And...the first thing you do after paying before driving away is CHECK YOUR ORDER!
It's not because of honesty issues it's because of incompetence.
There have been times when I've pulled up to a sonic and thought I should just push the red button and tell them to bring me something, cause I ain't gonna get what I order anyway.
Meh, they're HS kids. What's frustrating is they don't have a competent person on staff to train them to properly fill orders. I don't get upset with the kids, but I doubt being a manager pays enough to get a competent person to stay there for any length of time anyway. It's fast food. I generally feel pretty lucky if they just don't spit on my hamburger before they bring it.
I don't know what the solution really is, because nobody wants to pay 12 bucks for a crappy fast food burger either, and if you're paying 3-4 managers $50k+ a year to run your hamburger stand, you probably need that in order to make the place work financially. I do not envy restaurant or food service owners. It's a tough way to make a living. As many hours as some of those places are open, I'm not sure 3-4 managers could cover all the shifts.
It's probably really rare that you find a HS kid slinging hash part time to earn gas & date money that is really interested in producing a quality product and good customer service. Having pride in what you do to earn your check is about as dead as dinosaurs. Hell, where I've been for 37 years we've got 30 somethings running multiple million $ stores that don't care about customer service either, and they're making $70-$100k a year.
The work force's current mentality has passed me by. I'm retiring in January, and I'm not sure I can make it until then.
edit to add - and right now, labor has the upper hand. You can't fire anyone unless they do something egregious, and even then you'll probably think twice about it.
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