I work at a fast food restaurant called Smashburger. It's not quite like a McDonald's or Wendy's, yet it is also not a full restaurant like Applebee's or Chili's. I like to say that it is a "full service fast food restaurant" because we (the front of house staff) take care of everything. We take the orders, bring the food to each table and clean up the table after the guests are done eating.
Summer is the time for college students to rake in as much money as they can, and that is exactly what I have been doing (i.e. I have taken every shift that people have dropped, and I am currently in the middle of a nine-day streak before my day off). Basically living at this restaurant has made me think of a lot of things that I am tired of hearing/seeing so why not put it out in the world so maybe people will catch the hint.
1. We are all human, we make mistakes.
As Hannah Montana said, "Nobody's perfect". So when I mishear what you have said or the kitchen makes a mistake, there's no reason to be rude about it. I bet the you have made mistakes before at your job.
2. Your child throwing food around isn't "cute".
The amount of french fries I have had to clean up because a parent or grandparent didn't think to clean up the mess that their child made is astronomical. Yes, it is my job to clean up but an entire tray of french fries....seriously?
3. "Excuse me miss, I asked no tomatoes."
Wow, I am so sad to hear that you have lost the ability for your hand to remove the two small slices of tomato on your burger that you have to have it sent back to the kitchen.
4. "Oh ooooh uhm, I didn't know that this had all these toppings on it. I just wanted a plain burger."
Oh ooooh well, I repeated your order to you twice...it's not my fault you didn't read the menu sweetie.
5. "Give me *insert burger*"
Why don't I give you a lesson on manners? The words please and thank you would be nice, you know just as a common courtesy.
6. "Can you clean off this table?"
Well sir, my hands are full of trays so I am obviously in the process of cleaning off these tables, but you pushing me just made me take my time to finish cleaning these off.
7. "No, it's not okay."
We are a small store, we run out of things so sometimes they're not available. We also are people who have lives and want to leave work on time, so we ask at a certain time that all orders be taken to-go. So when we politely ask you if this possible issue is okay and you respond with "No, its not," well, you're just being an ass.
A lot of the issue is, people don't treat people like people. Now I understand that I also am very easily agitated, but there's a lot of common courtesy that people need to remember. I know it's not just me and not just my restaurant that has these issues. So lets start trying to be nicer people, you'd be surprised what could happen.
