Over the summer, for the past three months I’ve been working at a Dunkin’. Mainly to earn some money for school but also for the experience as well. Before working at Dunkin’, I worked two other jobs in the past. First, during my senior year of high school, I worked as a Bingo Hall employee for 7 months until the pandemic hit. Then I worked as a grocery store cashier/dairy clerk in the summer going into my first semester of college. While working these jobs were both good experiences, I decided during the winter break after my first semester to work in the fast-food industry. Last December, I applied to a Dunkin’ nearby my hometown and was hired right at the end of December.
Before I got the job, I assumed the job would be easy. My thought process was, “Oh, it’s just making coffee and getting paid”, which technically was the main focus of the job but it wasn’t as simple as I might’ve hoped. On my first day, I was introduced to a whole new system and had to figure out how to take orders fast enough to keep the line moving. The Dunkin’ I worked at had both the eat-in and the drive-through, which made the job a little bit more complicated, especially when we were short-staffed. During the winter, I worked for less than a month, mainly because I had to go back to school at the end of January. During those few weeks of working, it didn’t seem too bad but also, I was still new and was adjusting myself with the criteria.
When my spring semester was over, I came back to the Dunkin’ I worked at. That is when I realized how difficult the job can really be. While the first month coming back was all good and well, as time went on, things really got difficult. It has been very nice seeing my old coworkers again and meeting new ones along the way, but at the same time, I did not miss the stress of working. It’s straightforward to say that the work is very easy but the amount of work we have to do is the difficult part. From a customer’s perspective, you can assume that we just take orders and make coffee but nope, we constantly have to clean, deal with rude customers, keep everything stocked, and have everything prepared quick enough to keep the line moving. Sometimes, it can be overwhelming and there had been shifts where I worked with just two other people during the day and ran all over the place to get the orders done.
Not only did we struggle to get the orders done quickly, but we also had to deal with rude customers who are not always understanding at times. What I mean by that is when it clearly shows that we’re very busy, customers constantly yell at us to get their order made. We also happen to get yelled at when we don’t have what they want to order. Some have said that they will call corporate because we don’t have the specific drink or food item they wanted. Working in fast food does make you want to lose your patience and can be exhausting as well.
There are days where it gets super busy during the day where we hardly have time to rest and have to constantly work for 8 hours straight. On those days, it really does test your mental and physical health, mainly because we are doing the same thing over and over again. I’ve realized, it is very easy for everything to get messy too. When it’s busy, it is hard to control spills as we are making the drinks. It’s easy to say,”If you make one spill, you can clean it up after” but no. We sometimes don’t always have time to clean up right away and some spills can lead to multiple if we’re not careful.
Working at Dunkin’ really has brought my attention to be respectful to fast-food employees. People who have not worked with fast food might think it should be an easy job with the amount of money we earn but that is truly the opposite. Sometimes the job can sound very simple but in reality, it can be overwhelming and stressful when you start working. If you ever heard the saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover”, that is very true when it comes to fast food. From a customer’s perspective, it’s easy to judge at first glance that the job seems to be easy but being there for just 5 minutes waiting for your food is not enough time to see how much we have to deal with the whole entire day.
People who work in the fast-food industry don’t always get enough credit that they deserve. We need to understand that people who have these jobs, need to be respected and shouldn’t have to deal with being yelled at. Working, in general, is hard enough and of course, some fast food employees might seem aggravated when ordering, but that is mainly because they have to deal with people constantly yelling at them and working for a whole day shift. Having to complain or yell to the employees is just going to make it worse and it’s better to be polite and respectful than having to aggravate them even more. At the end of the day, what are you really getting at if you choose to be rude to the employee? I know, it can be frustrating if your order might be taking longer than expected but at the same time, there are reasons why it had to take that long. Maybe the people in front of you were giving the employees a hard time or maybe they mixed up somebody’s order accidentally, you never know. You would also get better results at the end as long as you be kind and respectful.
Currently, I have not worked there for about two weeks and while I had many stressful moments, it is something I do not regret. I have worked with many amazing people, which helped make the job so much better. It also taught me that not everything will go the way you want it and you got to prepare for anything that comes your way. Having a shift where I struggle showed me that life, in general, can be the same and you can’t always control what’s happening around you. Now, I started a new job at my school and will be working as an athletic manager for games we have on campus. While I am very excited, one thing to consider is to always be prepared and make the most out of it.
Before I got the job, I assumed the job would be easy. My thought process was, “Oh, it’s just making coffee and getting paid”, which technically was the main focus of the job but it wasn’t as simple as I might’ve hoped. On my first day, I was introduced to a whole new system and had to figure out how to take orders fast enough to keep the line moving. The Dunkin’ I worked at had both the eat-in and the drive-through, which made the job a little bit more complicated, especially when we were short-staffed. During the winter, I worked for less than a month, mainly because I had to go back to school at the end of January. During those few weeks of working, it didn’t seem too bad but also, I was still new and was adjusting myself with the criteria.
When my spring semester was over, I came back to the Dunkin’ I worked at. That is when I realized how difficult the job can really be. While the first month coming back was all good and well, as time went on, things really got difficult. It has been very nice seeing my old coworkers again and meeting new ones along the way, but at the same time, I did not miss the stress of working. It’s straightforward to say that the work is very easy but the amount of work we have to do is the difficult part. From a customer’s perspective, you can assume that we just take orders and make coffee but nope, we constantly have to clean, deal with rude customers, keep everything stocked, and have everything prepared quick enough to keep the line moving. Sometimes, it can be overwhelming and there had been shifts where I worked with just two other people during the day and ran all over the place to get the orders done.
Not only did we struggle to get the orders done quickly, but we also had to deal with rude customers who are not always understanding at times. What I mean by that is when it clearly shows that we’re very busy, customers constantly yell at us to get their order made. We also happen to get yelled at when we don’t have what they want to order. Some have said that they will call corporate because we don’t have the specific drink or food item they wanted. Working in fast food does make you want to lose your patience and can be exhausting as well.
There are days where it gets super busy during the day where we hardly have time to rest and have to constantly work for 8 hours straight. On those days, it really does test your mental and physical health, mainly because we are doing the same thing over and over again. I’ve realized, it is very easy for everything to get messy too. When it’s busy, it is hard to control spills as we are making the drinks. It’s easy to say,”If you make one spill, you can clean it up after” but no. We sometimes don’t always have time to clean up right away and some spills can lead to multiple if we’re not careful.
Working at Dunkin’ really has brought my attention to be respectful to fast-food employees. People who have not worked with fast food might think it should be an easy job with the amount of money we earn but that is truly the opposite. Sometimes the job can sound very simple but in reality, it can be overwhelming and stressful when you start working. If you ever heard the saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover”, that is very true when it comes to fast food. From a customer’s perspective, it’s easy to judge at first glance that the job seems to be easy but being there for just 5 minutes waiting for your food is not enough time to see how much we have to deal with the whole entire day.
People who work in the fast-food industry don’t always get enough credit that they deserve. We need to understand that people who have these jobs, need to be respected and shouldn’t have to deal with being yelled at. Working, in general, is hard enough and of course, some fast food employees might seem aggravated when ordering, but that is mainly because they have to deal with people constantly yelling at them and working for a whole day shift. Having to complain or yell to the employees is just going to make it worse and it’s better to be polite and respectful than having to aggravate them even more. At the end of the day, what are you really getting at if you choose to be rude to the employee? I know, it can be frustrating if your order might be taking longer than expected but at the same time, there are reasons why it had to take that long. Maybe the people in front of you were giving the employees a hard time or maybe they mixed up somebody’s order accidentally, you never know. You would also get better results at the end as long as you be kind and respectful.
Currently, I have not worked there for about two weeks and while I had many stressful moments, it is something I do not regret. I have worked with many amazing people, which helped make the job so much better. It also taught me that not everything will go the way you want it and you got to prepare for anything that comes your way. Having a shift where I struggle showed me that life, in general, can be the same and you can’t always control what’s happening around you. Now, I started a new job at my school and will be working as an athletic manager for games we have on campus. While I am very excited, one thing to consider is to always be prepared and make the most out of it.