What is the biggest mistake customers make?

Why do customers seem to get so agitated at fast food establishments when they don't get their order their way?

• http://www.consumeraffairs.com/food/burgerking.html I was reading this site and find many of these complaints to be very silly. I work in fast food and I can tell you for a fact if you think everything is **** and span and your employee's wash their hands after every order than your kidding yourself. This is fast food and when we have rush hour come in, we don't have time to wash our hands very often. It's not that I'm trying to be unsanitary but my manager will yell at us if we take to long with our orders. It's all about TIME TIME TIME. Quality is often half-assed. So if you get your order and your wondering why the cheese was put on crooked, or they got your order messed up when you said to them no mayo, it was not a purposeful mistake nor was it stupidity, if you were working here and had 20+ orders on your screen (customers in store and drive-thru) then you would be bound to make a mistake yourself if you were forced to rush prepping your food for the customers. I can tell you that if they made a mistake on me (and they have in various restaurants I have eaten at) I scrape it off. Why? Because I know it's fast food, I know that the employee's could have touched the garbage before prepping my food and this is precisely why I don't eat @ fast food very often despite working there. I know it's disgusting, unsanitary, the burgers sit in a container full of brown watery grease (sometimes for a very long time too) Rather than complain, maybe these customers ought to consider alternatives to the nasty junk that is fast food. When I was closing yesterday. we noticed that some trace amounts of grease were found in our smoothie machine. When I was @ McD's once they took 10+ minutes just to serve me 1 smoothie and I was the only one in line in the store. When they served me the smoothie, it was still watery and not as cold as it should have been. I felt like complaining, but I resisted given the fact that I work in fast food myself and have some degree of sympathy for the workers there (even if this particular case was neglect, I just said to myself that I'm not ordering that here again)

• Answer:

  BK has been the go-to burger outlet that has always advertised the "have it your way" slogan, and has been an expectation for customers to "have it their way." Fresh and made-to-order at BK means you get to pick one, and fresh isn't an option. The roto-broiler machine isn't capable of cranking out patties as a conventional griddle or broiler is capable of, and the Whopper patties are passed through the conveyeor broiler and kept in a steam table until needed. Order accuracy is a team effort, the drive-thru or walk-up operator's skill in taking the orders is critical. The assembler's attention to detail is where it matters most. Making a customer happy isn't brain surgery, the team leader is the quarterback expediting the orders making sure they are correct and sometimes mistakes are made. If everyone has their game face on this should be easy, and mistakes corrected quickly. We're all human. However a customer will understand if you just tell them "the smoothie machine was just cleaned, and there's a fresh batch that's almost done although it will be a few more minutes before it's ready." Neglect is finding trace amounts of grease on the smoothie machine, it's poor stewardship by not even bothering to clean it properly. It's not difficult to run a fast food place and have customers leave happy, and yes you will have a few that can't be pleased no matter what - it's just how it goes. Just use good faith and do the best you can until something better comes along for you. Hang in there if you're a student.