Taco Bell — Restaurant in Florida

First off, I just wanna say— it’s Taco Bell. I’m not expecting stellar performance from tired employees at 1am. But my feelings got hurt tonight LOL.

I deliver part-time and received an order. Arrived at 12:43, waited 10 minutes to be acknowledged. I didn’t speak up sooner because the employee closest to me had made eye contact. If you deliver, you know it’s normal for employees not to acknowledge you because often they’re already working on whatever order you’re there for. So I paced around for a few minutes figuring it was being worked on, then finally decide to say “Excuse me!”

Mind you, I’m SHORT. Not invisible.

I’ve worked kitchens, I’ve worked fast food, I know things get loud. I made sure I was loud enough to be heard. Repeated myself four times and knew I was deliberately being ignored by the employee directly in my line of sight because she widened her eyes, and tilted her head like she was annoyed. After the fifth time she came up. I told her the order name, and she checked my phone screen. She checked the order screens saying absolutely nothing, then walked back to her station and continued working. Fine, I figured. That’s probably the customer’s order. I responded to their text letting them know about the delay.

I waited again until 1:04 this time. Another employee I hadn’t seen working in the front (manager or shift lead?) came by and asked me the order name. I told him, he checked, then notified me right then and there within seconds that the order I’d been waiting all that time for had been stolen by the previous driver. Sucks for me, sucks even worse for the customer. I told him about that specific employee’s actions and quickly left.

I’ve managed and know that employees get exasperated. If it were her first shift ever at Taco Bell and she didn’t want to talk to me, fine. If she weren’t sure about the status of the order, she could’ve asked. She could’ve tapped one of the coworkers she’d been extremely communicative with earlier and asked them to deal with me. But the fact that I was so pointedly ignored kinda stung. Doubly, it was disrespectful. I’m on the clock just like she is. Twenty minutes I’m waiting on a nonexistent order is twenty minutes of nonpay.

Manager sir/madam/other if you’re reading this, please reeducate your employees on customer etiquette. Unless a customer insulted me or my momma, I’d NEVER flat out ignore them. The treatment isn’t warranted. I’d grit my teeth and bear it if it bothered me that much. Sorry for the length, thanks...

I’ve ran fast food and restaurants my whole career, but this was wild. I patiently waited 30 minutes before my order was acknowledged by the automated system on the app. I waited another 15 for the driver partnered with DoorDash to text and say the store told him someone already picked up my order. They probably bumped my order from the terminal, but the driver can’t mark it as picked up, and now he’s not getting paid. I know it’s hard to find good people in fast food when you’re only allowed to offer minimum wage, but god damn it’s been over 90 minutes, and my app is still telling me it’s “Being prepared”. I even worked at a Taco Bell when I was younger, and my entire order would take a newer employee about 6 minutes to throw together. Even if they ran out of chicken and needed to prep more, that’s like 45-60 min in the hot bath. I’d fire and replace at least two people on this night crew, and maybe swap/replace the supervisor for letting this shit happen. Like do a quick remake! DoorDash compensates for improperly picked up orders! Even if you’re in the weeds, throwing down a small order takes a few minutes for someone on that line. This is probably a franchise where the owner is keeping the price low to encourage traffic while also locking pay for staff at the bare minimum. If this is a corporate store, either the DM/GM doesn’t know how to hire properly and is trying to make their payroll seem good, or this is just a store in a dead lot where the only applicants...

Well, it’s taco bell. My home one, and my boyfriend and I frequent here. It most of the time goes well, we order on the app. Sometimes they’ll forget something, or mess up a customization, but it’s not a big deal. If we bring the items back, they fix it, and if we put in a claim through the app, it is hit or miss, but that is not this location’s fault. Today I had an awkward experience as I picked up my online order. Made two orders, went to drive through(approx 6-7pm on jun 7).Drive thru emoloyee confirmed both names on order and told us to pull forward. Then, at the window, as he was confirming our order(they said chicken quesadilla, not cheese) so we corrected that, and another employee screamed in the background,”IT SAYS CHICKEN” and I thought maybe it was my fault, but my app said cheese. I got my food and it was fine, but I didn’t like being blamed by the employee. Then when they brought our food out, they only brought one and the kid said;” well I was trying to confirm that but you didnt hear I guess” and then my boyfriend told him that he literally confirmed both names and told us to pull up. Not a big deal once again, but I saw a pattern today of kind of “blaming” customers for little things. It happens, I worked retail, and theme parks and I deal with people but blaming the customer in front of them makes then uncomfortable. Uh oh, am I a Karen now? I love taco...