My first job was at Wendy's, I started roughly ten months ago. I can say it has been the longest job I have had and definitely the hardest one. While working in fast food, you learn some valuable lessons. Here are a few things I learned while working at Wendy's:
1. Customers MUST be pleased, even if they are absurd.
You learn to know the feeling of being wrong, when a customer comes to get a sandwich remade because you clicked "no mayo" instead of "no mustard." But there are those customers that frustrate you even more because they wait ten minutes before they eat their fries, they come up and say their fries are cold, and you have to get them hot fries.
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2. There will be crazy conversations late at night.
Conversations can get a little funky late at night, especially when it's a slow night. Whether the conversation is about how the pickles taste different or the ice cream shop your going to open up, you learn to accept these conversations into night shifts.
3. The word "slow" should never be said.
Slow is about the worst word you could say while working, because the next thing that usually happens is awful: A sport's team two buses pull in, and drive-thru ends up wrapped around the building.
4. You cherish friendship.
I always helps you shift go by if the people that you are working with are your friends. You get to laugh and make fun of each other and then turn around and yell for taking to long, because your drive thru time is over 200 seconds.
Also, if your lucky you find someone who is more important than any other worker their: your manager. My manager is my "partner in crime," we keep each other motivated, we almost kill each other everyday, laugh until you cant breathe, we complain about customers and we begin to read each others' minds. I also forget how much she does for me. Thank you Keila for keeping me excited to come to work everyday.
5. Minimum wage isn't fair.
You realize halfway into your first hour when you're running around trying to get orders out of the window that you have only gotten paid $3.75 for it. Honestly you probably earn $7.25 in the first ten minutes of running a drive-thru by yourself.
6. You learn about customer patterns.
You remember that when a particular car is turning in, you have their order ready before they come in. If they get double cooked fries, you yell to double cook some fries. It's just what you do to keep them coming back.
7. Glasses are the worst.
Wearing glasses while running the drive-thru when it's humid out is almost as bad as leaving the walk-in fridge after a few minutes. Also you learn to not bother cleaning them until after your shift. If you clean them, five minutes later they are dirty.
Honestly, you know it's not the worst job, but only when you are dealing with a mad customer and a full drive-thru behind them. You learn to love the regular customers who remind you how important your job is. Also, you gain new friendships that will last a lifetime. You could probably go for another job somewhere else, but you can't leave your family (crew).
