Cell Phones - How Much is too Much?

Picture this scenario, you come to a drive-thru window and the cashier is chatting on a cell phone while she takes your money. She only half way pays attention to you. She never says thank you or even come again. Heck, you are not even sure if she made sure she was giving you the right amount of change. How does that make you feel?

Most people would say mad, angry, or just upset. Well the truth of the matter is, that scenario can go either way. Many times customers continue to yak on their cell phones while they order, while they pay, and while they wait. The problem is many times talking on a cell phone can confuse a drive-thru worker. When a person talks on their cell phone at a drive-thru speaker, it is heard over the headset. Many times they are talking about what they want. Often this makes it almost impossible to distinguish an order between a conversation. The worst part, when we ask if the person is ordering, they feel they must bite our heads off for no real apparent reason. We are only trying to do our jobs.

Now, we do not always get our heads bit off by an irate customer who thinks we are trying to eaves drop, but the truth of the matter is, it does happen. If the tables were switched we would probably get in to severe trouble. Now, I realize you are paying for your food which turns into money in our pockets, but if you want your order to be right make sure you keep the lines of communication open. When you do not give us your undivided attention things can get lost in translation. Our language is different than yours. We have to input orders in a certain way. Some items we do not keep on a hot hold system. We have to have time to holler these orders back. Sometimes we even use different words because rice and fries can sound a lot alike when you have an exhaust hood and shortening sizzling.

When you get to the window and ignore the presence of a fast food employee because you have to talk on your cell phone it can be very irritating. Our raises often depend on the speed we can serve our customers at. When you take forever because you are not paying attention it creates a bottleneck effect. In busy hours, this bottleneck can grow, and when we start to fall behind on one single car, even if we do have food ready, we get behind because we have no place to put our boxes when we are waiting on you. If you are slow because of an inconvenience, that is fine, but if you are attributing to the problem then that makes a fast food worker angry. This effect created can last for as long as 15 minutes.

This is not a hard thing to do, it is simple courtesy. You expect us to be off our phones so you should have the decency to do the same thing. It is not just for our sake it is for yours too. Serving a person who gives you their full attention is much easier than serving a person who is giving you little to none. This will help you get the correct order and the correct change back.