For many teens, their first job is in retail or the fast food industry. Both are global industries, so the experience is relatively universal.
But let's focus on fast food.
With so many locations and so many employees, past and present, the stories of workplace shenanigans are plentiful.
Reddit user some_randomK1d asked:
"Fast food workers of Reddit, what's the most NSFW thing your colleague did during work?"
Side Hustle
"He was selling pain pills out of the bathroom and at the register."
"We caught on pretty quick when a bunch of sketchy people kept coming in to say hi to this guy and not get any food."
~ drunktacos
"It’s pretty dumb he didn’t think to insist they get fries or a shake along with their drugs."
"Then again, people going to the sketchy guy at McDonalds for pain pills probably don’t have a lot of spare cash."
~ DMala
Code Red
" McDonald's. My manager was covering at another restaurant. She's in the office with a drive-thru headset on."
"A car comes in but no one is taking the order. She gets out of the office to see what's going on and the entire crew (probably 8 people) are gathered around a flaming deep fryer."
"She then spots a guy coming with a bucket of water."
"She stopped him in time, with a lot of NSFW language."
~ NotGAF
Cameras Exist
"Not technically during work, but hours after we closed. An assistant manager and an employee had been drinking and had sex on the general manager’s desk."
"The bread delivery man walked in and told them 'I didn’t see anything…'. However, he felt he needed to at least report the drinking to the general manager as to not risk losing his job (there were beer cans everywhere)."
"The following morning, GM reviewed the surveillance footage (there was a camera pointing directly at them) and was in for a massive surprise."
"The assistant manager and employee were fired immediately. Bread guy did not lose his job."
~ InternalMatrix
#@$%&!!!
"I dropped the salt shaker for the fries in the deep fryer and immediately dunked my hand in to fish it out. I only got about two knuckles deep before the pain brought me to my senses."
"Words were said—loudly."
"No major damage. My manager told me to rub mustard on it and get back to work."
~ justcoastingthrough
That's Not On The Menu
"My friend and his wife conceived their first child on the prep table at Arby’s."
~ Mindful-O-Melancholy
Shed Shenanigans
"When I worked at a Dairy Queen, we used to keep extra cups, containers, plastic utensils, and stuff like that out in a shed."
"One night, one of the cashiers went out to the shed to get something and walked in on the manager having sex with her boyfriend."
"The boyfriend didn’t even work there."
It did stay amongst the crew though, and no one was fired. Boss lady jumped the manager’s a** as a formality, but she low key thought it was funny."
~ Burgerpocolypse
Fryby
"It was me. I was 16 years old and not thinking at all."
"I deep fried a couple Furby toys because they looked hilarious when melting."
"I didn't consider that they'd be leaving melted plastic and who knows what else in the oil to be soaked up by the next batch of fries."
"I was fired for it, and deservedly so."
~ ddixonr
A Cold One
"I worked in a few pizza joints when I was young and some unethical stuff happened."
"One place was connected to a popular nightclub for metal bands, and I knew some of the people who ran it."
"Sometimes, on a Saturday night, I’d get an order from there, and when I walked it over, they would take the hot bag—the insulated bag pizzas get delivered in—and bring it back to me with six cold bottles of beer (I was under 21)."
"When we closed that night we’d drink them in the back."
~ NorthernH3misphere
Barter System
"There's a block of restaurants, bars and clubs in my town (small college town) and there's a whole barter economy going on out the backdoor between them all."
"Coffee for pizza, pizza for beer, beer for wings, wings for coffee..."
~ FloobLord
"In high school in the early 90s, my cousin worked at the only local video store with porn tapes."
"He traded free tape rentals for Chinese food and pizza. It was pretty awesome."
~ Kitchen-Plantain-169
In Charge
"In high school I worked at Domino's. My manager was really bada**. I'd work late as hell on weekends and it would be the 2 of us in the store."
"Sometimes he'd hand me the keys and the cash for the drivers and say 'watch the store'. Then him and this girl would go into the walk in and have sex."
"This usually happened 2 times a week."
"Me and him are still really good friends. I was even his best man at his wedding years later."
~ RowbowCop138
Not The Nuggets!
"Two managers at the McDonalds I worked at were hooking up on top of the boxes of lettuce or in the freezer on the nuggets."
"We all heard it and some of us had the misfortune to see it."
~ Drewtendo_64
Nope
"I have a friend that worked in a local Domino's. He ended up hooking up with the manager and according to him they were constantly having sex in that store."
"He married this girl. They're getting a divorce right now, though."
"I've pretty much given up fast food already, but I can guarantee you I won't be having any Dominos."
~ Predator314
A Wholesome Ending At Last
"Not really NSFW, but a few guys wanted to see who could shout/scream the loudest."
"So we took turns going into the walk-in and just screaming."
"Then the people outside would rate how loud it was."
~ jedidude75
scream GIF by The OfficeGiphy
I personally dodged the fast food bullet, going the retail route instead.
What fast food hijinks have you encountered?