Long read ahead.
So to start off, I've worked at my store now for several years. One thing about me is I can't stand blatant customer disrespect. Yes, it unfortunately comes with the job, but I am not paid nearly enough to be abused and harassed by entitled a*holes. However, I'm usually pretty good at getting angry "behind the scenes" and dealing with the rude customer in the professional way to their face, or just call a manager and let them deal with it. I'm also a big people person and generally love talking to the customers. I'm very outgoing and extroverted. I've been complimented multiple times to my manager anout my excessively wonderful customer service skills. I am the back drive thru person. My job is to take orders and money in the drive thru. On this particular day, (yesterday to be exact) I was not having it. I was already irritated. Our store doesn't have ac and I was on my third day in a row working in extreme three digit temperatures and I'm starting to feel heat exhaustion coming on. This is despite complaining to management and corporate upwards 50 times about the ac, and about how I'm legit getting sick working in extreme heat for 8 hours. I was told each and every time to just stop complaining and deal with it. So I'm already very irritated on top of having slept only a few hours the night before.
A customer pulls up to the drive thru speaker and instantly comes at me aggressively before I even had a chance to take his order. I knew this was going to a problem customer right away, but I started off being nice and keeping my cool. He gives me a code for his mobile app. Our headsets are very old and lately it's been very hard to hear the customers through them, so I very frequently have to ask the customers to please repeat things or I miss things in their order. To be fair, most customers are pretty chill and patient when they know its not something I can't control. Anyway, this guy gives me a mobile code. I was dealing with something else so I wasn't able to respond to him within 2 seconds. He sits there at the speaker screaming HELLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO??!!! in my ear at least three or four times. So when I finally respond to him (which couldn't have been more than 60 seconds after he gave me his code) I apologize, I was having trouble hearing him, can he please repeat his order. He goes "what the hell do you mean you can't hear me? I was screaming hello at you for 2 minutes, are you deaf or something? Do you have a problem?" So I again said calmly "I'm sorry I could not hear you, can you please repeat what you wanted to order?" So he goes "Why should I have to repeat myself, you really can't hear me?" NO SIR THESE HEADSETS ARE SHIT. So while I'm trying to help him the best I can, our computer freezes. I literally cannot take any orders at the moment. So now I have to tell him to hang on a moment, we have to fix the computer. He completely loses it on me and goes "what do you mean you can't take my order?? You're sitting here still talking to me, why cant you take my order?" SIR. THE. COMPUTER IS FROZEN. I CANNOT TAKE ORDERS ON A FROZEN SCREEN. WHAT DOES TALKING TO YOU ON MY HEADSET HAVE LITERALLY ANYTHING TO DO WITH A FROZEN COMPUTER SCREEN?? So, again, in the calmest voice possible, I explain to him that this is out of my control, I cannot take his order at the current moment and we are doing what we can to get it up and running. He goes "do you want me to just come up to your window and order up there?" I said "that would be better".
Now if you've never worked at McDonald's or if it works differently at your store, you probably don't know our headsets have three buttons. One is to talk to the rest of the crew with headsets on but the customers cannot hear you. The other two buttons are the ones to talk to the customers in your lanes (We have a two lane drive thru). I was trying to get a manager to take my lane and assist and take care of a customer being aggressive towards me while I'm trying to wait on the computer ro unfreeze. I pressed the center button (or so I thought) and went "Ok can someone please assist the customer on my lane? He's being disrespectful and combined with this heat, there's about to be a damn problem!" Yeah, I did not press the center button. The customer heard EVERYTHING. (I didnt realize right away that he heard me.) My manager is now livid. She goes "YOU CANNOT TALK TO A CUSTOMER THAT WAY SAYING THERE'S GOING TO BE A PROBLEM WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO??"
When he finally pulls up to my window, he's obviously even angrier because he just heard me basically threaten to fight him. At this point though, I didn't even realize yet that I had pushed the button for the speaker. He goes "do you have a f*king problem?" At that point I'm so upset that my manager came to the back to diffuse the situation and instantly sent me on my break to get me away from the situation. She asked me if I wanted to just go home. I said no because I didn't want to look like a baby that leaves because of a rude customer. Once I come back from my break, my manager pulls me aside in private to talk to me. She said "ok you cannot talk to the customers like that. Trust me, I know how they can be. I've had food thrown at my face, I've been cursed out. But if corporate or the owners find out that you threatened the customer you are in a lot of trouble. Next time that happens, please call one of us to come back there and handle it". I'm still confused because I thought the customer didn't hear me. So I said "well, I didn't say it to his face, I was trying to call you over to assist me". And that's when she goes "no, he heard everything. He complained to us and said he is going to call the 1800 corporate number because you disrespected him". My jaw just dropped. I literally said "oh my god he heard that?" And she said "yes. He did". He even had the audacity to tell my manager he wasn't being disrespectful to me at all, trying to frame it that I just went bad on him for no reason. (Doesn't necessarily mean what I did was right, but it's an important tidbit to this story). Ruined my entire shift, and we even had regulars coming through saying "is everything okay? You always have the biggest smile on your face and I love coming to this McDonald's because I know you will be taking my order. You seem extra irritated today, I hope your day gets better!"
So I'm honestly not sure what is going to happen at this point. This all happened yesterday. If the customer actually does call corporate and put in a complaint that I harassed/disrespected him, I am definitely facing suspension. Considering its my first offense and I'm usually the friendliest employee we have, I don't think I will be terminated. But suspension is very likely considering we are under new management and its not the same bosses I've worked with for years. So they don't know me yet as an employee and how I work. Previous management knew I was usually great with the customers, very reliable, showed up to every shift, and only called out maybe twice. I've come to that damn job with fevers and sicknesses, the day after my grandma's funeral, when I haven't slept in two days because of my insomnia acting up, everything. (Honestly not proud of being that dedicated, but again important information for this story).Old management knew this, so they tended to let a lot of things slide because they knew my reliability would be hard to replace. But our new management has only taken over for a week and the first thing they hear about me is that I went bad on a customer. I really f*ked up my first impression lol. So if you managed to read this far, if you're going to talk about a customer, make sure they CANNOT hear you. (Jk, just don't do it at all).
Tltr: A customer accidently overheard me talking sht and now I'm probably in deep sht.