Working in the food industry is challenging and full of experiences, especially when you are interacting with different people and encountering several circumstances during your shift.
Knowing that the job itself is never easy, there are just people who choose to make things harder for an employee. There could be power tripping, disrespect, berating, etc. But salute those employees who endured or decided to snap back on those people.
1. Wrong Temperature
I worked at a well-known coffee shop, and a woman ordered her coffee at 140 degrees in the drive-thru. She walks back into the cafe after pulling out and complains that her coffee was 139 degrees.
It was because she had a thermometer in her car and demanded it 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 into any trouble. She was ridiculous, but our policy is to remake anything if a customer asks for it.
Another time, there was a long wait during rush hour in the morning, and I apologized to a guy for taking a long time to get his white mocha to him.
He glared at me and yelled, “You don’t really mean you’re sorry!” and refused to be cordial. He continued to look at me with disdain for the next few minutes.
It made me super sad at the time. I really was sorry! I learned not to be affected by crappy people so much as I got older.
blatently_blunt
2. Overtime Saga
I worked at a smoothie place, and an event was happening in the building next door. The event planner asked my boss if we could make 200 smoothies at 4 pm.
We were supposed to close at 3. My boss was like, "Sure we can!!"
He even agreed without asking any of us if we minded staying late.
So we had to make 200 freaking smoothies with only two blenders while dealing with regular customers on top of staying late. I wanted to murder everyone.
Sweetpotatojones
3. Lost It All
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.
He'd been getting progressively more agitated all night (not with me, luckily). Suddenly, a waitress came back and complained that one of her tables was complaining because the food was cold.
First, the manager responded by telling her that if she'd come to 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 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.
Lindvaettr
4. Expired Coupons
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 "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 running the drive-thru, did not go anywhere in life.
inosilic
5. Better Luck Next Time
This happened back when I was working as a cashier at a Korean store. I'm also Korean, and I know from experience there are few people more self-entitled than some middle-aged ladies.
A customer comes in with coupons that expired a few days prior, and when I tell her I can't accept them, she says, "You know, I hate when you damn cashiers try to rob me of a good deal.
I know where you're going in life, not very far."
She tried to get me fired, but my manager wasn't having that crap, thankfully. I was clearly not in the wrong there. I just did my job.
aZestyMango
6. Picky Customer
I had a guy get mad that we didn't offer the drink he wanted. He had ordered his meal, and I pointed at the sign when he asked what drinks we had.
He paid for his meal, went to fill his cup, and came back. He pushed people out of his way and started to complain. I told him I could return his money and have any drink we offer, but that wasn't good enough.
He still wanted THAT drink. So I just started to take orders from people in line. I was giving out free soda to everyone because I had to deal with this guy wasting their time. I did this until the guy walked away, pissed off.
techmonkey920
7. Metal Food
I was a waitress at a pizza place, and an older man and woman flagged me over. They just started yelling at me, and they went on and on that, 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 gets quiet and says, "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.
semichaels
8. Failed Set Up
I worked at a pretty high-end restaurant as a waiter, and so often, you'd get people complaining about finding things in their food.
But only once they ate most of it. "Oh, I was eating my steak when I found a piece of metal in it! Oh, I found a lens!" And then you'd start asking them questions and go deeper into what happened. They never want a replacement meal, only a refund.
The best story I have from that place was about someone who ordered soup, ate the majority of it, discovered a lens in the soup, and demanded a refund.
When I went to take the soup, I grabbed the lens before the guy quickly grabbed it. I asked for him to hand it over so we could check with the chefs.
He panicked and said it might have been his, and it happened to fall out without him realizing it until he scooped it up. He still asked for a refund because the lens potentially infected the food.
_Dia_
9. Unwell Employee
This actually happened a couple of days ago. 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 overtime sheets, and out of the corner of my eye, I see him run to the trash can with what looks like some sort of brown liquid in his hands and casually toss it in.
I assume that he maybe spilled his lunch in the break room and was cleaning it up. 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 ask if he's ok and send him to first aid to make sure he's not dying.
I gloves up and begin the process of cleaning the chunky mess that he managed to spread across the break room and doors. I also found 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.
I also found 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.
I just about finished cleaning the vomit, and the employee comes back saying he 'usually feels better after a puke a lot.' I was 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 trashcan-' and vomits all over the just mopped and sanitized floor. He then ran 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?
rootKRP
10. Soda Wet
I worked part-time at a well-known chain 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 never to 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.
Trinkers
11. Service Water, Please
This happened to me when I worked at a well-known coffee shop. It was a really busy day, a ton of drinks in the line, and this guy asked me for water.
I tell him sure, in just a second. I was still pretty new and not so in sync with the multi-tasking thing one develops when one works in food service.
So, at some point, a water cup comes down the line. I fill it with water, and the guy says, "s'mine," So I hand it to him, and he promptly returns it to my face. The shift lead did the same thing. I told the guy to back off, and I sat in the back, trying to chill.
[deleted]
12. Wrong Size
I had this guy in a huge truck order a large drink. We have automatic fillers for a certain size, so I just pressed the button and got the guy's food.
I handed him his drink, and he took off the lid and berated me. I "jewed" him out of his drink. I think I hit the wrong fill button, or I didn't put enough ice, and I was more than happy to fill it, but he came off as the biggest jerk.
He even threatened to get the manager to calm down. I'll fill your soda up, you pre-diabetic witch. It was my mistake, and I was totally cool with filling his soda.
It takes 2 seconds and costs us nothing. Some people love to treat other people in lower jobs like crap to feel good about themselves. I was 17 or 18 at the time, and it was my first part-time job.
Don't treat me like I'm a high school dropout lifetime employee or something. I quit my sophomore year of college just because I was sick of being treated like crap by customers.
I'd say I was a solid employee, and my store was really well managed, but you couldn't fix some of the attitudes people had when coming in.
hippymule
13. Too Much Belittling
Fast food was my first job at 16, and I was hired just prior to the Beanie Baby toys. Lines out the door, crazy women demanding we get them a certain toy, impatient and crappy people.
People would say degrading crap, like mentioning I was working for min wage if they felt I wasn't working fast enough. People suck.
On a related note, my mom used to collect them: there was a line for a store that sold the Beanie Babys like it was Black Friday or some crap.
A guy got pissed at my mom because she saw him cut in line, and she didn't have it -- other people there supported my mom in what became an argument.
The guy threatened my mom, alluding to him attacking her. The dude leaves, and my mom returns to a car that's been keyed to crap..it's a smaller town, but I was surprised to see the incident in the local paper.
loztriforce
14. Emergency Call
Last week, I was on the assembly line at my job, 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 sat there for 6 minutes with this dying guy while the phone rang the 911 operator until finally some help arrived. Then I go back, wash my hands, and go right on back to making sandwiches.
[deleted]
15. Cheesy Accident
I worked at this grocery store in the restaurant department, not the main one, but the crappy one at the end. I remember we sold out of pizza; the next one was six minutes.
We had six people ask for pizza, and we asked if they were fine with waiting, so we eventually sold out of the pizza that was still in the oven.
Well, it's finally ready. People were waiting; they had already paid, and my coworker took it out of the oven as another coworker was calling his name from behind him.
When he turned his head to see who called, the pizza slid off the peel and fell cheese side down, making a huge splat. The sauce went everywhere.
It looked like this, and there was just a collective "AHH," from the people who had ordered that pizza. At first, I was laughing because at least it wasn't me, but then we had to process six refunds while the line piled up.
mystriddlery
16. Sauce Madness
When I worked at this well-known sandwich chain, this guy asked for siracha sauce on his sandwich. I put the regular amount on, and then he asked for more.
I put more on. He asks for more.
Eventually, he’s SCREAMING at me to put more siracha on the sandwich, to which I end up emptying out the entire bottle on it.
He’s still not satisfied, so I have to get more. One-half bottle of siracha later, he says it’s enough. Still remember him to this day.
Magnese
17. Confusing Statement
We had a notice board that customers could pin their adverts on. One week, we took everyone's stuff off so that we could use it as a memorial for our coworker who had just recently passed away.
One customer came in and started going ballistic at us, saying that we had taken her advert down and she didn't care that it was a memorial.
My coworker ended up crying out the back for the rest of her shift. It was unbelievable to witness these kinds of people who don’t care for anyone.
darkhearteddon
18. Gossip Queen
One of my good friends died while I was working at a fast food chain. This was a small town, and she was quite young, so it made the front page of the news.
The next day, someone came through the drive-through and shoved the newspaper in my face, which had images of the violent car crash that ended my friend.
The customer just kept talking about her.
She didn't know my friend or anything but just kept talking about the horrible details of the crash, what my friend's body looked like when the EMTs arrived, etc.
I started bawling and walked away. This witch complained about me for leaving my post and being "heartless" for not wanting to talk about "the poor girl who just died."
I don't think I have ever been that angry before, and I'm pretty sure if she had been still there when I was told about her complaint, I would have punched her.
[deleted]
19. Decision Regrets
I used to work in a bakery where our “Head Chef” had a reputation for being a grade jerk. Yeah, you read it right. Our job was not easy, and this man made it harder.
Our nicknames were stupid jerk and dumb jerk. We had to work at an insane pace, and he acted as if he was God’s gift to Earth.
The one that stuck with me was when I made a sandwich for a customer, and she requested a side of avocado.
Our avocados were not ripe at all.
I mean, it was like plastic! I mentioned this to her, and she said it was fine. So I sliced it for her and gave it to her. I literally informed her about it, and she saw it.
She called up about an hour later, complaining that her avocado was not ripe and she was unhappy. I mean, what?? People are stupid.
TheElusiveGoose10
20. Wrong Tree, Sir
That first one. Oh, man. When I was about 15, I worked in a fast food chain over the summer and whatnot. I was pretty tall for my age at around 6'1, which meant that all the tiny women I worked with assumed I could be prepping food (I can't; the company says you gotta be 16.)
But that's a whole separate issue. Anyway, back on topic. I generally did my best to stay out of any of the petty nonsense, keep my head down, do my job, and make my money, as much as a 15-year-old can, anyway.
But we had this one jackass of a manager. 40s, bald spot, greasy little 5'6 jerk. Always leering at the girls and being a general prick to everyone. Nobody liked him.
At some point, I screwed up a drink or something. Other managers would just tell me to remake it, reprimand me a bit, and be on their way, no harm done.
This guy, though, had to give an example. While the customer was waiting at the window, he berated me about screwing it up, saying how it was right there on the screen and all that.
The jerk moved, but okay, I messed up. But he ends his little spiel by calling me a "freaking idiot." I was not very pleased with this.
In front of the entire crowded restaurant, behind the counter, I got right up in that guy's face and raised my voice, but I didn't yell.
Didn't call him names or anything. Just told him that if we're going to work together, he'd better show me some god darn respect from now on. I felt very proud of myself for controlling my temper as well as I did.
He looked like he was about to piss himself. My coworkers told me after they thought I was going to beat the heck out of him.
The whole building went silent for a minute after I was done talking. The guy never spoke to me again, and I turned in 3 weeks' notice and left on good terms when school started again.
seniorscubasquid
21. Free Cash And Drink
The other day, a guy stormed in after coming through the drive-through, saying that his black and white mocha just tasted like coffee.
My shift was really nice and polite. We made him another while he watched intently, only to be like, "Where the freak are the sprinkles?!"
We ran out for the season. "Well, that's probably why it didn't freaking taste right! So you're going to make me pay full price for something that you don't have all the ingredients for?" (Note: the sprinkles have virtually no flavoring).
My shift apologized and offered him a refund. "Well, yeah, if you're going to be like that!" As she went to the register for the refund, he told the guy who was making drinks that she was "lippy."
He got away with a free drink and a $5 gift card. Don't you just love it when your job forces you to reinforce douchebags’ behaviors?
rosemarys-basil
22. Customer-friendly No More
I once worked on a pancake stand at a concert. We had two kinds of fillings, and sometimes, people would ask for both at the same time.
I usually just spread one on one half and the other on the other half and rolled it up so that they'd get the same amount of each with each bite.
Two days in, my boss saw this and absolutely flipped his mind in front of some guy who, at that point, had been my regular customer.
Apparently, I was supposed to spread one kind on the whole pancake and then just do little dabs with the other one. I knew it would taste awful.
The customer said he liked pancakes the way I made them, but from that point forward, I was not allowed to make them the same way.
System__Shutdown
23. Brown Fudge
I was 15 and working for a fast food chain in a big two-story city location. An elderly lady came in to use the upstairs toilet.
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 crap for $4.85 an hour.
whatthetaco
24. Dirty Tasks
I worked at a fast food chain for ten years and was a manager for about 7 of those years. I took care of any fecal matter that had to be cleaned because I did not want to put that on my employees.
About three months before I left the job, I had a customer inform me that there was poop in the bathroom. I was thinking of the toilet seat or the floor or something, so I walked into the restroom.
I began looking around, but the intense smell hit my nostrils. I turned around and saw the door handle was smeared with poop. So was the window, urinal, floor, and all over the toilet seat.
I called back on the headset to have someone open the door, so I didn't touch the poopy door handle, made an out-of-order sign, and grabbed all of the cleaning supplies at my disposal.
I began cleaning away, using bleach packets in a hot bucket and washcloths that I threw away afterward until I was sure I got all of it cleaned up.
The lobby was full of customers, and they all knew what happened. I suspect someone was mentally ill and probably watched me going in and out of the bathroom with sheer joy.
There was another time when I was doing my pre-shift checklist for my manager's verification. I checked the men's restroom and saw a thick, footlong log that wouldn't flush because it was lodged on each side of the toilet.
I simply put a glove on, went into the bathroom, and adjusted the log so it went down the toilet. What impressed me about that was there was no toilet paper in the toilet, so the dude had the confidence for a no-wiper.
[deleted]
25. Brave Lie
When I worked at a fast food, some kid came up to the counter and said “someone” threw up in the bathroom. I knew it was him because he had a little bit of it stuck to his chin.
I went into the restroom to check it out. Let me set the scene for you. You walk into the restroom. To the immediate right of the door is a trashcan that sits in the corner.
To the left, there is a sink. Next to that is one urinal and, finally, a stall. There are exactly two places where it would be appropriate to throw up in this bathroom.
This kid managed to throw up in the other two locations.
The urinal and the sink were half full of puke. I reported to my manager, and she said, “Go clean it up.”
We did not have a plunger or cleaning gloves. We had those short, loose food prep gloves. I sat there for a minute, trying to figure out how to go about it. I decided to just go head-on.
I started to dig semi-liquid vomit out of the urinal with my gloves and hands. Due to the short length of the cuff, puke, and toilet water began to flood my gloves.
I almost threw up myself. I removed the gloves, dropped them on the floor, scrubbed my hands for about 5 minutes, and left.
Eggs-N-Rice
26.No Words
I worked at my local fast food for four weeks last year. I broke my foot and sprained my ankle right before Thanksgiving. Lucky me!
I told the store manager right after I left the ER, and she told me to return after seeing my orthopedist. I did, but she was gone.
The different manager told me to get a note from my doctor so I could return to work because they needed people desperately.
I got one, and a different manager took it from me. She said she wasn't sure what to do because she wasn't sure if I could work and that she'd call me the next day.
I haven't heard anything since, and it's been about a month and a half since I talked to anyone, and no one has called me back. I'm sure that with all of the miscommunication, they just assumed I walked out and quit. I have a better job now.
Nerdy_Momma4827
27. Dodging Hell
When I worked fast food, I remember one instance where the men's room stall was just caked in poop. It was all over the seat, and the toilet was clogged. It was smashed on the floor, in the wall, and behind the toilet.
I walked into the bathroom, walked out, informed my manager, and straight up said there was no way I was cleaning that up for minimum wage.
My manager agreed and told me she'd take care of it.
She literally brought in cardboard to kneel on, a garbage bin, and long gloves and picked up all the poop and put it in the garbage, and made that bathroom spotless.
I couldn't believe it. She was already my favorite manager because she worked her ass off, but she's going above and beyond.
At least it was late at night and wasn't very busy. I had the handle front counter and drive-thru and expediting, but that's better than scraping crap off the walls and literally unclogging a toilet with your hands. Ugh.
ResistenceIsFertile
28. No Free Buns
I worked in a small, fast food during the Sydney Olympics. I was about 15 at the time. A series of big screens at Circular Quay showed live Olympic events. 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 the store and me.
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, “Free burgers, free burgers!”
The crowd moves towards me, and some police/crowd control notices this. They 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 it's all good once I tell them the story.
fly_guy22
29. Customer’s Demand
I had a customer's child puke all over the floor when I worked at a fast food place. I was probably seventeen or so and had no idea that I had a right to say no since I wasn't authorized to handle hazmat, i.e., vomit or blood.
She glared at me and demanded that I clean up her child's mess.
She sat at her chair nearby and just watched as this minimum-wage fast food worker was on her hands and knees, trying to clean with the world's worst poker face.
I have an extreme aversion to vomit - seeing or hearing someone do it is enough to make my stomach act up - so I was nearly in tears. It was one of the most awful experiences ever.
Bleed_Peroxide
30. Next Level Of Power Tripping
I was the first assistant manager. 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.
On his very first shift, 5 minutes into the shift, he walks through the dining room. He asks a girl who is seven months pregnant to change a trash bag, and she tells him no, that she can't do it.
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 screaming, "I'm the freaking boss, and everyone better does whatever I tell them," and continues to yell at everyone about how she needs to be fired for insubordination.
No one else better ever test him. He was arrested in the store and was 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 OK.
Mynameisinuse
31. Lucky Day
I was the waiter for a nice, older couple, and they ordered salads as an appetizer before their meal. After a couple of minutes, the man calls me over and shows me the tip of a broken drill bit he bit into from his salad.
I was already expecting a lawsuit. My heart skipped a beat, and I went into adrenaline mode as I quickly got to the manager.
Tom came over, white-faced, and apologized while offering a few gift cards and comping (free) their meal. Shockingly, the couple didn’t threaten or get irate.
We found out later that Tom had been drilling near the prep line in the kitchen earlier in the day to fix something. He saw the drill bit snap but couldn’t find the tip. The couple even tipped me well. You dodged a bullet, Tom!
Vinstur
32. Naughty Kids, Odd Mom
I used to work in a bakery. I was the cake decorator, and the cakes were in containers and coolers that customers could just take and pay for.
Two kids, 6 and 8 years old, ran over and started throwing the cakes on the ground. Like 'happy birthday to the ground' style.
They were on their 6th cake before I could reach them and took the cakes in their hands. Their mom came over, sighted, and just turned the kids around and started to the produce section like nothing had happened.
We received no apology, no acknowledgment, and no words to the kids about the one $ 100 they just cost us and my time. It was infuriating.
-SweetesFox-
33. Missed Milestone
I worked at a known burger fast food chain a while back that stayed open til 2 am. One manager was a reasonable person and an older lady who clearly paid her dues to the company.
At my store, we only had two closers, so from about 10:00 to 3 am, it was just me and a manager. The night I put my two weeks in, she was just grumpy and teary-eyed, looking at her phone, and she's not usually the manager who does that.
Her oldest was going into complicated pre-mature labor, and nobody could help her. No area manager wanted to come out that late.
Corporate didn't care because that was "part of the job." She was crying all night until we closed. We busted out of there 10 minutes after closing time and broke many rules.
OblongSphere
34. Enduring Pain
I once worked in this sandwich chain. It was my first job when I was 16, and I suffer from severe migraines. I had an aura and started losing my vision, and I knew a migraine was coming.
I asked to go home, but my manager told me I would be written up, and 16-year-old me really didn't want to get written up. So I stayed.
I ended up having to be picked up by my parents bc I was too messed up to drive home and sobbing in the walk-in cooler bc it was the darkest place. My parents made me quit.
Sirenfes
35. Edge Of Death
I was a fast food chain manager at 19, and I got a call that my terminal cancer mother had been taken into hospice (death was imminent).
I called the owner to tell her I needed to go NOW, and she told me I would be fired if I left.
I was silent for about 30 seconds while I imagined every freaking possible vile thing that karma could ram up her ass and told her, "Screw you, I quit."
I proceeded to leave my keys in the office and walked out. Screw that company and their management for being so inhumane.
fernia
36. All At Once
I worked at a chicken fast food chain around graduation season. He had massive catering orders, like 600 chicken fingers, 500 pieces of toast, and 250 coleslaws.
Multiple orders like this are on the same day, which is also our busiest day of the week. We were going nuts. Even the owner was there to help.
Of course, this is the day corporate decides to make a surprise visit. The owner got reamed (even though we were consistently scoring as one of the top locations on a regular day).
So he reamed the manager, who then reamed us. So we're already stressed out and tired, and now we're being shouted at by irate customers, the owner, and our manager. I'm surprised we didn't all quit that day.
[deleted]
37. Two Losses
I worked there for almost a year, and towards the end of my employment, I found out I was pregnant.
After having miscarried two weeks before I started at their fast food chain, I was really excited about it. My manager knew it was high risk.
He told me I could just call and let them know if there was a day I couldn’t make it in due to morning sickness or soreness from the surgery.
I managed to make it 13 of my last 14 days, never called in or didn’t show up. On the last day of my two weeks, I miscarried and didn’t go to work (because of the hospital).
I got fired for that and labeled non-hireable. I have proof I was in hospital. I called my manager as soon as I found out I was miscarrying.
He said since I blew off my last day without warning, he put me as a non-rehire. I was unemployed for a month.
TeenLaquifah
38. Abused Independence
During my winter break in college back home, I once had an irresponsible manager at a fast food chain say, "I would be right back."
Not only did I have to work both the drive-thru and the main cash register, but we also had two workers in the kitchen who spoke little English.
It was a complete crap show, but I was impressed by how we somehow managed to get everyone their food during the insane lunch rush hour (it's on a major road that spans numerous towns).
The worst part is she came back hours later and acted like nothing was wrong. I quit shortly after that, even though she begged me to stay. Screw her.
SpartanSaiyan
39.Sense Of Smell
Someone said, "Give me some of those freshly baked cookies; I can smell you baking them!" when, first of all, we just reheat frozen ones, and secondly, we just put one in the microwave for a guest who asked us to.
When we told him this, he started to yell and then walked behind the counter to go check.
I called my manager, and he started to push her around to go check, screaming, "I want my fresh cookies!!"
He then tried to hit one of our team members in the back, then took off his shirt and screamed when she asked him to go away. We had to escort him out after calling the police.
[deleted]
40. Dirty Secret
I had a very short stint working at this well-known fast-food chain. The soda machine was literally never cleaned. When I noticed it, I thought I must clean it.
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. I can't drink soda from that store or any other fast food place anymore.
EatSleepCryDie
41. Bloody Shift
I worked for a fast food chain in a mall while I was in high school, and the worst was Black Friday 1987. The night before, I had slipped and fallen in my bathroom and cut open my eyebrow.
It needed an ER trip and seven stitches and left me looking like Frankenstein's monster. I tried to call in and was informed that I hadn't called early enough.
They didn't have time to call someone to fill in on my scheduled shift. And so, I showed up for work with an oozing eyebrow, a splitting headache, and about 4 hours of sleep.
It was also insanely busy, so I barely got to grab lunch (20 minutes in line to order my food, cut from a 30-minute lunch break).
molotok_c_518
42. Raining Indoors
I managed a breakfast joint for a while, beginning a few months after it originally opened. We have a very large oven where we bake our bagels, and one day after the bagels had been baked for the day, the baker left the door open to cool.
While I was in front of the restaurant, I could hear a deafening "HOLY MOLY" from the back where the oven was. I walk back laughing, expecting to see a proofing rack knocked over or some other stupid mistake.
Instead, I'm hit with a geyser of jet-black water from the sprinkler system above the oven.
Well, shouting resumed as we tried to cover what we could while waiting for the fire department to arrive.
FD arrived and spent the next 2.5 hours looking for the shut-off switch for our sprinkler. It turns out the switch was inadvertently covered/obstructed during our store's construction.
I got to stay late that day and help clean every ounce of black, smelly water from our appliances and slicers. ~3 hours of pressurized water in the kitchen. Ahhh.
IAMGodAMAA
43. Unsanitary Burgers
I don’t know if any of you remember the grilled onion cheddar burger that a fast food chain 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 at that chain came in one day all pissy. He used to chew tobacco while working, which was gross enough.
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. It was actually gross to think about it.
7heJoker
44. Worst Reading Comprehension
I was working the drive-thru and gave the lady her food. Not 15 feet down the road from the window is a trash can and a sign that says, "Please do not litter."
You can probably guess what happened next. She throws her wrapper right in front of me, and as she drives off, I say, "Are you kidding me?"
The next thing I knew, I heard a screech of tires and a car door slam.
She walks back to the window and starts to curse me out, saying, "What the heck did you say? You throw your crap on the ground, too, don't kid 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 freaking day," and shut and lock the window. Luckily, my manager was pretty chill and didn't care, so I just went about the rest of my day.
Transton107
45. Irresponsible Boss
I worked the night shift at a donut store. It was always just me and the manager. She never helped. She'd just go into the office to do "paperwork" and leave me alone for 8 hours to make everything.
Because I knew she'd leave me alone, I'd take the trash out multiple times a night. Well, one night, I came back in from taking the trash out and noticed the conveyor for the OG glazed was starting to rattle pretty badly.
You need to turn off several things before 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. The conveyor keeps going and continues to get louder and louder.
I start pounding on the manager's office door, but she won't answer.
It’s starting to fall apart, and my baked ass can't handle this. I finally shoulder charge her office door down, screaming, "WTH?! I NEED HELP!"
But she isn't in there. Look at her security screens; her car isn't even in the parking lot. Once I realized that witch 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, said, "Screw this, I'm done," and just left.
Elites_Go_Wort