For two years now, I have had the wonderful opportunity of working the drive-thru for multiple fast food places. What many people see as "the window where I go, and then get food, and then I drive away" is actually ran by human beings. There is a way to behave in a drive-thru, and below are some guidelines for how to behave during your next drive-thru visit.

1. Please refrain from ordering food for your family of ten in the drive-thru.

Yes, I understand that "there is nobody behind you", but most places actually have a timer that starts ticking the second you pull up to the menu board. If you're going to order meals for your entire family of ten, please, just come inside, unless the lobby is closed. In that case, I don't mind you, as long as you're not one of those idiots who orders tons of food and expects it to be finished in thirty seconds. But, if the lobby is not closed, and you come into the drive-thru lane to order for your large group, you're going to screw with our "speed of service" time, because frankly, it's not easy to make dinner for multiple people in under 2 minutes or less. Besides, what if someone does pull behind you? Would you want to wait for the Brady Bunch to get their feast, or would you want to just get your coffee and get out? I'm going to assume the latter, but if you enjoy waiting for a long time in a drive-thru for some reason, understand that most people do not and try to be courteous.

2. But, if you do happen to be waiting for a long time...

Okay, so I totally understand that you are a human being, too. Yes, I have waited for fifteen agonizing minutes to receive my McNuggets. I was already tired, and it made me frustrated. However, I did not feel the need to lean out of my car and bang on the window, scream, or start a scene. Honey, food that is over-processed, greasy, and unhealthy just simply is not worth spiking your blood pressure even more than your large fry will. I understand that it can be frustrating, but often times when your food is slow, the restaurant is understaffed. Understand that while this is a 'fast food' restaurant, there are still human beings working to prepare your food. Would you like to try and find out how fast you could deliver food to customers when co-worker A called off, co-worker B is already helping the long line inside of the store, and you are working hard to prepare food for a storefront customer who has been waiting for ten minutes? I didn't think so.

Side-note: If "the service is always slow, and all I order is coffee!" then perhaps you should try another place? Constantly going back to a drive-thru with service that does not meet your standards is just silly, come on now.

3. Understand that sometimes it is hard to hear.

Sorry, but I can't hear your mumbling. Or, sometimes, I just misunderstand what you are saying - which is always why I repeat the order back. I was repeating donuts back to a lovely woman who decided to order four dozen donuts in the drive-thru. I'm on dozen number three and I accidentally messed up one donut. She screams that she "guesses she has to start all over now" and reads the donuts back agonizingly slow as if I'm an idiot. So, of course, I feel inclined to read every single donut back to her agonizingly slow, too. Two can play that game, eh? As she drove to the window, the speaker caught her asking her friend, "does it really have to be that hard?" All I wanted to say back was, "Yes, ma'am. You are making this much harder than it needs to be." I'm sorry, but it really isn't that difficult to simply correct the person repeating your order back to you and tell them what they messed up on. There is no need to start the entire order over, and that shouldn't be so difficult to understand.
If your order-taker misunderstands you or can't hear you, honey, you are not under attack. We are not trying to take away your right to artery-clogging food, we just simply cannot hear you. They don't give us a hearing test to determine whether or not drive-thru is the place for us to be, they just kinda slap a headset over our ears and tell us to go for it. So, either tell us what we said wrong when we read your order back or give up and go somewhere else. There is nothing complex about it.

4. There is a certain way to go about ordering.

And please do it this way. Wait until you are greeted. Driving up to the speaker and saying "Hello?" or just simply ordering before you are even greeted is not the way. Chances are, nobody even hears you and you're going to have to start over anyway. After being greeted, speak in a loud voice (but don't scream - some good-intentioned people think they need to scream into the speaker and it hurts, man. Literally. I know you mean well, but you don't gotta be that loud.) Also, speak slowly - but not super slowly to where I feel like you're implying that I'm stupid.
Try this: "Can I get a large coffee, three creams, three sugars?" Then wait for your order-taker to give you some form of acknowledgement, and then order your next item, then the next, and so on.
Understand that ordering by talking really quickly is not going to save you any time, and if you talk really slowly I'm just going to repeat your order back to you painfully slow.

4. Could ya just let me know if you're not ready?

"Hello, how are you?"
*Silence*
"Go ahead whenever you're ready..."
*Silence for another minute*
"Go ahead whenever you're ready.."
"I'M JUST LOOKING!"

Well, if you could have told me that the first time I greeted you, this would be much easier, now wouldn't it? Plus, I'm sorry, but if you didn't catch the memo, people who come in the drive-thru lane usually know exactly what they want and are ready to order. Now, don't get me wrong, it's okay to take a moment to look at the menu, but don't get upset when there is sheer silence for an entire two minutes and I have the audacity to say something. Please just answer me the first time I greet you, tell me that you are looking, and go ahead and read the menu until it is engrained into your mind if you'd like.

Side-note: You get bonus points if you don't shout "HELLO?" when you decide that you are ready to order. I'm not sure why, but something about people doing that irritates my entire being. I am the most bubbly person ever, but I will probably heave a sigh and an eye-roll while my headset is still muted, and then utter an irritated, "Yes?" I mean, do you really think I went anywhere?

5. Understand how a drive-thru works.

I've had people rush past the speaker and straight to the window to order. They'll often times tell me that they couldn't find a speaker. Honey, if you would slow down just a tad, it's literally in plain sight. And, yes, the speaker is working, you just sped past it before I could even finish greeting you. Now, if you're one of the people who understand that there is a speaker, and you must drive slowly up to it, good! Now it's time to order. You don't need to shout "hello?" as this is not a telephone; this is the drive-thru speaker. Remember what I mentioned before about ordering politely. Now, pull forward and go to the window. Remember that beeping, knocking on the window, or abusing your worker in any way is not going to speed things up. Remember that food must be cooked, and you may have to wait longer than two seconds to get your food.

6. This also goes for people in storefront - but LISTEN TO WHAT I AM SAYING.

It is so frustrating when people don't listen. I had a woman order two sausage-bagel breakfast sandwiches. I asked her what kind of bagels she would like.
She heaved a sigh and said slowly, "No, my coupon says breakfast sandwich on an English muffin, bagel, or biscuit. Sausage-egg-and-cheese, or bacon-egg-and-cheese. It says whatever I want."
I replied, "Yes, ma'am. Your coupon does say that, and now you need to pick a bagel. We have plain, four-cheese..." By then she got the message, giggled, and apologized. However, if she had actually listened to the question instead of freaking out and assuming that I was denying her access to her "whatever she wants" breakfast sandwiches, she wouldn't have made herself look like an idiot. Same goes for the man who got to the drive-thru window and decided that he wanted some donut holes. I asked if he'd like them assorted and he shrugged and simply said, "Okay." Silly me, I assumed that meant 'yes', went to get him an assorted box of donut holes, just for him to ask, "Well, wait a minute - what kinds of donut holes do you guys have?" I wanted to facepalm so hard and tell him to just come inside because there was a line of cars waiting while he wasted everyone's time. But, customer service. I kindly listed the donut holes and he was able to accept the box of holes he technically already agreed to.

7. Please, just answer my questions...

With how particular some people can be about their food and coffee ("I want three creams, and HALF a sugar - last time they gave me a WHOLE sugar and it was so sweet I couldn't even drink it! I also need a dome lid, ma'am? Did you hear me? I want a dome lid"), I was surprised that some people get angry when they're too unparticular and I ask questions. "I want a coffee and a donut," they say.
"What size?"
"Um, regular?"
"Any cream or sugar?"
"Um, no?"
"Um, okay. What kind of donut?"
"Um, I don't know, a chocolate one."
"What kind of chocolate donut? A chocolate cake? A glazed donut with chocolate frosting? A-"
"I don't know, any! It's not for me!"
Some guy one time scolded me for asking too many questions... what? I can't get inside your head and guess what you want, and I don't want to deal with you when you come back in and complain that I got your order wrong, even though I'm not sure that you even knew what you wanted. Please, for the love of everything, just tell me what you want. And if you don't know what you want and how you want it, figure that out and come back later. They may train me to take orders and be overly kind, but they don't train me to read minds.

8. Don't try to con me.

One time, some man tried conning us out of $20. He paid with a 100-dollar-bill, I gave him his $80 in change, then he tried saying that I shorted him a twenty. I looked everywhere for it, then asked him to look, and couldn't find it anywhere. The guy behind him drove off after a few minutes. The manager told him she could count the drawer, but it'd be a few minutes.
"Uh, but really? The guy behind us already drove off-" He tried to reason with us as to why we should just fork over a twenty. We stared blankly at him.
"Wow, never mind!" he shouted and sped off, while he and his girlfriend gave us a disgusted look. Hell, if I somehow shorted you that much money, I'd like to make it right. But, you gotta understand that $20 is a lot of money - for you and for a business. I don't know any place that would just take the customer's word for it and fork over a $20 without even checking the drawer first. And if you're going to get upset over that, then you look awfully suspicious, dude.

9. Be nice. Seriously, though.

I remember the guy that screamed in my face one day like I was stupid. I remember his cocky voice and entitled attitude, so I make sure to always give him decaf coffee. Now, I won't seriously mess with your food, but I'll make sure and do little things like give you decaf instead of regular coffee (but never the other way around - you might be an asshole, but I don't really want to be responsible for your possible death), I may accidentally short you a cream or sugar, or one night, at my old job when it was busy and some entitled dude kept yelling at me, I just threw his donuts into the box on top of each other and forked it over. Just be nice, or I'll have to find passive-aggressive ways to be mean back, okay?

10. Understand that your messed up order is not the end of the world

Ah, first world problems. Nah, I'm kidding... kind of. I get it, though. I've had to take back a messed up order back before. It was irritating to sip my iced tea and realize that it wasn't sweetened like I requested it to be. But it didn't kill me. Many people don't really know what to do at this point. Some people will just sit at the window, which just makes them look kind of dumb (no offense, but if I don't have to be at the window, I'm not paying attention to it.) Others will beep, which is also not necessary and is often considered as being rude. Either come inside or just loop back around the drive-thru and let me know at the speaker that your order was messed up and I'll have you come back to the window so I can fix it.
Now that you have my attention, don't be an idiot. Most people get upset. One girl threw a hissy fit because I wouldn't "just give her six more donuts" when I messed up the other six (it escalated, she called and tried to get me fired, and it didn't work, just in case you were curious.) Others will start shouting that "I didn't want this donut - good thing I found out now that you screwed up, I would have been pissed if I got home and saw this!" Yeah, I don't care about how the wrong donut hurt your feelings, or how you feel that you are entitled to get six more donuts for free despite what my store policy says, just tell me what I did wrong, give the mess-up product(s) back, let me fix it, and then you can scadaddle on out, thank you, and have a good night!