Clerks, fast food, and you.

The BBQ Pit
1

[rant]
Okay, here is all I want to know. If any of you high school dropouts out there who manage fast food joint (in this case, a Taco Bell) can even read this, answer this question for me:
Why, oh why, do you run your establishment like a shmuck?

Why do you put the only non-english speaking individual under your roof on the drive-thru?

Is it because you know that we will decide to walk in instead and be forced to talk to the dumbest fuckin’ teenager on earth? I don’t see how you can even stay in business, considering the leper colony you have behind the counter.

I just made my last visit to Taco Bell. This was their second chance.

The last time I was there I caused me to not go back for 3 months. The reason was that some infantile jagoff behind the counter was pissed because he flunked his GED test for the third time, short-changed a lady, and then cussed her out when she asked him about it.
This was happening right in front of me, and I couldn’t stand for it.
I told the asshole to give the lady her money, and shut up while he does it. He started to cuss at me, too, and the manager just stood there and watched the whole shebang go down like an impotent dipshit.
The guy still refused to give the lady her correct change.
I asked him what the big deal was, and why he wouldn’t just give her the money back.
He said she was accusing him of stealing.
She just wanted to leave, but I had to press the issue. It was the principle of the thing.
So this guy-who is a stupid-ass wanna-be gangta fuck-starts to threaten me with violence…
You know, “watch you back, homes, I got your number, ese, I’m a call up my homies” blah blah blah.
The lady said she was going to report him “to the corporate office”.
The guy said he didn’t care because he was quitting anyway.
“Okay,” I said. Then I pulled out my phone and called the police.
This got her change to her in a hurry, and I stayed around and filed a complaint against the asshole.

BUT-

The manager said that I started the whole thing! She wanted to file a complaint against me! Luckily, I knew the officers on the scene from my bouncer job, so they told her that from what they could tell, I was not breaking any laws, and I placed the call, so all they could do was take a statement.
What a bitch.

I don’t expect 5 star service at a fast food joint.

I don’t expect highly trained professionals.

I do expect to talk to someone who speaks english.
I do expect to be able to place my order without having to do so by drawing it out in crayon.

I don’t expect to have some crack baby talk shit to me.

What happened to common fuckin’ courtesy?
What happened to at least pretending to give a rat’s ass about the customer?
I am just amazed that shit like this can happen.
I hope that stinkin’ place goes out of business.

“Winners never quit and quitters never win, but those who never win and never quit are idiots.”

2

YEAH!! <Fist in the air>

3

This is pretty timely Lex, cause I was just sitting in a drive-thru line tonight and wondering about the death of “fast food”. It just does not exist anymore . . . 9 times out of 10 I end up waiting for 20 minutes or so in a line for crappy food. I suppose it is my own fault for eating at these places in the first place, but really - does it take 20 minutes to move 5 people through the drive-in ? Its not just one establishment either - it appears to be just about all of them.
I too have seen some just atrocious “customer service”. A MCD’s closing 30 minutes early - 30 minutes !!. Finding those plastic (guitar pick like) bun package holders in my sandwich. (This has happened twice.)Employees who act like they are doing me a favor by taking my order. Its just nuts.
The whole thing reminds me of a story I saw on one of those TV mags. It had to do with the fact that the American economy is going so well that employers cannot find quality employees. Fast food restaurants are ending up with the lowest common denomenator - and we are all getting screwed because of it.
On a strange note, I have found one place that always treats me very well - WaffleHouse if you can believe it. Sure the food should come with a side of CPR, but the service is typically outstanding at this location.

“Empty stares from each corner of a shared prison cell . . .” Pearl Jam

4

Strangly enought though…the President of the US has no problem communicating with these people…maybe that explains a few things…

5

I have also noticed the lack of service in many fast-food restaurants. I have never had a problem with any small chains or IN N OUT Burger though.

Oh yeah, it’s the Pit. FUCK!!!

6

<Homer Voice> mmmmm… In and Out Burger </Homer Voice>
I haven’t had one of those in years. I miss them. <sniffle>

7

Oh yeah! Basta’ds! Jesus! I’d a thunk you’d appreciate the authenticity of a Spanish speaking staff at Taco de la Bell.

8

A real suggestion: try those 1-800 #. You will be surprized @ the excellent response you get. (+ free food!!!)

In this neck of the woods, Wendys is the worst, as they pay the least. I agree tho, In&out is the best! Taco Bell ain’t bad out here.

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The Taco Bell here pisses me off every time I go. The food is actually prepared well, no complaint there. But it takes forever!! A good 15 - 20 minutes if you are fourth in line at the drive thru. What the HELL are they doing in there?? How long can it take to slap together a freaking chalupa?

And this isn’t really a complaint, but just creepy: The individual sometimes working the window – man or woman? I have no idea!! Breasts, mustache, long hair, huge hands, adams apple, woman’s wristwatch. I just don’t know.

Yet I keep going back. I know when I pull in the parking lot that it is going to take a while. And I complain about it, generally to myself in an otherwise empty car. And then I go back a few weeks later. Damn it, I am week.

10

Spanish! Here in my neck of NJ, the fast food workers are all Indian.
“Would you be liking your chalupa with tandoori chicken?”

Freaky.

11

Everything Lex says. In spades. Doubled and redoubled.

12

Around here, the Wendy’s is the best…I don’t think it’s ever taken me more than two minutes from order to receiving food. They’re great.

I have NEVER received a correct order from Taco Bell. Never. At any one that I’ve been to.

The best, though, is the KFC here. There are two near my house, one just a little farther away. We always go to the closest one on an off chance that THEY MIGHT HAVE SOME CHICKEN!!! They’re always out and it’s always a 15 minute wait. So we go, just to see if they’ve done it again, and always end up going to the one farther away. It’s just a running joke, now.

13

I know this is the Pit, but as someone who spent many years paying heavy dues in places like Kentucky Fried Chicken and Burger King, I feel a strong impulse to put in just a tiny four-letter word on behalf of food service employees everywhere: PITY. (I’m not referring to Lexicon’s “crack baby”, but I am referring to the rest of them, God love 'em.)

As you sit there in the driveup lane, try to work up a tiny amount of pity for these poor slobs who have to work at a perfectly HELLISH job (the only pink-collar job worse than food service is an unskilled nursing home aide-type job). They are stuck in these low-wage, long-hours, grease-in-your-hair, no-health-care-or-retirement-plan jobs because they lack the upstairs equipment to go out and get some kind of training, anything, office worker, automotive repair, ANYTHING that would let them get out of there. The worst thing, for me, is seeing 20-somethings with their whole lives ahead of them toiling away at something like this. “For God’s sake,” I want to tell them, “Can’t you go down to the local junior college and learn to fix air conditioners or something? Is this how you want to spend your life?”

I deeply pity them. And so should you.

End of sermon.

14

Hey Santi,

I know what you mean. There is no service at fast food anymore. Yeah, it’s quick and they have drive thrus but just ASK ME if I want catsup or other types of condiments.

Fries are great for the drive home, but once I get home I want catsup with my fries, so I have to remember every time to tell the kid at the second window, I would like some catsup please. But more than a few please, I like drown it. Then the kid gives me an amount equal to a small bottle at the grocery store…sheesh.

The Taco Bell I go to regularly, has pretty good service. I think they have flubbed up my order once in a year and a half.

Oh and Santi, there are fewer non-english speaking fast food workers up here.

(that really wasn’t Pit material, but oh well)

15

You know what pisses me off? They never give you sauce with your McNuggets anymore unless you specifically request it. So many times I get 3 miles down the road and realize I’ve got a box of dry chicken nuggets because the louse never asked what kind of sauce I wanted!

16

The McDonald’s near my old apartment had to be eligible for some sort of Surliness in Food Service Award. It was only half a block away, though, so I went quite a few times before I realized that the employees were never going to, say, act as though they actually worked there.

I went in one weekday morning, around 10. They were far from busy - I’d say there were 4 or 5 people at the tables eating, 4 people in line and 2 women behind the counter. I got into one of the lines, and just stood there for 5 minutes. I looked up ahead at the woman at our register, and she was standing there eating a McMuffin. The person in front of me asked if she would take their order, and she scowled and told them “I’m on my break,” and sat down at a stool right there.

In the meantime, a few other people had come in and gotten in the other line, so we had to move over and wait behind them. I stopped going there when I realized that I could order Chinese food or pizza and have it delivered in less time than it took me to walk to McDonald’s and attempt to get my order right.

Everybody knows that Steve McGarrett only takes orders from the governor and God - and occassionally even they have trouble.

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All of the Taco Bells around here have the drive-throughs set up so that when you pull up, the window is on the right side of your car. This necessitates the employee walking out the door, which is right by this window, to pick up your money and give you your food! WTF?

18

No matter what you think of the person in the fast food window…
for your own sake I hope you let vent on them after you took delivery of your food.

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I’ve worked at a sandwich shop/bakery for most of the past year. I never heard an employee even mention putting something disgusting into the food.

The best way to deal with an angry customer was to just be nice and make their food by the book, gloves, wrap it perfectly, be polite, everything. Sticking a foreign object in the food can only result in an even angrier customer and possibly my termination.

One of my supervisors worked at In N’ Out for four years. He said that the starting wage was 9/hr, so they could be selective about who they hired and expect more from the employees.

McDonald’s is my main aggravation around here. “Number 4 with Coke” has to be repeated several times before they even get the concept that I might want to order food from their fine establishment. I get the feeling that I know the menu better than any of the employees.

20

C3, your mentioning Wendy’s reminded me of why I stopped going there over six years ago. I found a pubic hair in my coke, it was everything I could do just to push it back on the counter and NOT throw up, yuckorama!!

I haven’t been back there since.

I read a recent complaint in the paper from a fast food worker (fworker??) saying she hated ‘being yelled at’. Where did she work? At the drive in window! How many of you are asked, ‘What?!,’ a couple of times by the ‘fworker’ through that little box?

“Um, according to who? Nothing more than a high brow troll, though occasionally the bi polar personality swung in a constructive direction on innocuous topics.” Omniscient