The ugly side of working in fast food

Published on December 14, 2004 By The Zanmato Shadow In Misc

Now, those who have read my first blog already know that I work at K.F.C (For about 1 year now). And although it isn't necessarily the worst job ever, It is most certainly more challenging than one would be led to believe. Therefore, I will be creating a multi part article "series" about this often misunderstood aspect of our society. I believe that a good place to start is with customers and the difficulty of dealing with them.

I would like to start by stating that I do not dislike all customers; but there are certain customer types that make my job far more difficult than it has to be:

1) The Rambler: This customer has absolutely no clue what they want, but they are more than content with incoherently trying to order. Yet they wouldn't dream of actually, I don't know, THINKING about what they want or reading the menu.

2) The Fast Food Genius: This customer will actually argue with you about what comes with their meal or how much it costs. They even argue about what products said restaurant carries. Ridiculous.

3) The Connousseur: This customer will complain if the food is even remotely unfresh or if they feel it is "no good". This is especially selfish when it is unbelievably busy. By the way, it isn't like we find gross food to give to the customer.

There are more customer types, but I will discuss this in the next article. That is all for now. Any comments are welcome.

Comments

Skarny

on Dec 14, 2004

What does actually constitute something worthy of complaining about at a FF restaurant? I sometimes get my KFC burger and think, you know, it really isn't a heck of a lot like that picture up there. For one thing my lettuce doesn't even appear to be a couple of leafs neatly put on it. Instead it looks like someone grabbed a half handful of *shredded lettuce* and plonked it on....usually all on one side so it promplty falls out. It's just I find those piccies very deceptively attractive. All the boxes of chips show delicious golden chippies vertically sticking out about an inch above the boxes edges, but my box is always closed, the chips all squashed in sideways and hodgepodge, and often a large gap below the box 'lid' where there aint no potatoe at all...I did take one of these boxes back once and asked if I could have it filled. I could see the clockwork, 'Had I just eaten half the box and come back for more?' But she took it off of me, and just so I could feel a little less like I was being a horrible picky bastard I watched to see how much more chips she could get in the box, and it was a sizeable amount I must say.

At MacDonalds I frequently find my burger hard and crusty and luke warm. Usually I'll accept a zap, but crustiness has to go, so I'd ask for another burger....and again, I never find the letture satifying, or the cheese or pickles...they just sorta seem...so 'splat'.

Hungry Jacks I quite like, but the tomatoes in the pictures look hard and fresh. I get chopped tomatoe sometimes, and its all sorta squishy something reminisce of 'rotten', though I'm sure it's not....

I understand that fast food is already very impressive with its serving times, I have a measure of patience unlike some of the people I've seen being served who think that food can just pop up in 15 seconds. Cooking takes time. I would prefer to wait a few more minutes to receive a nicely done meal than a rushed instant stuff up.

Another thing I've noticed is incorrect orders. I also understand these, but 100% of the times an order has been incorrect, whether the server has been polite or not, they've never waited to see if I am happy enough with whats arrived anyway...I think they should wait and see if a person understands that food not ordered is almost always discarded because it's not 'correct' to save it for someone elses order..and that they might be happy to just take whats come...

I also think there should be a 'come back' line. where after ordering, if there are any issues you can go to a line and it is known you have a short request. instead of having to line back up again and wait and wait, just to get a spoon. I think this will be interesting topic Zanmato. I like the idea of knowing what really goes on, and real life solutions/situations being discussed.

Texas Wahine

on Dec 14, 2004

YOU'RE the one who always spits in my cole slaw, aren't you?

mada_ecks

on Dec 14, 2004

You have to think about the term "fast food". Is it really going to look like the picture? No. Why? Cause it's fast food. Now at a sit down restaurant you get a nice pretty burger. But, it depends on where you go. At a fast food place, you might get anything. I really don't have any complaints about fast food restaurants, expecially K.F.C., which I think is awesome. I don't see why people should complain about it, people make mistakes at any job, but when it comes to food, ti seems that most people tend to take it personal.

I've seen some people fly off the handle when there order gets messed up or the food isn't as good as it should be. I understand costumers who make "POLITE" suggestions and try to be helpful, as opposed to the ones who try to put on a show for everyone in the establishment. The ones who get all pissed off when their order isn't right. I mean people fuck up. It's a part of life. Deal with it. You shouldn't take it out on some poor clerk because he or she forgot to but that extra burger in the bag. That's stupid. I see it all the time. With that being said, I have respect for people who work in fast food or work in a restaurant, 'cause, they take shit all day from people they don't even know, and yet, they still have to be professional. I can kinda' relate, I used to work in retail.

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