Horror Stories From The Other Side Of The Counter

Now that's gross! When I worked at MickeyDs, my friend had some eczema or some skin disorder she claimed was caused by their liquid soap. This was 20+ years before hand sanitizer was readily available to anyone. However, before they finally fired her, she handled food, drinks, the fryer...I would have placed her on cleanup/custodial duty.

 

A friend of mine worked in a restaurant. He says that left over food would not be thrown out. They'd simply heat it the next day, mix it up with whatever fresh food they'd cooked and serve it to customers. While I have nothing against left-over food, selling it to customers certainly isn't right.

Occasionally customers would complain about stomaches but what I don't understand is why they'd keep going back to the same restaurant.

 

When I first got my job it was in a 3 stars beach resort restaurant. We had one guy from the management who always acted like a boss and kept coming to the restaurant to boss us around and asked us to make him the nicest coffee we could make ever. One day my work mate grew sick of him and spat on his coffee then stirred it with her finger before serving it to him. Still he claimed that the coffee she made was the best.

Another one was I always saw the chefs cleaning the tip of the plate after putting the food on it to make it all look so clean. But the cloth they were using had been used everywhere as well in the kitchen including wiping the tables in the kitchen.

 

I worked at a Jewish deli on Miami Beach where they served the customer pickles that had drowned mice floating in the pickle barrels. I guess the mice came to eat and drowned in the pickle brine. They also made stuffing and meatloaf out of the half eaten bread rolls that people left in the bread basket on the tables. I once got screamed at for throwing away some sugar packets that were wet because a customer spilled coffee on them.
I've never worked in such a cheapskate place and it's their karmic reward that they closed down.

 

One time when I was working at mcdonalds, there was this guy from school (who I didn't like) ordering a meal. Long story short, I spat in his ranch wrap and it turned out to be for his friend. So mission failed on that one. That was the only time I ever did anything like that. Gotta say, besides me doing that not much to talk about with that topic.

 

I was a cook at an A&W, and one night we were really dead because it had snowed a lot. We couldn't wait to close because we had been standing around for hours with nothing to do. We had almost everything shut down in the kitchen and put away and were just about to leave when this stupid church group came in, like 10 minutes before we were set to close, and ordered a ton of stuff. We had to turn all the grills and fryers and stuff back on, it was a nightmare. So me being a smartass, I decided to draw pentagrams, and "666" and other obscenities with the ketchup and mustard on all of the burgers as I made them - just a little "surprise" if they were to lift the buns.

I would actually say, out of all the restaurants I've worked at, they have all been very clean for the most part. They were mostly chain restaurants, so they were rather strict since they have a brand to uphold. But the other thing was many of us would eat there off the clock or on our days off since we got discounts - so if some cooks were being really unsanitary, all of us would get pissed off at them and would rat them out to management, since we're eating the food too.

Another time, I was working at a pizza shop, and they had to close the shop down for a day to install a whole new ventilation system. My boss asked a few of us to come in that evening and work through the night to clean the kitchen from top to bottom so they could open up the following day. There was dust and debris on everything so we had to clean every single plate, cup, shelf, utensil, pot, pan, you name it, floor to ceiling. It was almost 3am when we were finally done, and just before we walked out, my manager decided to "test" the new vents to make sure they worked (why they didn't test them sooner is beyond me). As soon as he hit the button, all this additional dust and debris started spraying out of the vents all over everything we had just spent all night cleaning. So he begged us to stay an additional 4 more hours and hurry up and crash clean everything all over again, because the morning crew needed to come in at 7 am to start making the dough. I was a zombie the whole next day because I hadn't slept in over 24 hours.

 

Oh, what fascinating stories! I also have quite a few to contribute, but I'll stick to the most memorable one here. It was during my years of training in hotel management when I experienced some rather interesting things. One of my co-workers, a waiter, had a habit of spitting into the drinks of certain customers and then standing behind the bar, delighting in what he had just done. I reported him to my employer who ignored me, telling me that this guy was one of his best workers, and that I should keep my thoughts to myself. When this waiter told me that he got infected with HIV I went to the Workers Union and told them about this unbelievable situation. Needless to say that I quit my training with that establishment.

 

you say you would rat them out to management because you were eating the food too. That is how people are, no one really cares about other people too much. The only reason you chose to rat them out is because it effected you, not because its disgusting in general.

I dont eat fast food. I dont like people touching my food in general. My trust in people is very low and for good reason. Very few people are trust worthy. Words say a little, actions say a lot.

 

This one was just told to me by my friend way back in high school. His cousin was working in Kickers that time, and he told me that they were doing something behind the counter to be able to steal some money since his cousin is the cashier, like they enter the wrong amount in the receipt so they can keep the extra money for themselves. I also notice this every time I order for fast food delivery, they would ask how much my money I have so that they can bring the exact change, but every time I look at the receipt, it's a large amount that that I did not say that entails a lot of change to be given and not the amount that I had said which is smaller. So I guess they get to steal in a way with entering the wrong info.

 

Mine is rather tame compared to everyone else but I worked at a well known bakery, people would rave about what the bakery sold but if they only knew what it looked like before. Whoever opened would have the duty of scraping mold off of the confections, when baking the bakers were told to never throw anything away so moldy fruit was cleaned off and used, frosting that sat out overnight uncovered was used...ever since this job I have a hard time not wondering what has happened to prepared food I buy.

 

That's what I was thinking, too. I don't really have much in the way of horror stories with my limited experience so far in working for anyone other than myself, but with all the 'typical' ones you hear, I'd expect some more disturbing stuff. So that's good I guess? lol.

 

I have seen so many horror stories about fast food restaurants that I am afraid to eat there. I'd rather just made my own hamburger at home. Sadly, when I worked behind the counter I never had any horror stories. I don't know if that is sad or not, but the other employees were nice and unless they did something and didn't say anything I have no idea. Most of them seemed super sweet.

 

I have seen employees spit or sneeze over a customers food and think nothing about the germs they just put on the food. I have seen cooks drop food on the floor and put it back on the grill and then server it to the customer. I do not eat out a lot because of my concern on how the food has been handled. I have gotten sick of food too often to take the chance of eating out often.

 

I've worked in retail for a long time and for me the biggest source of stories is stuff that customers have done. I used to be a cashier and sometimes I would see customers who would try to pay me in a lot of change, and I mean a lot of change! Once a customer slapped down a ton of pennies to pay for a $5 transaction, it took me fifteen minutes to count all that up, with no help from the customer, he just stood there smugly while I tired to count a ridiculous amount of change.

 

A few gory/gross moments...

At the pizza shop I mentioned earlier, they had a giant stand mixer with attachments for it to grate stuff as well. Our mozzarella cheese came in large bricks, and we had to grate it fresh every day. The device had a safety lever for pushing the cheese in towards the blade so you didn't have to use your hands. The cheese was so moist though that it would often get all clumped up and stuck in the machine if you just used the safety lever on it's own - so most employees would use their hands to push the cheese into it, until they got down to the end of the brick, then use the lever to push it the rest of the way.

One day I was standing in the front of the kitchen talking to another coworker, while this new cook was in the back grating the cheese. All of a sudden we heard this horrible grinding sound and god awful screaming from the young girl - she wasn't paying attention as she was pushing the cheese brick in, and accidentally grated her knuckles in the machine. My coworker and I looked at each other, and we could tell from the sounds alone what had happened, and both of us nearly passed out. As mean as this may sound I couldn't even bring myself to go back there and help her (several others rushed to help her) because I am so squeamish over real life gory stuff like that, I would have blacked out if I saw it all.

At another restaurant I worked at, where we cleaned and prepped the salad mix daily, somehow there was a dead gecko in the salad mix. One guest sent back their salad to the kitchen, and the server even showed us, there was a half of a gecko covered in french dressing sitting in the salad. Not much later another table sent back their salad as well, with the other half of the gecko in it. We knew it was an accident, and not just the customers planting something to get a free meal, since there aren't geckos here in Northeast Ohio as far as I know.

 

Oh God that's awful. I never worked on jobs like that but my friend told me that he once let a cockroach roam around a pizza until it was time to deliver it to the customer, the customer being some fat and rude executive type that happened to be my boss. After the pizza was served, I was with my boss then, he sent me a message regarding the pizza and told me not to touch it. Thank God my boss devoured all the pizza so none of my office mates get a taste of revenge. But surprisingly my boss didn't got sick or anything.

 

I actually don't have any really terrible stories from my doing or a co-worker's doing. I used to work customer service at Walmart, though, and occasionally someone (could be any of us) would put something back into inventory that probably should have been sent to claims instead. No food items, but potentially broken items would go back on the shelves or something that was missing a piece or two.

I know of a few times when frozen items would be returned to the freezers probably a little later than they should have been. We didn't do that at customer service, but some people would do that at the registers if they had food that customers had left sitting around. I feel like this happens at just about every larger grocery/general store.