I Work(ed) in a Restaurant, and Now I Understand...

[IrishLake]

My very first ever job with a real paycheck (I had baby sat, mucked stalls, and given lessons before, but that was under the table cash) was at an ice crem stand. I was 15. It was in a not so great part of town, but I wanted to work there because the owner of the shop was a lady who lived around the corner from my house and I babysat for her as well.
For one, I did not like the people I worked with, and they hated me. One older girl (19) made my life a living hell because my 4-H project beat hers out the year before. She thought she should have won based on senority alone. And she hated me because I was tight with the owners, and she aspired to be. All of the other girls hated me because I went to the Catholic high school, and they went to public school. They thought I was snobby and stuck up, when in reality they were. Working with them made things bad enough.

The worst thing I can remember is when a car pulled through the drive thru one day. There was a massively obese woman driving and she had about 7 kids in her little car, all of them unbuckled. She ordered tons of hot food and ice cream both. First she ranted and raved about the cost. Her order was like $40, and she kept insisting that it should only be $20. Not when you order that much damn food! I had to do the math on a calculator right in front of her. She finally nixed a few things off her order, and gave me $30... out of her bra. Ew. We finally got all her food out, and the last thing we had to give her was her extra large pineapple shake. Now, we had a policy posted right on the window "Shake and malts flavors can be made with real fruit upon request for an additional charge." We normally just used a flavor based syrup for shakes and malts and such, and the real fruit topping was reserved for sundaes. So I handed her her massive shake, and she left. Ten minutes later, she's back in the drive through screaming about hwo we did NOT give her a pineapple shake. I immediately assumed that I messed up and used banana flavoring instead. My mistake, so I made her another and made sure to use pineapple flavor. I took it to her, and once again she started screaming that "This is not fucking pineapple!!!!" So I asked her why she thought it wasn't pineapple, and she said "there's no little pieces of pineapple in it!" So I pointed out our policy clearly posted on the window sign, and she freaks out again. So I tell her to never mind the charge, and I take her shake and go put a heaping scoope of pineapple topping in it, and mix it up again. I handed it to her, she took a drink, and it must have been ok because she nodded and just drove away.
Little did I know that she thought I was messing with her. Another five minutes later, her massive self was out of the car, in front of the shop, and she throws the shake at the front windows. We had milkshake allllllll over the place outside, some of it coming through the little screen windows and she's screaming her head off.... One of the chicks insisted that I had to go outside and calm her down. Um... NO! Finally, another customer yelled at us to call the police. She heard the guy, screamed at him, but went back to her car full of kids and took off, never to be seen from again.