The Soft Serve Experience

The rough rubbing of the crust hurts my palm as I carry it to the bewildered customer. He had been waiting for almost ten minutes, but his angry train of thought was lost as soon as I came out with it. He was on silent mode; He didn't hear my forced apology for the wait as I handed his order. That's only because he was too busy gazing in awe at the white as snow swirl, sitting on the top of its golden shell.

It's been my habit for two months now to make massive soft serve swirls every now and then when the manager wasn't watching. She always said that if we keep making huge swirls, there will be no profit made from this item. I still do it from time to time anyway. I don't want to sound like a salesman but, the biggest reward I get from doing this is the unimaginable pleasure on the customers' faces. Sometimes I feel that they're not only jumping up and down, but also happy dancing in their heads when I stretch my hand to give them the gigantic ice cream.

As I resumed running orders, the manager asked me to take drive thru orders through a red-stripped black headphone. My heart dropped for a second as I had never done it before, but before I knew it I was standing in front of five screens, all of which I had no idea existed. More than five cars had already been cueing across the two lanes and my mind was too chaotic at this sight to properly function.

Two minutes after I summoned Claire, the girl who trained me, for help, everything seemed to be under control. When all the cars were thankfully served, I felt like a big burden had been lifted from my shoulders and that a big balloon full of confetti had just been popped over me! My glee was indecipherable and I immediately showered Claire with all the headphones in the store for her to use.

I had to learn everything about drive thru within the five minutes no cars were around. I knew I could figure out what to do as soon as a car came by, it's just that I needed more time to do that.

"Hi, how can I help you today?" I asked as the first car stopped at the lane 1 station.

"I want a coffee frappe, a cheeseburger and a khalsijvnomoghitik meal!" the customer demanded in a glass shattering voice.

"No worries! Drive thru when you're ready!"

Despite the fact that I didn't know what a khalsijvnomoghitik meal was, I told the customer to drive thru anyway. As they stopped at the window, where I was standing, I asked them about the meal they requested and successfully added it in.

During the three-hour battle of drive thru order-taking, I learned that there are five types of people in this world. Specifically, five types of customers: the one that quickly screams their order hoping you got it all, the one who slowly decides what they want to get and disrupts every other customer, the one with inaudible voice, the native arrogant one and the angry customer who is just dissatisfied with anything and everything.