# Do fast food workers hate "special orders?" **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 5, 2012, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-fast-food-workers-hate-special-orders/621022 "2012-05-05T21:57:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mdcastle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/958977/32.png) [@Mdcastle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mdcastle)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-fast-food-workers-hate-special-orders/621022/1 "2012-05-05T21:57:59Z")
I like to order Quarter Pounders with cheese with Mac sauce instead of ketchup and mustard. Does ordering off the menu like this tick off fast food workers or don’t they care. Would it make a difference if they’re busy or not? ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-fast-food-workers-hate-special-orders/621022/2 "2012-05-05T22:09:30Z")
It’s not a big deal to change nowadays since the burger are put together individually for each order. Changing sauces doesn’t take any extra work. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-fast-food-workers-hate-special-orders/621022/3 "2012-05-05T22:11:48Z")
They’re working in a hot, sweaty, fast-paced environment and expected to keep up. I think it might upset them marginally if they fall behind on other orders, but in the grand scheme of things they’re getting their minimum wage salary regardless. I vote for “don’t care,” although I have no first-hand experience. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-fast-food-workers-hate-special-orders/621022/4 "2012-05-05T22:12:03Z")
Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce. Special orders don’t upset us. All we ask is that you let us serve it your way. ---
**Author:** ![starwarsfreek42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e56c9b/32.png) [@starwarsfreek42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/starwarsfreek42)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-fast-food-workers-hate-special-orders/621022/5 "2012-05-05T22:22:42Z")
General “add onion” or “no mayo” stuff isn’t even a blip on the radar. People who come in and make ridiculously complex orders and then insist that it isn’t done right when they get it are the ones who piss us off. I worked in a pizza place once where a guy would come in and \*insist \*that his food be made by a manager (that was me 6 days out of 7) regardless of how busy we were. He wanted light sauce, double anchovies, double pineapples, and mushrooms. Thin crust, but not our regular pre-made thin crust, he wanted me to go in the back and get fresh dough and toss it. Fine, whatever. But every single time he came in, he’d wait 15 minutes for his super special pizza, and then it was never good enough, no matter how much time we spent arranging toppings or weighing cheese. The anchovies aren’t on there right, or there’s too much mushroom on the right side of the pie, or there’s a bubble in the crust, or the cheese looks too done, etc. We’d make it over again, and over again, until he was satisfied. He was invariably rude about it, as if it was our fault he was so OCD. Wherever that guy is today, I hope he steps on a lego. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-fast-food-workers-hate-special-orders/621022/6 "2012-05-05T22:32:56Z")
I don’t think there is a factual answer to this, but fortunately the mods don’t hate it much when IMHO threads are posted in GQ. 🙂 Probably one of the more common posting errors here. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-fast-food-workers-hate-special-orders/621022/7 "2012-05-05T23:23:13Z")
I have to say, online ordering for pizza is the greatest thing ever. I can have items light or extra, and I can basically make different pizzas on the left and right sides, and it’s all written down clearly for the crew to understand. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-fast-food-workers-hate-special-orders/621022/8 "2012-05-05T23:39:12Z")
Only in the sense of “Look, who’s a special little snowflake.” Some regular menu items are a pain to make already. A special order might make it more difficult to make or it might make it easier to make. I work part time as a barista and special orders annoy me when I know it’s going to make a subpar drink. 3 shots of syrup in a one shot latte is basically going to taste like milky sugar. I can make our blended coffee drinks with soy instead of smoothie mix but it’s going to taste terrible. When I tell you these things, you demand it anyway and then come back later irritated about your soy slushie, well, I warned you. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-fast-food-workers-hate-special-orders/621022/9 "2012-05-05T23:39:14Z")
True story: I once served someone who asked for an order of extra cheese (it was right there on the menu, after all). Not extra cheese on something, just the extra cheese. (she had previously gotten an order of fries, and then decided after she’d paid that she actually wanted cheese fries) ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-fast-food-workers-hate-special-orders/621022/10 "2012-05-05T23:42:07Z")
I have asked for special orders, but only at off times. I wouldn’t feel right pulling such a thing at high noon when there are a dozen cars lined up at the drive-through. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-fast-food-workers-hate-special-orders/621022/11 "2012-05-05T23:43:56Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > True story: I once served someone who asked for an order of extra cheese (it was right there on the menu, after all). Not extra cheese on something, just the extra cheese. > > (she had previously gotten an order of fries, and then decided after she’d paid that she actually wanted cheese fries) When I was 7 or 8 a bunch of friends and I went to some fast food place with one of our parents. One of the kids figured out that he could order french fries and extra cheese and it came out to less then cheese fries. > [@starwarsfreek42](#): > > General “add onion” or “no mayo” stuff isn’t even a blip on the radar. People who come in and make ridiculously complex orders and then insist that it isn’t done right when they get it are the ones who piss us off. I worked in a pizza place once where a guy would come in and \*insist \*that his food be made by a manager (that was me 6 days out of 7) regardless of how busy we were. He wanted light sauce, double anchovies, double pineapples, and mushrooms. Thin crust, but not our regular pre-made thin crust, he wanted me to go in the back and get fresh dough and toss it. Fine, whatever. But every single time he came in, he’d wait 15 minutes for his super special pizza, and then it was never good enough, no matter how much time we spent arranging toppings or weighing cheese. The anchovies aren’t on there right, or there’s too much mushroom on the right side of the pie, or there’s a bubble in the crust, or the cheese looks too done, etc. We’d make it over again, and over again, until he was satisfied. He was invariably rude about it, as if it was our fault he was so OCD. > > Wherever that guy is today, I hope he steps on a lego. I don’t work in fast food, but we’ve had customers like that. When we’re trying to be nice about it we normally fire them by saying something along the lines of “We’re not going to be able to work with you anymore…we just don’t think we’re doing a good enough job” or some BS like that. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-fast-food-workers-hate-special-orders/621022/12 "2012-05-06T00:06:30Z")
A fairly normal “I don’t like onions, so can you hold the onions” sort of thing is just a part of the job, and doesn’t even get noticed. Some people don’t like onions. If you are making multiple modifications, eventually you are going to come off as being fussy and OCD, which is obnoxious in part because it’s fairly likely that nothing is going to please you. “Hold the onions, toast the bun until it is brown but no too brown, make sure the cheese is melted in the center but not on the side, and use a whole leaf of lettuce making sure it’s not broken, with three squirts of ketchup, a half a squirt of mayo, and a dash of pickle juice” is a signal not just of a complex order, but for someone who is likely to be a pain in the ass customer in general. It’s a restaurant, not your own personal kitchen. ---
**Author:** ![Emtar\_KronJonDerSohn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/58956e/32.png) [@Emtar\_KronJonDerSohn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emtar_KronJonDerSohn)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-fast-food-workers-hate-special-orders/621022/13 "2012-05-06T00:18:56Z")
> [@starwarsfreek42](#): > > I worked in a pizza place once where a guy would come in and \*insist \*that his food be made by a manager (that was me 6 days out of 7) regardless of how busy we were. He wanted light sauce, double anchovies, double pineapples, and mushrooms. Thin crust, but not our regular pre-made thin crust, he wanted me to go in the back and get fresh dough and toss it. Fine, whatever. But every single time he came in, he’d wait 15 minutes for his super special pizza, and then it was never good enough, no matter how much time we spent arranging toppings or weighing cheese. The anchovies aren’t on there right, or there’s too much mushroom on the right side of the pie, or there’s a bubble in the crust, or the cheese looks too done, etc. We’d make it over again, and over again, until he was satisfied. He was invariably rude about it, as if it was our fault he was so OCD. Dude! I had a guy like that 10-ish years ago! The previous manager would cave every single time and give the guy half off. The very first time he tried to pull that on me I took his order, was very careful with it, made a beautiful pie (truly flawless in every way) and the guy went ballistic. He was screaming at me about how the toppings were touching each other in some places but not in others and he felt the pie was about 15-13/16" instead of 16" and very slightly eggshaped (or something like that). I very carefully listened and acted like I cared and told him I would make a note of his preferences regarding distribution of toppings and perceived roundness for next time. That wasn’t half off like he was accustomed to, so he went off on a rant about how stupid and incompetent everyone was at this place and he had been coming there for years and we NEVER made his pizza right. I held my hand up and said “Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, sirrr, I’m sorry to interrupt you and please allow me to apologize in advance for very likely offending you, but have you ever considered that maybe you just _don’t like_ our pizza? I mean, _this_ is what we’ve got. _This_ is how we make pizzas. You’re not getting a better pie than this _here_.” The guy shut the box and snatched up the pizza, called me some names, yelled some obscenities out to the mostly empty dining room, and came back every single week to order the same pizza without ever complaining again. It was great! ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-fast-food-workers-hate-special-orders/621022/14 "2012-05-06T00:23:10Z")
This is better suited to IMHO. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![SpectBrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a87d85/32.png) [@SpectBrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpectBrain)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-fast-food-workers-hate-special-orders/621022/15 "2012-05-06T00:24:51Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > A fairly normal “I don’t like onions, so can you hold the onions” sort of thing is just a part of the job, and doesn’t even get noticed. Some people don’t like onions. > > If you are making multiple modifications, eventually you are going to come off as being fussy and OCD, which is obnoxious in part because it’s fairly likely that nothing is going to please you. “Hold the onions, toast the bun until it is brown but no too brown, make sure the cheese is melted in the center but not on the side, and use a whole leaf of lettuce making sure it’s not broken, with three squirts of ketchup, a half a squirt of mayo, and a dash of pickle juice” is a signal not just of a complex order, but for someone who is likely to be a pain in the ass customer in general. It’s a restaurant, not your own personal kitchen. Sheldon…is that you? ---
**Author:** ![Imago](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/85e7bf/32.png) [@Imago](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Imago)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-fast-food-workers-hate-special-orders/621022/16 "2012-05-06T00:47:02Z")
> [@starwarsfreek42](#): > > Wherever that guy is today, I hope he steps on a lego. If “lego” is slang for “land mine” I agree with you. 😉 I know of at least one place where the workers are not _allowed_ to add extra this or ornly half the amount of that. And they were clear about this, and it was also posted in signs everywhere, but people tried it anyway. It drove my friend nuts. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-fast-food-workers-hate-special-orders/621022/17 "2012-05-06T00:57:12Z")
Now I want to go to a restaurant and demand that my burger looks EXACTLY like the picture on the menu or up on the wall, not that sloppy half-squashed thing I usually get! Wonder how that would fly at Burger King at 11 p.m. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-fast-food-workers-hate-special-orders/621022/18 "2012-05-06T01:17:57Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > Now I want to go to a restaurant and demand that my burger looks EXACTLY like the picture on the menu or up on the wall, not that sloppy half-squashed thing I usually get! > Wonder how that would fly at Burger King at 11 p.m. It would probably fly if you didn’t mind extra saliva and a side order of semen. ---
**Author:** ![starwarsfreek42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e56c9b/32.png) [@starwarsfreek42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/starwarsfreek42)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-fast-food-workers-hate-special-orders/621022/19 "2012-05-06T03:12:03Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > I don’t work in fast food, but we’ve had customers like that. When we’re trying to be nice about it we normally fire them by saying something along the lines of “We’re not going to be able to work with you anymore…we just don’t think we’re doing a good enough job” or some BS like that. Yeah, he finally came in one day while the owners were there doing an inspection and they were able to witness the situation, and one of them followed him out to his car after his usual tantrum and basically told him that we were terribly sorry, but since we weren’t able to satisfy his needs then perhaps he ought to take his business elsewhere. > [@Emtar\_KronJonDerSohn](#): > > Dude! I had a guy like that 10-ish years ago! This guy is probably 60-ish by now. It would be funny if it turned out to be the same guy, trolling from one pizza place to another all across the country. ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-fast-food-workers-hate-special-orders/621022/20 "2012-05-06T03:33:35Z")
I have specific coffee orders (double- soy Americano, two pumps vanilla with room) but I heard one that made me seem normal: Can I have the coffee hot? But, I don’t want any ice. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-fast-food-workers-hate-special-orders/621022.md?page=2)