I work at a fast-food restaurant: Tim Hortons (it’s made its way into the states, however, it’s predominantly Canadian). And I swear all douchebags and the like make their way to me. I guess it’s hard to find normal people there? Anyway some of the things that people will say to you, or how they order, it entertaining or at the very least frustrating. We had a chinook wind blow in today, so my boss took advantage of it and sent me outside to wash windows. So I was happily working by myself washing away etc. And every single person that walked by made some inane comment on how they’d wish I was washing their windows, or how I got stuck with the shitty job. I even had two people wipe their dirty paws on my newly cleaned windows on purpose. Of course I can’t say anything rude to them as they’re the customer and it’s their money that ultimately gives me a job. However, it’s just common courtesy. One doesn’t need to talk to a female working only because you think her cute all in the winter cold washing windows (it does seem pointless after all). Or because you’re lazy and don’t want to wash your own windows.
The moral of the story? Other than causing me to want to wring a few necks, I came up with a few pointers for the next time you see someone working in the fast-food joint you normally go to
1. Say hello
2. Ask “How are you?” Seriously, this makes my day. SOOOOOO much better than being snapped at because you didn’t get their sandwich 100% correct
3. Use please and thank-you. You may even get a free donut out of the deal if we forgot to include it.
4. If we did forget to include or do something to you order, don’t freak out. It only puts the both of it in a foul mood and we don’t want that.
5. Don’t spend forever looking at the menu when you finally get to the till. You had 10 minutes to do that while waiting in line. It only annoys the customers behind you, and stresses out the person taking your order because their manager wants the line to go down and it’s up to the cashier to speed things up. That and you get out of there faster. It’s a win-win situation, yes?
6. Don’t rest your children on the counter. It’s unsanitary, and it just annoys the cashier because they have to wash the counter after you and your tot are done messing it up.
7. Don’t be afraid to make conversation! Who knows what you could learn from your cashier, you may even get a future baby-sitter out of it. Honestly, it’s one of the things that makes my day go by that little bit faster. I have so many regulars that I honestly couldn’t tell you their name, but I could tell you where they work, what they order, and what their favourite colour is.
8. Changing your mind of what you want in your coffee five minutes after you order it generally means that the first order will get thrown out. We try to stay on top of things so that as soon as you’re done ordering and paying, you can get your coffee and leave. If you change the first one you ordered after ordering everything else, chances are that you’ll just annoy the person taking your order.
9. Using the bathroom like it’s your playroom only makes that much more work for those of us unfortunate souls stuck in that store. Yeah, you could say that we need work or we’d be bored, however, most of the time we’re understaffed because someone called in sick, or because their is a line all the way out the store and down the sidewalk. We honestly don’t look forward to cleaning up one of your “amazing” creations.
10. Lastly, please smile 🙂
in the words of 