"Thank you for coming, and have a great day" : the memoirs of a fast-food worker

Wow, we're up to our third post already. As you can no doubt see, Stephanie and I are incredibly productive. Actually, I'm rather proud of myself for even writing this tonight; I really didn't think I would.

I have a confession to make: I work in a fast food restaurant. Go ahead, make all the jokes you want about the teenager making minimum wage; from my perspective any job is better than no job at all. And for the most part, the job really isn't that bad: I love my co-workers, I love working in the grill or assembling the sandwiches, and I usually love the customers. Most of the people I see are kind, considerate people, and when I tell them to have a great day, I actually mean it. However, it wasn't until I began my job in late May (and then came back to it for Christmas break) that I actually acknowledged the darker side of humanity: the cruel, selfish, arrogant, and sometimes just pure evil side. I have been ignored, yelled at, sworn at, and insulted by various customers, all for no good reason. For example, yesterday I was working in drive-through present (the second window in the drive through where you get your food), and one women ordered tea with her meal. (Amazingly enough, we have tea, and it isn't total crap! It's orange pekoe, which, while too dark for my taste, is very good with sugar in it. But I digress.) Anyway, I was making her tea, and once the cup was full, I set it down so I could put in the tea bag. As I did this, a bunch of the water splashed up and hit my hand. And the water was hot enough to burn. So I'm clearly wincing in pain as I'm rushing to finish the order, and as soon as I'm up at the window, the first thing she says is "I asked for my tea bag on the side." I wasn't expecting to hear "Are you alright?", but I was hoping that she wouldn't have a complaint. Because, honestly, after I burnt myself by assisting her, the last thing I wanted to hear was for her to complain. First of all, who goes to a fast-food restaurant for tea, anyway? And second of all, since it was (admittedly indirectly) her fault that I was hurt, I was in no mood to hear her complain that her tea could possibly be a teensy bit too strong. However, I smiled and apologized, made her tea again, and handed her sugar, to which she testily replied, "I requested Splenda." So I apologized again, despite the fact that I had done nothing wrong (because she definitely did not request any sweetener at all, let alone that specific brand), and got her the Splenda. I told her in the nicest voice I could muster (which really wasn't much because it is very difficult to be nice to someone who has been nothing but completely inconsiderate to you, and the very small and very petty part of you is hoping that they burn their tongue) "Have a nice day!" She harrumphed in response and then drove off. Now I told this story not just for cathartic purposes, although that part was very nice, but also because I thought that if I told this story of how not to treat people, maybe it might change someone's behavior. ( I do realize how incredibly idiotic that hope is, just for the record.) I'm sure that all of you are wonderful, considerate people, who do not need to hear this, but I thought it should be said. I just have a few requests: please do not talk on your cellphone when you're in the drive-through or on the front counter(it's extremely rude, and makes me have no desire to help you), please clean up after yourselves and throw out your own trash (it's really not difficult, I promise), and please just treat us like people. I would like to just say quickly that there's a very large difference between servants and service workers. We are not your servants, nor are we stupid, incompetent, or in anyway lazy. We work hard, much harder than any desk job, and we have to deal with rude idiots all day. The customer is usually wrong. Please, just act like decent people. Is that really so hard? I'm sorry about the rant, but I felt that it was something I needed to say. I promise my next post will be more positive.