One of my favorite fast-food restaurants is Chick-fil-A. I go for a spicy chicken sandwich with fries and a soda water, but some days I add a three-piece strip as well.
Now, if we’re going to talk about sauces, please don’t talk to me about Chick-fil-A sauce. I don’t get it. To me, it’s trash. I would rather be sauceless in Seattle than eat that slime on my chicken.
There is no debate here because the ranking of sauces at Chick-fil-A goes:
- Polynesian
- Zesty Buffalo
- Sweet & Spicy Sriracha
- Everything else
- Sauceless
- Chick-fil-A sauce
Sometimes, though, I like to order 2 of every sauce, and then when we’re done eating, I hold up all of the sauces, and in an evil voice, I’ll say something like, “This is the currency of the future, and one day I’ll own all the land.” Don’t judge me, the chicken gets me silly.
Anyways, I digress.
Get Scott’s article every morning
No spam. Just straight-talk career advice, every day.
A few weeks ago, I was talking to my niece’s best friend, whose family just happens to own one of these fine establishments. My first question, of course, was, “Do you get free chicken?” Spoiler, she does not, which is bullshit. My second question was, “What is your go-to meal?” (because I judge people by what they order)
Then my third question, of course, was, “Do you enjoy working there?”
She instantly started telling stories about her experiences working in a fast-food environment, albeit, as we know, an elevated one. Her comments sort of shocked me.
“Customers are rude!”
I was like, wait, what, it’s Chick-fil-A, who is rude at a Chick-fil-A?
Lots of people apparently.
Stories were told about customers yelling that their chicken wasn’t hot enough. People got the wrong order. Someone didn’t get their sauces. The list goes on.
I’ve just never been irritated at a Chick-fil-A before, so it was hard for me to digest, but I did get into a honking match with another customer in a McDonald’s drive-thru once, so I get it.
The point is, working in fast food, working in restaurants, or any customer service-oriented job can be incredibly stressful. You’re dealing with the general public, and if you’ve ever attended a state fair, then you know exactly the image of the general public I’m describing.
Personally, I think everyone should spend a few weeks working in a customer-facing role where they get a chance to truly interact with random people. It would teach all of us a lot about handling a sense of urgency and accountability, and creating customer-obsessed experiences.
The funny thing is that the longer I thought about it, the more I realized that the value of those jobs isn’t really about learning how to take an order, carry a tray, or hand someone a bag of chicken.
The value is learning how to deal with people.
Every shift is a crash course in communication. Every customer interaction is a lesson in patience. Every mistake becomes an opportunity to figure out how to make someone feel heard.
Most of us spend our careers working with other human beings, yet very few of us ever receive any formal training on how to interact with them. We learn finance, sales, marketing, engineering, operations, and a hundred other technical skills. What we rarely learn is how to listen, how to stay calm when someone is frustrated, how to read a room, or how to navigate a difficult conversation without making it worse.
Spend a few weeks in a restaurant, and you’ll quickly discover that people are carrying around all kinds of things that have nothing to do with you. The customer yelling about their fries might have had a terrible day. The person being short with you could be dealing with something difficult at home. That doesn’t excuse bad behavior, but it does teach you an important lesson: not every interaction is actually about you.
Imagine how much better our workplaces would be if more people understood that. Imagine how many unnecessary arguments, passive-aggressive emails, Slack messages, and conference room standoffs could be avoided if we paused long enough to give each other the benefit of the doubt. Most workplace problems aren’t really process problems. They’re people problems disguised as process problems.
Working in customer service teaches you something that many professionals never fully learn: every interaction is a chance to make someone’s day a little better or a little worse.
The same thing is true in our careers. The people who create the best teams, build the strongest cultures, and earn the most trust are rarely the smartest people in the room. They’re usually the people who understand how to engage with others, communicate clearly, show empathy, and make the people around them feel valued.
Funny enough, those lessons might start with a spicy chicken sandwich and the wrong dipping sauce. (Probably someone giving you Chick-fil-A sauce instead of Polynesian!)