He hightailed it out as soon as she said she was calling the police.
I love this manager, as she’s one of the managers who doesn’t cave in for most customers who pull that ‘if I get angry enough, I will get my way’ bit.
And yes, I realize this was all over $.11 but hey, not my call.
But yeah, to this day we laugh about it and go up to her and say, ‘Don’t you know, despite wearing your uniform, clocking in, and ordering us around, you don’t work here?'”
Free Food For All
“Anyways, this lady pulls up to the drive through and orders a little under $20 worth of food. She pays with a gift card. My coworker swipes the gift card and informs her, ‘Your balance is now at $0, you still have 40 cents left on your bill. How would you like to pay?’
The lady (apparently) looks taken aback. Like my coworker had just slapped her or spit on her shoe or something. ‘You seriously expect me to pay that?’
My coworker is like… ‘Uh…yes?’
I don’t recall exactly what the woman said in response to this, but it was something to the tune of, ‘I can’t believe I just spent x dollars here and you’re going try to squeeze more money out of me. NEVER in my LIFE …’ etc. etc.
Anyway, she ended up driving away. At our store, we don’t give customers their stuff until they’ve paid.
So basically, she paid almost $20, got mad about 40 cents, and then drove away without her food, after she had already paid.
We got to eat the food.”
Well If Facebook Says It
“I work in a sandwich shop with franchises all over the world. Today (Valentine’s Day), there was a special deal for a free sandwich or something. I’m not sure, because that deal is going on somewhere overseas. HOWEVER, Facebook has apparently been advertising this deal everywhere, because we’ve been fielding calls about it all day. Most people have been pretty cool about it. They’ll say something like, ‘Oh! Ha ha, that’s funny. Thanks anyways!’ and everything is groovy. One lady (or two ladies) got angry about it.
So the phone rings, and I answer it in the standard way. The woman on the phone asks about this special deal. I say, ‘No, sorry, that deal is happening in X Country, we’re not doing it here.’
I hear the woman on the phone tell someone else what I’ve said. I hear another woman making angry noises in the background. ‘X Country, are you sure?’
Me: ‘Yes ma’am.’
Cue more angry noises. The woman on the phone comes back sounding angry. She’s starting to yell a little. ‘But Facebook said you had a special deal today!’
I say, ‘Yes, but that’s in X Country,’ and I’m starting to lose my patience a little. There are people in line and I don’t like being yelled at (does anybody?).
There are more, angrier noises on the phone, and she comes back yelling, ‘WELL, DO YOU KNOW IF ANY OF THE OTHER STORES AROUND HERE ARE DOING THE DEAL??’
Maybe if you get on a boat.
All I can think to say is, ‘No, sorry about that,’ and while she and her friend/mom/whatever are making even MORE outraged and outrageous noises at each other I tell her to have a nice day and hang up the phone.
So many people have asked us about the special deal today, and our answer has always been followed by ‘But Facebook said…!’ Nobody else was that rude about it, though. Today’s just been kind of weird.”
We Are Closed!
“This happened a few years back. I was the manager doing the closing shift that night. I was back in the office getting paperwork done, when I looked up and saw a car waiting at the second window. We had been closed at least 20 minutes now, so I went up and told her through the window that we were closed (I don’t open it after closing usually) She started to yell something at me through the window, so I said again that we were closed. She started yelling again. Figuring she didn’t hear me, I opened the window to tell her again. This was our conversation.
Customer: ‘I’ve been at this window for 5 minutes and nobody has come up to say anything, and nobody took my order at the speakers!’
Me: ‘I’m sorry, but we are closed. Nobody had headsets on, so we couldn’t take your order. You can go to our 24 hour store in…’ (we had a store about 5 minutes away in the next city over)
Customer: ‘I’m not driving that far, I want the food I ordered!’
Me: ‘We’ve been closed at least 20 minutes, the grills and fryers are being cleaned, and we can’t make food. If you want your order, you can go to the other store, I can call, have them make it and it’ll ready when you get there.’
Customer: ‘I’m not driving to another store. I got here before you guys closed, you need to give me the food I ordered!’
Me: ‘You just told me you’ve been here 5 minutes. We’ve been closed for at least 20. There is no way you got here before we closed.’
Customer: ‘I did get here before you closed! You have a sign out there that says any lane, any time. Why does it say that if I can’t come here and get food?’
Me: ‘It says that in reference to the business hours. We’re closed, nobody can take your order. We have signs on the window that say the hours, and a recorded message on the speaker stating we’re closed. I can’t do much to inform you of our hours beyond that.’
Customer: ‘Even so, your lights are on! How am I supposed to know when all the lights are on. ‘
I almost face palmed. All the lights are off, except the ones inside, and the ones on our menus. You can barely see the ground, it’s so dark. So I looked up at the dark lights around the lot, and on the roof and with a hint of sarcasm, I said ‘Huh… Seems pretty dark to me… ‘
She about lost it.
Customer: ‘The lights on your menus!’
Me: ‘Yes, we keep those on so that customers won’t hit the signs in the dark when they come through when the lights are off. I can’t help you any further, and I really need to get back to work. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you, have a nice night.’
She started saying something again, but I just shut the window and walked away. I knew I’d be in a back and forth with her until I caved and magically produced cooked food for her. I watched her in the security camera, sitting and waiting after we got done talking, for 5 minutes before finally leaving. I will admit, she is very persistent.”
Need The Salt
“I worked at a well-known red/yellow burger chain when I was 18. I hated it, but needed the money, so I just sucked it up. I put up with a lot of stuff, but this is the only time I ‘fought back’ and got away with it.
It was during the lunch rush, and I was stationed at the drive through pickup window. Now, during a rush you do not leave your station for anything, full stop. Everyone I dealt with so far was either nice or indifferent, which is also fine to deal with.
Well, a gold sedan pulls up, and the driver is a nice enough lady, maybe in her thirties. Her passenger is a woman who’s on the rougher end of fifty. I go to hand over their bag, and the passenger asks, bluntly and without turning to look at me, if there was any salt in it. I check, there isn’t, then check my station for salt packets. I don’t have any, and say so. Again, without looking at me, she snaps, ‘Well you’d better go get me some!’
I’m a sarcastic little prick to begin with, and I’d been holding back my sarcasm for weeks at that dumb job. I finally cracked.
I broke the rules and left my station. I dashed over to the register area, grabbed two bulging handfuls of salt from under the counter, stuffed em into the bag and handed it over with my sweetest smile. I then said, ‘Here you go ma’am, this should be plenty!’
She came inside not even two minutes later, furious at me. Thankfully, by the grace of Batman’s butt cheek, the manager she complained to was one of the few that liked me. The manager laughed her out of the store by saying, ‘I don’t see what the problem is, you asked for salt, and she gave it to you.’
The lady stormed off, and once she was out of earshot, my manager told me that that was hilarious but not to do it again. I’ve got plenty of food stories but that’s one of my favorites.”
A Simple Form Is All
“I work at a small locally owned deli. Today, this old guy comes in and wanted to order a sandwich. I am Me, he is Him. I tell the dude to fill out the order form and I’ll make his sandwich for him.
Him: ‘I JUST WANT A #5!’
Me: ‘The order form is right here, sir’
Him: ‘I JUST WANT A #5!’
Me: ‘You still gotta fill out the form, sir’
Him: ‘I JUST WANT A #5!’
Me: ‘…Okay, one #6 coming right up.’
Him: ‘NO! FIVE!!!’
Me: ‘Four? Sure thing, sir!’
Him: ‘NOOOOOOO!!! FIIIIIIVE!!!!’
At this point people are staring because he’s like screaming at the top of his lungs. The shift manager makes a face at me asking if she should come over. I gesture no. The only reason I can keep a straight face is because he’s being so rude.
Enter his ancient wife.
Her: ‘Why are you shouting at this girl?’
Him: ‘I JUST WANT HER TO MAKE ME A SANDWICH!’
Me: ‘The form for sandwiches is right there, sir.’
His wife fills out the form. I make the sandwich. He scowls at me. I smile at him. He leaves. I ruined that guy’s day and I’m proud of it.”
I Want THAT!
“So I recently got a job at a well known fast food chicken place. I can leave it up to you to decide which one. I was working the lobby cash register the other night and we were experiencing a rush. You can see where this is going, right? So, of course, at the beginning of the line is a man who seems to speak no language whatsoever (no, he was not deaf, he just didn’t seem to have a comprehending of any language we tried speaking to him).
He kept pointing at the menu, saying he wanted ‘that.’
Me: ‘Which one?’
Him: ‘That.’ Points
Me: ‘Where?’
Him: ‘One on the bottom.’ Points again for emphasis
Me: ‘The 4-piece individual meal?’
Him: ‘Yessss!’
Me: ‘Original, extra crispy…?’
Him: ‘No no no, I just want chicken.’
Me: hits original just to save time ‘What else can I get for you tonight?’
Him: ‘I want that one, too.’ Points above my head
Me: ‘You want the football box? Which one? We have 5 different kinds.’
Him:’ No no no, I just want that one.’
Me: ‘Yes, but which one are you pointing to?’
Him: ‘At the top!!’
Me: ‘Okay, do you want that in original, extra crispy or grilled?’
Him: ‘No no no, I just want chicken! Like in picture!!’
Me: looking up, I notice the picture is grilled, so I put that in my computer. as I review his order… ‘So I have a 4-piece original with mashed potatoes and coleslaw and a football box with mashed potatoes and coleslaw?’
Him: ‘I never order a 4-piece! I just want that! THAT!’ points violently
Me: ‘The PICTURE? You want what’s in the PICTURE?’ he nods ‘The family meal or the individual meal?’
Him: ‘ONE AT BOTTOM. I want exactly like picture!’
Me: ‘Okay, so that’s a TWO PIECE ORIGINAL with mashed potatoes and coleslaw-‘
Him: ‘But I want the SALAD in the PICTURE!’
Me: ‘That’s coleslaw sir.’
Him: ‘Fine, give that.’
Me: ‘TWO PIECE ORIGINAL with mashed potatoes and COLESLAW and a football box with TWO PIECES GRILLED chicken with potato wedges and COLESLAW. Anything else for you tonight?’
Him: ‘I got the one in picture? I only want one in picture!’ points again ‘What is the two piece?’
Me: resisting the urge to walk into the fryer and put my head in it ‘Yes sir, you got the one in the picture. The one in the picture is the TWO PIECE. Anything else for you tonight?’
Him: ‘No, that all.’ pauses ‘I got one in picture?’
I’ve only been working this job for about 3 weeks and this was the first truly frustrating customer I’ve had to date. We spoke to him in a couple of languages and he seemed to understand none of them! I’m sure I will have more tales from the fryer in time!”