McDonald's employees share 11 annoying things they wish customers would stop doing

Petar Kudjundzic/Reuters

• McDonald's jobs can be pretty trying at times.
• And certain behaviors from customers are almost guaranteed to tick off McDonald's crew members.
• From slowing down the line to having overly-high expectations about the "secret menu," here are some things employees wish people would stop doing in McDonald's.

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McDonald's jobs aren't always a walk in the park.

And sometimes the fast food chain's customers are to blame, according to crew members. Business Insider spoke with a number of current and former McDonald's crew members about their experiences at the store. They shared with us certain things that they said were sure to irritate McDonald's employees.

McDonald's employees have also taken to Reddit to share their thoughts on the annoying thing certain restaurant patrons do, from treating the store like a babysitting service to making vague, poorly-thought-out orders.

Here are the annoying behaviors McDonald's employees wish customers would drop:

Expecting crew members to whip up orders that aren't on the menu

Consumerist Dot Com/Flickr

A former McDonald's crew member from Virginia told Business Insider that "there is no such thing as a secret menu."

So how is it possible that Business Insider's Joe Avella and Nathaniel Lee were able to score some "secret menu" items from the fast food giant?

Well, according to a 2015 Reddit post from a former McDonald's crew member, they just lucked out when it came to the on-duty manager and store location.

"There is no 'secret menu,' really," the ex-employee wrote. "What these are, are 'menu hacks,' combinations which aren't on the menu, but are possible with the ingredients found around... What matters is if the manager on-duty will actually let you do these things. It's a crapshoot. Sometimes you'll get lucky. Sometimes you won't."

While McDonald's is famed for the consistency of its food, every store is different when it comes to serving up more avant-garde orders.

"McDonald's is a franchise and is independently owned and operated by thousands of different companies and owners across the world," the former crew member from Virginia told Business Insider. "Yes, we get our food from the same place, and we are all more or less designed the same, but there are regional differences between us."

The ex-employee said they worked at a McDonald's in Lynchburg, Virginia, that was situated beside a busy highway. They said they often encountered customers from North Carolina and Georgia — even some from as far away as Wyoming.

The former crew member said these travelers would often "order things I'd never heard of before in my life."

"If it's not on the menu, we don't have or don't know how to make it," the ex-employee said. "I don't care if they do it in Pennsylvania, I can't give you something we don't serve."

So, if you're craving a Land, Sea, And Air Burger or a Big McChicken, you can head over to your local Golden Arches and try your luck. Just be prepared to pivot back to a standard Big Mac if your request gets denied.

Ordering complicated 'special requests' in general

Igor Marusichenko/Shutterstock

Some people love to get creative with their McDonald's orders. But sometimes, special orders can be a little too out-of-the-box, according to crew members.

In a Reddit Ask Me Anything thread last year, a McDonald's employee said custom orders could be a pain to make, especially when the store is busy.

"We label it as 'special request,'" they wrote, so the employees filling the order "have to literally stop working just to come over and ask what the special request is."

They added that requesting "something fresh" could also count as a custom order, as well as requests that ketchup is squirted between burger patties or for a specific placement of the cheese in a sandwich.

The employee gave the examples of a sandwich that substitutes the bun for lettuce or getting just one pancake instead of the standard three.

"It gets weirdly specific," the employee wrote.

A McDonald's crew member from Georgia told Business Insider that, in some circumstances, customized orders can cause issues for employees, like when customers order "so much customized ice cream and McCafé orders in the drive-thru."

'Hacking' the system in order to get fresh fries

Paul Yeung / Reuters

A number of McDonald's crew members took to Reddit to complain about people who order French fries with "no salt" for the sole purpose of guaranteeing that they're fresh.

The thinking is that, by ordering your fries without salt, you'll be ensuring that they're freshly made, as crew members will have to whip up a new batch without any salt.

But crew members have said that it makes their lives easier if you just ask to get fresh fries.

"No salt fries are a pain in the a--, and it would be so much easier if people just asked for them fresh," a crew member wrote in a 2017 Reddit post.

"Personally, I hate the people that order no salt fries and then ask for salt packets in their bag," a different crew member wrote in a 2017 Reddit post.

"They think we're too stupid to put in a basket for fresh fries if they order 'fresh fries,'" another crew member replied. "That's why they order it 'no salt.'"

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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