Vanilla Milkshake Woman.

I couldn't even think of a freaking title to describe how my shift made me feel today.

I worked a 7 hour shift today, and during my last two hours we were understaffed by at least four people. We were scrambling to get things done, customers were waiting insanely long amounts of time for food and it felt like everything was going wrong. We weren't well stocked, everything was taking a long time to cook and we couldn't get back on top of things. I was in back booth for the entirety of my shift, alone, doing orders and giving change by myself. I was doing the best I could under the circumstances. My manager was asking me to perform several tasks at once, and I was feeling overwhelmed and stressed. I was trying to save the shift.

This woman pulls up to my window, she ordered a large vanilla shake with no cherry on top. She had waited about 8 minutes at point in drive thru, and I agree that she shouldn't have had to wait that long. However, her reaction disturbed me greatly.

She immediately begins screaming before I could even say "hi, how are you?"

And I quote her words, "what the hell is going on here? Pull the damn cars forward if you don't have their food ready! I have a screaming baby in the backseat, and you're making the customer suffer because you can't figure out how to pull the cars forward?!"

At this point all I've said is, "I'm sorry ma'am." but finally she stops for a moment to let me speak, so I said, "we're very understaffed today, I'm sorry," and before I even finish my sentence she interrupts me and screams, "it's not my fault nobody wants to work at Mcdonalds, is it?" I just kept saying I'm sorry, and finally she screams, "Fuck you." and drives haphazardly out of the Parking lot, almost hitting a customer on her way out.

I understand where she was coming from. She's tired, she has a screaming child in her backseat, and all she wanted was a vanilla milkshake because she was having a bad day. I get it, everyone has shit going on. Everyone has bad days. You just need one thing to go right in your day and when the one thing you thought would go right doesnt, you take it out on someone else. I GET IT.

This literally broke my heart. My heart aches for this woman and more than anything else I just want her to come through again so I can give her a hug and a free vanilla milkshake and know that she's okay and made it home safely and didnt kill her child or something absolutely crazy. I forgive her for her horrible actions towards me, and even though at the time all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and cry and scream right back that IM 17 YEARS OLD AND I CANT DO EVERYTHING IM SORRY YOURE ANGRY I CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT.

You can choose your attitude day to day. You can choose how you can react to something. You can choose to make a negative situation positive. Although you can't do that with everything, you can certainly do that in the McDonald's drive thru line.

If you're reading this, I went home and prayed for you. I hope everything is good tomorrow. It gets better.