On September 14, 2016 at 8:42PM I placed an order through the app for carry out at the Taco Bell located at 255 Garrisonville Rd in Stafford, VA.
My husband had gone inside to pick up the food as I waited in the car with the kids. He gets to the counter, says he's there to pick up an order for Emily. The cashier Gio tells him that there no order in the queue for Emily, and if he has the order number he could try to look it up that way. He gives Gio the order number, and still nothing pops up. Gio then explains to my husband that it may take a few minutes for the mobile order to come through, so if he could wait a few minutes. So my husband takes a seat to wait. I can see from my car that he's just sitting there.
20 minutes goes by, at this point the kids have grown restless in the car and I've seen at least ten cars go through the drive thru, and plenty of people go in and out of the restaurant. I decide to go inside and see what's going on. My husband is already at the counter again, checking with Gio to see if anything has come up, nothing yet. I show Gio the order confirmation on my phone, and ask him if it's possible that we just get our food, and whenever it does pop up in the queue to just clear it out. He goes to the back where the "manager" Elizabeth is prepping other orders, to ask her it that's ok. All I hear is her loudly yell "Nothing has come through yet, go back up front!" Gio comes back up front and tells me that we just have to wait for the order to come through. I reply if I could please speak to the manager. He turns back around to go speak with her for a second time, I hear her yell loudly again "Don't f****** come back here anymore, go up front!" as another woman working back there yells "Don't come back here anymore!" Everyone standing at the counter waiting for their orders hears this, and we all just look at each other in disbelief. Gio once again comes back to the counter, this time with his head in his hands, takes a huge breath, and tells me the manager said she's busy; she cannot come speak to you right now. At this point I've grown angry, first at the fact that someone who is supposed to be a leader and good example to everyone else working there could possibly speak to any employee that way and second at the fact that she can't take 2 minutes of her time to come speak to a customer. 30 minutes have now gone by since I placed my mobile order. I move to the other side of the counter where she is in direct view and yell "Excuse me! What kind of manager can't take a few minutes of her time to come speak to a customer?" She then yells back that she is busy making an order. I tell her that I have been waiting half an hour for my order, she then responds that all the other people here have been waiting half an hour too, which is a total lie because these people had just walked in right before I did, 20 minutes after I initially placed the order. She then says that she will come speak to me when she is finished with the order.
So I move to the side and wait some more. I watch her make more and more orders, ignoring the fact that I am waiting there. As I'm waiting and watching, a young man working the drive thru yells to the other people working there something about a drive thru customer and using the words "faggot" and "redneck" ever so casually. About 10 minutes go by and the manager Elizabeth still hasn't come out to speak with me. By this time it's around 9:20PM, I ask Gio one more time if my mobile order has come through yet and he checks and says no. I ask if I can get a refund, he then explains that he can't refund until the mobile order shows up. I tell him to just forget it, and thank him for his help.
Now, I understand the fast food business is extremely fast paced and constantly busy. But how does a company allow someone like Elizabeth to become a manager, let alone an employee? Whether it be a fast food restaurant such as Taco Bell or a huge multi-billion dollar company such as Microsoft, a person like that should never be made to represent any company. If she can't handle the volume of the restaurant, or work well under pressure she is clearly in the wrong industry. What surprised me the most was the way she was talking to poor Gio, I felt so bad for him. I have never in my life seen someone who calls themselves a manager speak to an employee with such disrespect. He was just trying to do his job. I can honestly say that my family and I will not be going back to Taco Bell anymore. I can in no way support a company that allows that sort of disrespect to go on, towards employees or customers. read more