Those who have ever worked at Dunkin’ Donuts just collectively sighed heavily when they read that title. We know the life all too well. I’m sure specific things come to mind. Let’s all join together and recall a few of the struggles and miseries that makeup the Dunks life.

Let’s start with the customers since sometimes they are easily one of the main sources of misery. Now don’t get me wrong; every store has its regulars that are the nicest people and are a joy to have as customers, but there is also a large portion of customers that make you want to quit your job on the spot.

There’s the customers that think your drive-thru speaker just doesn’t work so they scream into it and make you question whether or not you can still hear anything in the ear your headset is on...until they scream the next part of their order. You’re reassured you can in fact still hear them loud and clear. Sometimes you have nightmares about them.

Since it’s summertime, coolattas and smoothies are the big thing. We all have that one customer at least two or three times per week that orders at least five coolattas in the drive thru when you only have one minute and twenty seconds to make their entire order. Oh and then they order multiple sandwiches on top of that. Please come inside to avoid holding up the entire drive-thru.

Next is the equipment we merely tolerate every day. Nowadays we have the lovely addition of the smoothie machine that makes smoothies at the pace of a snail. Oh joy. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the machines that make up Dunkin’ Donuts, they have such specific cleaning schedules that they automatically turn off and stop working if you don’t clean them right away on the day they need to be cleaned. This is certainly not ideal when there’s a drive-thru line six cars long. Let the unmeasured dairy pours and soupy coolattas begin.

Of course, we all have Dunks to thank for odd new habits that you yourself question. For the openers that get to work essentially in the middle of the night, when you’re so tired that all of the day is the morning when you greet customers. It could be five in the afternoon and you’ll still say, “Good morning, what can I get for you?”

Then there’s always the good ol' drive-thru phrases you say to customers at the front counter like, “Please drive up to the window.” That one was my go-to for the entirety of my employment at Dunkin’ Donuts. The added bonus was when the customer standing in front of you either looked super confused or just laughed at you. I got laughed at frequently. My favorite habit that should have stayed at work but didn’t had to be answering my cell phone and with “Hi, what can I get for you?” after working full-time for a couple months.

So here’s to all the people who have or still are living the Dunks life. I feel your pain and will remember it for the rest of my life. Since National Donut Day has just passed, I hope you all pulled through and survived the mass of towering donut carts. Keep slingin’ coffees and sandwiches, all day every day.