Ah yes. The lovely golden arches. Food, folks, and phlegm. I missed that.
He? Is it THAT HARD to remember a poster’s gender?
For you, apparently 
Erp. Is this where I’m laughed out of the thread?
So you’ve seen it happen and you didn’t do anything about it? Guess what: you’re an accomplice!
So I guess it’s not that difficult to remember a poster’s gender, especially when you’re remembering it wrong.
:smack: 
Well, if you can suggest something I could have done, I’d be glad to hear it.
FWIW, I did quit the job. Really, when the district manager is pulling shit out of the garbage to feed to customers (yes, I’m afraid so), you get the impression you’re not going to get much support should you complain. Particularly when the district manager is also the owner’s son.
But please - offer up some suggestions. I’ll never work in the food service industry again, but I’m sure others in this thread would be delighted to bask in your infinite wisdom.
Meh.
If someone feels the need to abuse fast-food employees multiple times (e.g. calling them whores, saying they’re going to get them fired, etc), it wouldn’t bother me much that a little tartar sauce squirts on to their clothes. Shiva’s retaliation is jerkish, but it really doesn’t offend me (unless someone gets hurt). [reaching into cliche book] What goes around comes around…
By the way, I have seen a fast-food worker abused (by my standards) once in my entire life (I believe it started with an insulting comment about the waitress’ goth-like make-up and blew up from there), so I can’t imagine how it could be at all prevalent.
Sure alice:
[ol][li]Tell the offending employee you saw what he did, what it was, and make sure others hear you tell him that.[/li][li]Tell him you will not allow him to serve the contaminated food to a customer.[/li][li]Immediately inform your supervisor.[/li][li]Inform the appropriate health agency[/ol][/li]But you already knew these, didn’t you? And your comment about basking is juvenile and asinine.
Surprise, Surprise, Surprise, you are all getting the fast food service that you have paid for (and, I might add, exactly the service that the corporations want you to receive). You want things to be better? Lobby for better pay for service workers and treat them with dignity. Can’t do that? Then STFU.
Seems like we’re talking about two things here:
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*Customers who are being slow, indecisive, picky about getting what they ordered, etc. *The original thread was about a customer checking the order at the pick-up window, which I think falls into this category. If I had an employee who retaliated for something like that, in any way, including sabotaging the food with tartar sauce, I would fire that employee on the spot. (To be fair, I’d let it be known up front that doing something like that would get them fired.) Dealing with customers who aren’t perfect is called work, AKA real life.
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Customers who are genuinely abusive: making personal comments, screaming, etc. It’s the manager’s job to deal with those people (either directly or by empowering his employees to do so respectfully), and if a manager does not act as an advocate for his employees in that way, he bears a great deal of responsibility for any forthcoming unpleasantness.
[hijack]
On an unrelated personal note, this is my first post to the pit.
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Binarydrone, you seem to be suggesting that being allowed to spit in food or otherwise provide bad service should be viewed as a fringe benefit to compensate for low pay, much like flex time or good health care.
I respectfully disagree. If you agree to do a particular job for a particular amount of money, then you do it–or you quit. If you can’t quit because you need the job, then do the job and–to paraphrase your own post–shut up about it. Using your salary as a reason to inflict damage on people who have no direct control over your salary and are, in fact, indirectly providing what little salary you do get is not a reason at all; it’s an excuse, and a lame one at that.
Monty darling, I’m sure when you posted this:
It’s because you missed the point where I posted this:
So - should I have motivated my 17 year old self to phone the owner of a nation wide restaraunt chain to tell him his son was a jack-ass? Maybe. Would he have belived me? I doubt it. Would it have done any good? Not a chance.
Secondly, the restaraunt was closed on a regular basis because of Board of Health violations having nothing to do with people horking in food or otherwise being disgusting. They would close the place for 2 days, and then it would open again and the grossness would continue.
I did the only thing I could - I quit and warned every person I knew never to eat there, under any circumstances, whatsoever.
However, knowing none of these facts, you accuse me of being an accomplice to the crime. Uh huh. I’m delighted that you live in black and white land where every thing is totally clear cut. However, for those of us that live in the real world, things aren’t always that straightforward.
BTW - I’m sure people are basking as we speak.
That depends on the owner of course. I used to work for Tim Horton’s and I learned that the owner of our store (and a few others) had fired his own son for less than that. Well not less depending on how you look at it (his son was smoking pot behind the store during his shift, on breaks). Some people can actually see past their own flesh and blood to see whether or not they are doing a good job.
Now I never have (and never will) mess with anyone’s food in anyway but I liked it when I worked at Tim’s because I worked night shift and I pretty much had run of the store. We have no night manager (of course no one lasts long on night shift… at least not many. The lady I worked with when I first started was there 4 years and just decided to quit one night, others lasted about a week) but as long as we were reasonable we could do what we wanted. We had to kick people out of the store a few times for being obnoxious (drunks gotta love them) and have refused to serve people on the basis that they are being abusive.
Now having worked in the service sector my whole career so far, I can take a lot from customers so it took a fair bit to get me to actually refuse people service but it did happen at times. I try to be understanding about waitresses/service people having been there.
As to how they would recognize ‘asshole’ customers, well when you work in drive thru a lot and get some pretty regular people you can tell just by the sound of their vehicles and their voice who they are. Working at Tim’s we had at least 2 people in drive thru who just had to say ‘the usual’ and we’d know what they meant. We also had several come directly into the store (more than 2 more like 5 people) who we would just see coming and if we weren’t helping customers already we would have their order ready by the time they got to the counter.
If you go anywhere often enough to become a regular, or get noted for certain types of behavior it can be easy to be singled out for notice.
Well I, for one, would have appreciated it. Especially if I was the customer who was being served.
And I do not believe that those who would fuck with the food do it only to ‘asshole’ customers(i.e. those who deserve it). I believe they feel ALL customers are assholes and will fuck with food whenever they think they can get away with it. Because they think it’s a hoot.
Again, someone who would fuck with someones food is a coward and all-around miscreant.
But that’s just my opinion.
I’ve had friends that have reported co-workers spitting in people’s food and even doing nastier stuff to them so it does happen. Never seen it happen myself though…
From what I have heard, most of these people that engage in such activites are young teenagers (boys mostly) and they only do it to people that are mean and rude. Just behave like a human being should and you shouldn’t have to worry about anything.
I have worked in a lot of food resturants and the way some people treat us is just horrible. I would never do anything rotten to a customer’s order myself but there are people that I do want to murder. I can’t wait until I have enough money/education to get away from crap like this.
What gets me is - Why do these miserable sourpusses keep coming back?
I have this one lady who comes in every Saturday night and every single time she is a complete ass to me and my cashiers. I don’t let anyone else handle her (I’m manager), but make sure her order is perfect - every single time - yet she complains. And it’s always the same thing. Why???
I missed nothing there, alice. I listed the steps you should’ve taken in order (interesting concept, hey?).
I’m not your darling. And thank goodness you’re so clairvoyant that you just knew that doing the correct thing would do no good. Sure hope that works out for you in whatever career you ended up in.
And, yes, you should’ve motivated your 17-year old ass. But I suspect you rationalized your culpability away then as you do now.
Yes, well.
It’s always easy to spot what someone else should have done in a particular situation, when you have no idea, whatsoever, of the dynamic involved in said situation.
Paul (the district manager) was daddy’s golden boy. He could do no wrong. Also, the guy was around 35 when he was pulling this shit, under the auspice of “saving money”. Trust me, daddy would have done squat, but thanks for playing.
Also, I find it interesting to accuse me of being “clairvoyant” when you’re making assumptions about the situation based on shit you pulled out of your ass. I at least had met the persons involved before I decided what would be a good course of action. You’re talking out of your ass without having met any of them, myself included.
Really Monty DARLING, you’re not the only poster on this board with a moral compass. I did what I thought was best in the situation I found myself in, but you just continue spouting your usual mix of outraged indignation, and moral superiority you obnoxious, pompous windbag.
You are certainly a bitchy one, alice. I did not say nor did I insinuate that I’m the only one here with a moral compass. You, on the other hand, are now looking back and rationalizing your lack of action. What I really find laughable is that you’re saying the person adulterating the food was doing so to save money!
I did not pull those actions out of my ass. You, on the other hand, have just pulled out of your ass more rationalizatin for what you obviously recognize as your moral failing of the time. Out of idle curiosity, why then did you not make a report to the approrpiate governmental entity? Perhaps they were staffed by the offender’s cousins?
And how do you know I’ve no idea of the dynamics involved. How do you know if I’ve worked in a restaraunt or not? Looks to me like your clairvoyance has failed you yet again.
To sum it up: I find both your negligence then in allowing some adulterated food to be served to an unsuspecting customer and your current rationalization of your inaction to be appalling.
i worked in foodservice for two years. When I cashiered, I kept a sharp kitchen knife by the register. When a customer was being terrible, I could look down at the knife, kept in easy reach, and fantasize about snatching it up, leaping over the counter, and ending the customer’s miserable life in a spray of arterial blood.
It was always good for a smile, and helped me deal with countless evil bastards. I never resorted to harming an order.
Daniel