Okay y’all, I’ve come to terms with it: people are awful.

I’m just kidding—but in all seriousness, working in customer service helped me realize how absurd some people can be. But it’s also made me realize how I can spread joy and kindness in someone’s day with just a couple words.

So I work at Chick-fil-A. And while I am so happy I have a job, I love my coworkers, and I enjoy the free food, some customers just make me want to scream.

What do you mean you want 60 Chick-fil-A sauces? What do you mean you don’t want any sauces? What do you MEAN you want a cup carrier for your SINGLE kid’s size sweet tea?!

Let’s just say that some people are…interesting.

Anyways. Let me just start off by saying: I have gained a lot of respect for those who work with people like this every day. I mean, I only do it twice a week and by the end of the night I’m exhausted and want three hours where nobody comes near me.

But let’s just say that I have enjoyed working and interacting with strangers! One day I’d been having a not-so-great day and this girl and her grandma came up to order a second time and ordered ice cream cones and the girl told me, “By the way, I just wanted to say that I think you’re really pretty.”

Her grandma told me, “When we were walking to our table earlier, she told me, “She is so pretty!” and wanted to tell you that.”

It totally made my day and I made sure that their cones were very big and swirly.

A couple other times, I’ve had funny conversations with customers about livermush and why on earth I should try it, the fact that I used the wrong lever and gave them an ice cream cone with milkshake ice cream instead of the regular ice cream, and our favorite Christmas movies. (Mine is White Christmas by the way.)

But as I’ve had some very pleasant interactions with customers, I’ve certainly had some…distasteful ones as well.

Other than the thirty year-old guys hitting on me in the drive-thru, nobody’s been a total creep. But a car filled with packs of weed in the back? Um…yeah, no thanks.

There’s been some people who are curt with me, which I understand, but some people who are just downright sassy. For example: I don’t really care how much you desperately want your ketchup in your to-go bag, there’s a condiment stand over there where you can put your ketchup in. I have a line of customers, please move.

But I thought you might want to hear some of the stories I’ve collected over the past couple of weeks. (And I assure you: there will be more.)

The first story is definitely the most…memorable. (My dad asks me to tell it literally every time we have friends or family over.)

I was still in training and this was probably my second week. I was closing, and that meant I had to clean the restaurant and bathrooms and restock random stuff. The girl who was training me told me that we were going to clean the bathrooms next.

And what happened was something that will scar me for the rest of my life.

We had our cleaning stuff spread out across the counter and a Wet Floor sign in the open doorway—kinda to communicate, “DON’T COME IN HERE, NO MATTER HOW BADLY YOU HAVE TO PEE” in a kind, gentle, Chick-fil-A-mannered way.

Well…this lady, bless her heart, walks through the bathroom door with her earbuds in and her phone in front of her face. She probably didn’t even see us (or didn’t care) and she strode right into the stall that I was about to clean.

But then. (And if you’re not the kind of person who is a crude, fart-joke kind of person, then I suggest you leave. Because otherwise you’re not going to find this story as funny as you should.)

Me and the girl cleaning hear a loud…

And then comes the part that my dad loves. The girl training me says—and not quietly whatsoever:

I stared at her and inside I was screaming, “WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT OUT LOUD AND SO LOUDLY?!?!? THE BATHROOM ECHOES!!!”

Then some other lady appeared in the doorway and said, “Is it okay if I use the bathroom?”

At this point, go right ahead. Nothing you do will be worse than what Miss Stare-At-Her-Phone could be doing.

So me and my trainer leave the bathroom since we literally have just the stalls left to clean. (And also we’re technically supposed to leave the bathroom if we’re cleaning and someone uses it.)

We wait outside the bathroom, assuming these ladies will be done in a minute or two. The second lady is and she walks out, thanking us. But the first lady is not.

Eventually—after a few minutes—we’re like, “Okay, let’s go do some other chores.”

Fifteen minutes later, we finish those chores. She’s still in the bathroom. At this point, we don’t have anything else to do—the mens’ bathroom is clean, the condiment stand is restocked, behind the counter is clean, dishes are cleaned, and the womens’ bathroom is…probably disgusting.

We wait. And then we hear a beautiful—and slightly terrifying—sound: the toilet flushing.

We eagerly await her bathroom departure but she doesn’t come. Me and my trainer stare at each other in disbelief. (My mom says it was a courtesy flush.)

Another ten minutes, she walks out. And I say quietly, “Maybe we should wait a minute before going in?”

But we face the dragon and walk into the bathroom, holding our breath in anticipation (and fear of something unpleasant.)

Now, my trainer—she makes me mad—told me to clean the stall that had been occupied for 30 minutes. So I put on a brave face and some gloves, armed myself with cleaning spray and a rag, and walked into the stall to find….

Nothing.

Absolutely,

Literally,

Nothing.

That woman must have been scrolling for a while because our assumptions on what she’d been doing must have been wrong.

The other day, we also had team member appreciation week and each day we got to dress up, according to the theme. I got to work on pj day and y’all—I bought me some Bluey pj’s just for that. (I’d been wanting them for a while, so it wasn’t just a random choice I made.)

Now let me tell you. The amount of compliments I got from customers—so many. Everybody loved my pjs and I’m pretty proud of myself for choosing them.

But they weren’t just fun pjs to wear—they were great conversation starters. Lots of people either had kids or little siblings or grandkids who watch it or enjoyed watching it themselves. (I see you—I’m one of y’all.)

There were a lot of really sweet people who I got to have conversations with while they waited for their food.

Anyways.

Like I said, working in customer service has also helped me achieve a sense of understanding when I’m outside of work.

The other day after church, me, my dad, and Boone were at lunch. Boone spilled his water and I mean, it’s just water. But somebody has to clean it up, whether it’s just water or a bottle of wine, you know?

I told Dad, “We should just leave it there without telling the waitress because I just LOVE to find spilled drinks on the floor randomly and having to clean it up.”

(For my non-sarcastic people—that was very much sarcasm.)

So working at CFA has helped me gain a better understanding of empathy for those serving me—it’s freaking stressful serving demanding people, y’all, and I had no idea.

(It’s even more stressful when a bus full of a cute baseball team walks in and you have to take their orders while they say please and thank you really sweetly.)

Anyways, that’s my last-minute Tuesday post. Yesterday I was supposed to write a bunch of posts to schedule for ahead of time (including today) but I was painting my room all yesterday so, you guys get a very non-serious post.

Thanks for reading!

~Willow

P.S. Have any of you guys worked in customer service? Any interesting (or horrifying) stories?? I’d love to hear them in the comments!