Monday Mayhem

Why do people need to order such weird shit? I worked a split shift on Monday, so that meant I got to spend one shift cooking burgers and the other cooking stir fry. Working one shift alone can test my patience to the breaking point, but two? Here's how my adventuresome day progresses:

Customer: Yeah, I want a mushroom Swiss.

I start making it.

Customer: No, I want American cheese.

I throw away the Swiss cheese I assumed was required and grab a slice of American.

Customer: No, I need bacon on that too.

I throw the American cheese away as well, solely out of frustration, add the bacon, and then a new slice of cheese.

Customer comes back five minutes after she leaves with her burger.

Customer: Yeah, I need mustard.

At this point I am about ready to throw my spatula across the dining room. Somehow I'm expected to read fucking minds while getting paid not even $8.00 an hour. Somehow, even though a mushroom Swiss burger is a burger with mushrooms and Swiss cheese on top, I'm expected to know that when you ordered a mushroom Swiss burger, you REALLY wanted a BACON CHEESEBURGER with AMERICAN CHEESE and MUSHROOMS added. Good grief.

Keep in mind that this shit happens nonstop during a lunch rush, making me want to kill someone, namely, myself.

On Monday night it was better, mostly because I got to work with one of my friends and it's generally a more laid-back setting than the other place. We got to turn up the radio and stand back by the grills talking while we were waiting for customer orders to come through.

I do have a few messages for said customers, however. Mainly:

STOP THROWING OUT THE RECEIPTS!!!! Technically we don't have to give you your food when you come to pick it up because you have zero evidence that you actually paid. I just give it to you anyway and yell at you for it so I don't have to deal with temper tantrums.

STOP BEING ANNOYING ABOUT YOUR ORDERS!!! I don't like giving you rice in a separate container. It throws off our entire awesome system. Why would you order just shrimp with no sauce, rice or vegetables??? You're paying the full price for it. Oh well, it's your money, not mine.

READ THE NUMBERS WHEN YOU COME TO PICK UP YOUR FOOD!!!! You don't even have to read any words, just match the number on your receipt with the number on your box of food! But because you people keep grabbing the wrong orders, I or one of my coworkers has to make sure everyone grabs the right order! One of these days a vegetarian customer is going to open up a box full of steaming hot shrimp and learn their lesson (and I'm going to laugh my ass off as I bet money this has actually happened before).

Cleaning a steaming hot grill at the end of the night, with hot soapy water and all kinds of nasty, disgusting, greasy shit is like the icing on the cake. My hands are on fire but I just scrub as quickly as I can, grit my teeth, and bear the pain because the sooner I can see myself in that grill surface, the sooner I can go the fuck home and do it again tomorrow.