When I was 16, I got my first job at Chipotle, and I have been with them ever since. I come back every summer and work for them when I’m not in school, and they always welcome me back because I show up for work on time, I never call out sick, I stay late when they need me and I roll a pretty mean burrito.
I absolutely fell in love with my coworkers my first summer there, and I have made some very close friends working there over the years. By far my favorite coworkers are the ones who have been there since the very beginning.
With all that said, there are some downfalls to working at Chipotle, and this might not be universal to all Chipotle employees because different locations have different styles and different management. But here is a list of things I want you, as a Chipotle customer, to know before you come visit us.
1. Don’t shoot the messenger
There is nothing I hate more than experiencing the wrath of a customer when I inform them that we are out of something that they need or want. For example, whenever my store runs out of something like guacamole or cheese, I cringe a little every time I have to tell a customer that we are out because I’m afraid of what they are going to say. I have had customers curse at me, tell me that I’m doing a “piss poor job at customer service” and a slew of other things because I have looked up and said: “I’m sorry, but we’re currently out of guacamole.” And here’s the deal, when I’m working on the line at all (tortilla, where we serve the hot food or salsa, where we serve the cold food) I am calling for food at all times. So, when I go back into the walk-in refrigerator and I see that we only have three pans of guacamole left, I’m going to let my boss know, and then I’m going to let them know when we only have two pans and then when we only have one left. So don’t shoot the messenger. I’m not the one hopping off the line during rush hour to go make guacamole. That’s on my boss, not me. It is really hard being in the middle of a customer and my boss because I agree with the customer, if we have avocados in the store we should be smashing them up and making them into green guac-y goodness. However, if I tell a customer that we currently have no more avocados in the store, then please don’t think I’m lying because I’m really not. This applies for all types of food, not just guacamole.
2. Please keep your hands behind the glass.
My mangers have pounded this into my head since I was 16: the customers cannot have their hands behind the glass because, surprise surprise, it’s a heath code violation. And when I tell you, as a customer, to please keep your hands behind the glass, I am in no way insinuating that you have dirty hands, but also please keep in mind that you probably don’t have to reach over the glass to point to the sour cream because I know what the sour cream looks like. I work the line up to 35 hours a week, so I can guarantee that if you can speak English, Spanish or can nod "yes" or "no" when I point to something, then I can figure out what you want without your finger kamikaze diving into the black beans. And if for some reason we accidentally put something on your bowl or burrito, we can remake it for you. Even if you have already passed go, you can still collect a new burrito if we accidentally bless you with black instead of pinto beans. Now, here are just a few fond memories I have of telling customers to please keep their hands behind the glass:
The summer of 2015, I was working on salsa and my coworker, let’s name him Tyler, was working on tortilla. He was asking a customer if they wanted black or pinto beans, and I’m sure that Tyler thought the customer said black beans. So Tyler reaches for the black bean spoon and just as he’s about to spoon out some black beans the customer reaches over the glass and grabs Tyler’s wrist and calmly says, “No, pinto.” Honestly I think all of us working the line were just a little shocked so we didn’t really say anything, but one of my mangers made sure to let the customer know that it wasn’t OK to touch any of the employees or reach over the glass.
The summer of 2014, I was serving a woman who comes in on the reg and always has something to complain about. She complains about the service and our management and how slow we are. Basically every time she comes in she has something negative to say about our restaurant. And yeah, maybe our Chipotle location completely blows, but if it does and you’re dissatisfied every time you come in then why do you come back three to four times a week? With that being said, I was trying to take extra care in giving this woman what she wanted as she proceeded through the line, because I didn’t want her to complain about me. And then she did it; she put her hand over the glass. It wasn’t even a casual half-point to the tomatoes; the crook of her elbow rested on the edge of the glass as her forearm, hand and fingers all plunged toward the cheese. As if I’m confused about what cheese is. I remember having a little internal argument with myself as I wrestled with what I should do, and then I realized that one of my managers was watching me from down the line. So, I did what I had always been told to do, and I politely said to this woman: “Ma’am, can you please keep your hands behind the glass?” I regretted it as soon as I asked because this woman looked like I had slapped her right across the face and then she called me a c*nt. Like, this woman is a grandmother (you know how I know that? Because sometimes she will come in wearing a shirt that says "world’s best grandma") and she just called me the c-word in public. I was stunned, but I still managed to tell her to have a nice day after I finished her order!
3. Please don’t come in early for your online order and expect to get it right away.
If you order online, please, please make sure that you come in at the time that you specified that you would pick up your order. At any given time during the day we could have anywhere between zero to 10 online orders. It is really hard to make your order in two minutes when you’ve come in 45 minutes early and we already have 20 customers in line. I know it is inconvenient and it’s frustrating to have to wait, but when there is one person on the line trying to juggle customers and online orders, it can get a little crazy; just please bear with us!
4. Don’t assume you know how to run this restaurant better than the managers running it.
There was a customer standing in line about two weeks ago, and I overheard him talking to the woman standing in line next to him and he said, “They have enough people to have more than two workers working on the line.” And this really rubbed me the wrong way because he was just wrong. During that shift we were down two people and we were struggling to keep up with the consumer demands that night. It was around nine o’clock, so an hour from closing. We had two people on the line, which is reasonable because two of us should be able to handle the last customers of the night before we close. We also had one person on grill, which, again, is reasonable. One person washing dishes in the back because we need clean dishes to provide new food for the line, and then we had one cashier who was ringing up customers and bagging chips because we ran out of chips after we got slammed during the dinner rush. What I’m trying to say is that it is just really hard to hear those kinds of snide remarks from customers when we’re all busting our asses to just do our job. If you think that you can manage our location better than our mangers, then by all means please apply to our store and give it a shot.
5. We remember the good ones.
There are a few customers that have been coming regularly to my Chipotle since I’ve been there, and the regulars that are good to me I remember and I give them discounts. If you come in on a weekly basis, there is a good chance that I might even have your order memorized, which is kind of cool but also whatcha doin' in Chipotle that much, fam? My point is, if you’re good to me, then I’m going to be good to you, and I’ll remember the good ones because they are few and far between.
All in all, I love my job and I love the people I work with, but customer service is no freaking joke. There are good days and there are bad, for the customers, for the employees and the restaurant. We'll try to meet your needs as best as we can, but all we ask for in return is a little respect. At the end of the day, even though Chipotle is ah-mazing, it really is just a burrito, and we really are humans — just like you, rolling them.
Sincerely, your friendly neighborhood burrito-roller.
