Recently, I waited over 20 minutes for my order at Mcdonalds and as I waited, I saw a couple of boys yell at one of the staff running by, demanding their food. One of the employees gave them a weird look and the chefs in the back were cooking really fast, looking very stressed out. Customers can get impatient or angry and even threaten the workers while waiting for their food. Seeing the workers being treated like that made me believe that incidents like this and maybe even worse happen more often than we would like to think.
Camera footage in restaurants has caught impatient customers doing some of the most unbelievable things. One incident recorded a restaurant worker getting attacked by an impatient customer. In short, the restaurant was dealing with problems that slowed their pace in cooking and serving customers and customers had to wait more time to get their food. One man was super impatient and attacked a worker there because he didn’t get his food yet. The manager was pregnant and couldn’t deal with the problem, so the workers were on their own. The victim got hurt physically and mentally, having nightmares of the incident ultimately making him miserable.
Another incident recorded Little Caesar’s pizza workers getting threatened with an AK-47 demanding to hurry the pizza. There were five witness reports coming from Little Caesar’s reporting that there was a man with a gun threatening the lives of the employees who were making his pizza. The suspect also demanded free breadsticks since his order was taking too long. According to the employees, the wait time for the pizza to be finished was 10 minutes but that must have been too long.
Fast food workers have to deal with a lot just to get minimum wage depending on which state they are in but generally $15 an hour. On top of this, some employees have been overworked and not compensated resulting in fast-food companies being sued.
It is really important to talk about how badly fast-food workers are treated. A lot of people don’t care about the employees and treat them horribly. This kind of workspace can lead to a lot of problems and make them want to quit. Being in a good workspace can lead to good health and you will feel less miserable. The whole idea of fast food workers is treated with more disrespect. People are often told if you don’t succeed in school you will end up working in a fast food restaurant, living from paycheck to paycheck, and will have a hard time picking yourself up from it. People who usually work in fast food are people who are just getting started working (teenagers or college students), working to make extra cash. When customers see people working in restaurants, some think they failed in life and aren’t worth anything if they are not making that much money. I have never worked in a restaurant and have to deal with impatient customers but I admire their dedication because most people would most likely quit.
Customers’ impatience comes from a false sense of power since they are paying for something cheap they think that it should be done quickly and easily. The company makes money from their open restaurants and if the workers there are affecting the pay negatively, they’re fired so the customers have more power in the industry. It’s the way customers use this power to get what they want that’s very negative.
Companies take little care of their employees and in the specific case that something did happen to their employees they wouldn’t care at all. They don’t have to care because their company is so big if an employee gets fired, they can just replace that person with another and repeat the cycle. Fast food workers don’t get paid enough to deal with getting yelled at and working underarm stress for hours, every day. Companies really don’t care about their employees and workers going through burnout.
Impatient customers are annoying to deal with as an employee and only make the working experience worse for anyone who is getting started with working or is just there to have some sort of income and just about every fast food employee out there. Every worker should be treated with respect. Wait for your order even if they are experiencing problems. We need to be patient because all of us are going through obstacles and making someone’s life difficult when they are trying to make a living is not cool! Being patient helps workers stay mentally healthy and will benefit you as well.
