why do fast food resturants mess up orders so much?

Answer 1

To many uneducated people trying to do a fast paced job. They don't care if you get what you ordered. They care about that paycheck.

Answer 2

i work at boston market and i know about this. everyone who works on a drive thru knows what im talking about. heres the thing: a lot of people who roll through the drive thru just say their order like, really really fast and dont pause after each item. the person at the window can have a very hard time understanding what you just said and can sometimes interrupt you to ask you what you just said. i got a complaint about this yesterday. some guy told me that i kept interrupting him but he was saying his order so fast, i entered his order in and our carver messed everything up.

so here's a little tip for the next time that you come through a drive thru: slow down! pause after each thing that you say and give the person at the window a break. if you want your order right, then you have to be patient while they enter it into the computer

Answer 3

It's kinda hard sometimes especially if there are alot of orders coming in & only a few workers.So you'll have to move extra fast & sometimes some workers can't stand that heat.They'll mess up.

Answer 4

A lot of the time I find the whole ordering process at fast food places to be a huge annoyance. On those occasions when I eat at fast food places, I'll usually try to make a few modifications in order to try to reduce the fat content of what I'm eating (i.e. no cheese, no mayo, etc...) So I've learned I can't go too fast, or the person behind the counter won't be able to follow what I'm saying...

But at the same time, I've also found that if you go *too slow*, they're very often all too eager to close your order, take your money and get to the next customer... So then there's the awkwardness of having to tell someone who's just announced that you want a whopper value meal over a loudspeaker and already given you your total that what you actually wanted was a whopper value meal with no ketchup, mayo or cheese on the sandwich, and a side salad instead of the french fries.

On a few occasions I've visited fast food restaurants that were experimenting with computerized touchscreens for ordering... Which was neat -- you could just select what you wanted, make any modifications you wanted, review them, push your credit card through... And at least you knew that what was going to show up for the cook working in the back on the screen above their workstation is exactly what you wanted. But whenever I've seen those screen used, I've also seen a lot of older folks coming up to the counter asking "Do I have to use one of these things to order or can I talk to an actual person?"

And then a month or two later those screens would be gone.

Another annoyance is the fact that pretty much every fast food place seems to have something called "special sauce" that goes on a lot of their products. This is never anything particularly interesting -- watered down ketchup, or watered down barbeque sauce, or ketchup mixed with mayo... I think Carl's Jr's is ketchup mixed with a little relish. But it makes it wonderfully confusing if you're trying to order your sandwich without all the fatty sauces that are usually added to it.

So I've actually had a guy at the Carl's drivethru correct me to the effect that their burgers don't come with ketchup, they come with "special sauce"... And then the next day when I wanted a burger with no ketchup and no mayo, and my girlfriend wanted one *with* the ketchup but without the mayo, we tried ordering "One famous star with no sauce, one famous star with no mayonaise but *with* the special sauce."

And for some reason the *manager* actually came out to confirm our order, and we had an exchange that went something like:

Him: So you want one burger with no sauce and one burger with no mayonaise, right?
Us: No, we want one burger with no special sauce *and* no mayonaise, and one just without the mayonaise.
Him: Right, one with no sauce at all and one without mayo.
Us: No, BOTH without mayo, and one of them also without your special sauce!

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So I guess I'm saying that sometimes the confusing, stupid, "marketting department" names that fast food places are forced to call their food and its components by probably contribute to it, too.

Answer 5

The job is very fast paced and training is often improper which leads to lots of mistakes...and lots of the employees just simply don't care. But not all restaurants are like that...find a good one and give them your business.

to Katherine H-Great points!!!

Answer 6

Fast food joints are filled with young un focused youth and the rush to get the product out in a hurry does not help either.

Answer 7

most of the time, its new people who dont know exactly what to do. but in fast food resurants, they have to be QUICK!! and as such sometimes they mis read something or someone up front bags the orders, and the other person grabs the wrong back.. its normal human error

Answer 8

They don't care about you getting what you ordered. If you tell them that they gave you something that you didn't order, they are expressionless. Hopefully, they will at least give you the right order this time.

Answer 9

Maybe.....they get trained and quizzed so often by the manager to make the food exactly as the menu says that when it comes to special orders they forget???? maybe.... just a thought


or could it be ......
because most people working there either do not speak english or they are teenagers that don't care.

Answer 10

I think its because most people who work at fast food resturants are usually lazy and poor. I don't want to be rude, but its true.

Answer 11

to anyone who has never worked fast food you have no idea of the fast pace expected out of you at the busiest of times. and they hire very young people who have not gained work experience or understand the importance of doing a good job.