Skip to main content
What were some of the worst experiences you have had while working in the fast food industry?
- Literally had a 17 year old kid die in my arms.
I was 19 and working at KFC in a bit of a a rough area. It was a quiet day shift so there were only 3 staff and no customers in the store at the time. A young couple, who looked pretty fucked up, walked in and went straight to the bathrooms.
After some time, the girl came out screaming for help. She said her boyfriend had gone into the bathroom to the use heroin and he was not responding and was inside the locked men’s room.
My manager called an ambulance while I tried to get the door open. Couldn’t kick it down like Chuck Norris, so I went and grabbed some tools and finally got it open.
Found the kid, blue and cold on the floor. His pulse was faint. There was a syringe next to him. He had blood in his mouth so I couldn’t make mouth to mouth contact and started administering chest compressions. The whole time his girlfriend was screaming at me to save him.
I feel like I could sense the moment he had passed. The ambulance came within a few minutes but there was nothing they could do.
His mother came a few days later to apologise and thank us for trying to save him. There was some police questioning and plenty of nightmares. It was been about 17 years and I still think about it often.
— Ocarina-Of-The-Wild
- I was working at a pub shortly after college. During the evenings, things would always get pretty stressful and hectic. People would be snapping at each other, or saying mean things, or arguing, or whatever. Pretty standard stuff in a high stress situation like that.
One day, though, in the middle of dinner, the other cook (my immediate manager, but not the restaurant manager) apparently just had a bad night. He'd been getting progressively more agitated all night (not with me, luckily). Suddenly, a waitress came back and complained that one of her tables was complaining because the food was cold. First, the manager responded by telling her that if she'd come get her orders when they were done, they wouldn't be cold, but when she made some comment back, he snapped.
He picked up a hot pan from the stove, and I was terrified for a second that he was going to throw it at her. Instead, he swung it at hard as he could at the entire stack of clean plates and knocked almost all of them off the table, shattering them on the floor. Then he literally tore off his apron and stormed out, but not before knocking a tray of full out of another watiress's hands.
Weirdly enough, the store manager was going to let him keep his job if he'd admit being out of line. She brought him in during lunch the next day to talk to him, and instead of apologizing, he smashed a coffee cup against the wall and left.
All told, it was probably for the best.
— Lindvaettr
- I had a rough looking guy in a beat-up truck try to use 1 year old coupons. I refused to take them. That was a mistake. He held up the drive thru and screamed and screamed at me. Including "smarten up son, or you're going nowhere in life".
Made me feel like shit until I realized that someone like that who is screaming those things at a 15 year running the drive thru, did not go anywhere in life.
— inosilic
- I worked at Starbucks and a woman ordered her coffee at 140 degrees in the drive thru. She walks back in the cafe after pulling out and complains that her coffee was 139 degrees because she has a thermometer in her car and she demands it be remade. I laughed at her and asked if she was joking and she demanded to see my manager. My manager remade it but I didn’t get in any trouble. She was ridiculous but Starbucks’ policy is to remake anything if a customer asks for it.
Another time there was a long wait during rush hour in the morning and I apologized to a guy that it was taking a long time to get his white mocha to him. He glared at me and yelled, “you don’t really mean you’re sorry!” and refused to be cordial. He continued to look at me with disdain for the next few minutes. It made me super sad at the time. I really was sorry! Asshole. I learned not to be affected by shitty people so much as I got older.
— blatently_blunt
- Worked at Wendy's for two weeks. Wasn't bad until someone spread shit all over the men's restroom and they wanted me to clean it up. It was on the ceiling, toilet, all the walls. Like someone had a poopconfetti bomb. Just rubber gloves no mask. I said fuck it and quit.
— UsedPickle
- I was a waitress at a pizza place and an older man and woman flagged me over and they just start yelling at me going on and on that they found metal in their food. And she's showing me and yelling and I am trying to apologize and saying we can make you a new pizza, I am sorry, I have no idea where it came from. After several minutes of yelling the man gets quiet and he goes "oh, I lost a filling". Then they tried to be all nice and laugh it off. I just wanted to say screw you for treating me like crap.
— semichaels
- While working at Panera Bread, this lady came up to the counter to order Broccoli and cheese soup and we were out. Upon hearing this she goes THEN WHY IS IT ON THE MENU, WHY IS IT ON THE MENU, WHY IS IT ON THE MENU THIS IS FUCKIN BULLSHIT I CAME OUT MY HOUSE FOR THIS SOUP AND YALL THE ONLY PANERA WITHIN DRIVING DISTANCE FOR ME WHY IS IT ON THE MENU. 16 year old me was the only person at the counter and I started laughing and the lady just got even more upset and eventually we had to call the cops and she struck one officer and I got to witness another officer flip her clean over a booth
— Smashrican
- Worked at McD's as my first job at 15. Worst thing I probably saw was one of the guys working the fryer tripped and when he reached out to stop himself falling, he ended up with half of his hand in the fry oil. I think the entire store heard my "OH SHIT".
— itstinkskid
- Naked people while delivering pizza. Sounds sexy in the porno's, tends to be horrifying in real life.
— hinowisaybye
- I worked at McDonald’s part-time while I was in college. One day, I was working the drive-through, and this guy ordered a lot of drinks. One of them was low on soda syrup, but instead of just telling me about it like a rational person so I could give him a replacement drink, he threw the extra large drink at me. Of course the lid came off and I was soaking wet.
The manager, who was actually pretty good as far as fast food managers go, saw this happen. He took off running into the parking lot, flagged down the driver before he could leave, and told him to never come back. Then he came back in, found me a dry uniform shirt, and let me have a few minutes on the clock to sit in the break room and calm down.
— Trinkers
- I had a guy overdose and die in the bathroom while managing at Carl's Jr. I was told to close the lobby but keep the drive through open. It was weird pooping where a dude died.
— brokedownpussywagon
- I was a carhop at Sonic drive-in through most of high school. I was the only guy that was able to use the roller skates. An extremely creepy old man in a vehicle that might as well have been in a scrap yard called me back to his car after I started to go back inside. Gave me a $15 tip because "that ass needed a second look".
— Scereno
- McD's was my first job at 16yo, and I was hired just prior to the Beanie Baby Happy Meal toys.
Lines out the door, crazy women demanding we get them a certain toy, impatient and shitty people. People would say degrading shit like mentioning I was working for min wage if they felt I wasn't working fast enough. People suck.
On a related note, my mom used to collect them: there was a line for a store that sold the Beanie Babys like it was Black Friday or some shit..a guy got pissed at my mom because she saw him cut in line and she wasn't having it -- other people there supported my mom in what became an argument. The guy threatened my mom, alluding to him killing her.
Dude leaves and my mom returns to a car that's been keyed to shit..it's a smaller town but I was [surprised to see the incident in the local paper.](https://imgur.com/8hTDvgJ)
— loztriforce