Chick-fil-A has topped the American Customer Satisfaction Index more times than anyone can count. The employees are famously polite, the chicken is consistently good, and the whole operation runs like a well-oiled machine. But behind every “my pleasure” is a human being who’s exhausted, probably understaffed, and quietly losing their mind over something you just did.
Workers at the chain have been surprisingly candid on Reddit and in interviews about the customer behaviors that make their shifts miserable. And honestly? Some of these are things most of us have probably done without thinking twice. Here’s what the people behind the counter really wish you’d stop doing.
Talking On Your Phone While Ordering
This one came up more than any other complaint, across multiple Reddit threads, interviews, and surveys. It’s the undisputed champion of Chick-fil-A employee frustrations. One worker told Cosmopolitan that customers being on their phone while trying to order is incredibly frustrating. When someone’s mid-conversation and gives the cashier the “just a minute” finger-raise, it backs up the entire line — and there are a lot of people in that line.
This isn’t just a Chick-fil-A problem. By 2018, many restaurants had started posting signs asking customers to get off their phones before approaching the counter. But at Chick-fil-A, where the drive-thru lines are literally the longest in the country, every wasted second compounds. These distracted customers miss important questions about their order, leading to mistakes, corrections, and delays that ripple backward through a line that can have dozens of cars in it.
You’re one of roughly 16 million people ordering at a drive-thru window on any given day in America. The person taking your order doesn’t have time to wait while you wrap up a call with your dentist’s office.
Asking For A Straw That’s Already In The Bag
This one sounds minor, but when it happens hundreds of times a day, it starts to grind. Chick-fil-A employees routinely place straws inside takeout bags. It’s standard procedure. Yet worker after worker reports the same interaction: they hand someone their bag and drink, say “have a great day,” and the customer immediately asks, “Can I get a straw?”
The straw is in the bag. It’s always in the bag. One Reddit employee said this happens so frequently that it’s become a running joke among coworkers. It’s a tiny thing, but multiply it by a few hundred interactions per shift and you can see why it would start to erode someone’s sanity.
Ordering Breakfast After Breakfast Is Over
Breakfast at Chick-fil-A ends at a set time, and the kitchen immediately transitions into lunch mode. Ingredients get stored away, equipment gets cleaned, and the entire workflow shifts. When someone walks in five minutes late and insists they “just missed it,” they’re asking the kitchen to reverse a process that’s already well underway.
But the real frustration isn’t the request itself — it’s how customers handle being told no. Employees report that people lie about being in the store before the cutoff. Some argue. Some escalate into confrontations. According to multiple workers, some customers have literally cried trying to get a chicken biscuit after hours. And most front-line employees don’t even have the authority to override company policy, so they’re stuck absorbing the anger while being powerless to fix it.
Saying “Extra Sauce” Without Saying How Many
“Can I get nuggets with extra Chick-fil-A sauce?” sounds like a perfectly reasonable request. But to the employee processing the order, “extra” is meaningless. Extra compared to what? One more than normal? Five? Ten? One Reddit worker put it bluntly: they have no idea what “extra” means and just wish people would give a specific number.
This is one of those situations where being slightly more precise would save everyone time. Instead of a vague modifier, just say how many packets you want. Three? Great. Eight? A little aggressive, but at least it’s clear. The system works better with actual numbers.
Ordering Redundant Things
A post titled “Little PSA” on the Chick-fil-A workers subreddit laid this one out. Employees are driven nuts by customers adding unnecessary details to their orders. Asking for fries with a kids meal, for example, when fries are already included. Or saying “sweet and spicy sriracha” when Chick-fil-A only carries one type of sriracha sauce — just saying “sriracha” is enough.
It might seem harmless, but in a drive-thru serving over 100 cars per hour during peak times, every redundant word adds up. The ordering system is designed for speed, with two iPad-wielding team members outside taking orders simultaneously. They’re low-key rushing through each order to keep things moving. Over-explaining slows everyone down.
Dropping A Massive Order During Peak Lunch Rush
Look, nobody’s saying you can’t order for the whole office. But doing it at 12:15 on a Tuesday — and then getting visibly angry when it takes a while — is a move that multiple employees have called out as a major frustration. Everything at Chick-fil-A is made to order. Every piece of chicken is hand-breaded. The milkshakes are hand-spun. The lemonade is made fresh. This isn’t an assembly line pulling premade sandwiches off a heat rack.
The chain makes more per restaurant than Starbucks, Subway, and McDonald’s combined, which gives you a sense of volume. When someone rolls up with an order for 15 people during the busiest hours, it creates a bottleneck that the kitchen — which is likely already understaffed — has to absorb. Maybe call ahead. Or at least don’t tap your foot about it.
Switching Lanes In The Drive-Thru
Chick-fil-A’s drive-thru is more sophisticated than it looks. Many locations have multiple lanes, and there’s a tracking system that follows cars in their assigned positions. When you switch lanes because you think the other one’s moving faster, you throw off that entire system. Orders get mixed up, charges go to the wrong car, and employees have to manually sort out the chaos.
It also increases the risk of accidents, which are more common than you’d think. Multiple employees on Reddit have shared stories of car collisions in the drive-thru. One worker said they almost got hit by a truck and had to jump out of the way. Another reported that a coworker got hit by a car and broke her arm while running a curbside order. These are real dangers in a space that’s already congested.
Not Looking At The Menu Before Reaching The Counter
Chick-fil-A has a menu. It’s right there. It’s big. It has pictures. And yet, employees regularly deal with customers who reach the front of the line and ask, “So… what do you have?” The menu has been visible the entire time you were waiting in line. This one’s less about rudeness and more about wasting time — yours and everyone else’s.
Related to this: ordering items from other restaurants. Yes, this actually happens. Workers on the Chick-fil-A subreddit have reported people trying to order Big Macs or Whoppers. It’s unclear whether these are genuine mix-ups or attempts at humor, but either way, the employee on the other end of that headset is not laughing.
Eating Most Of Your Meal, Then Complaining
Chick-fil-A has a generous return policy, and some customers have figured out how to exploit it. Workers report a growing pattern of customers eating most of their food — sometimes nearly all of it — and then approaching the counter to say something was wrong. The timing of these complaints is suspicious at best. When there’s one bite of sandwich left and suddenly the whole thing was “undercooked,” employees are put in a position where they can’t really verify the claim.
Staff have to balance keeping the customer happy with not getting taken advantage of, and company policy generally sides with the customer. It’s a frustrating spot to be in, especially when you’re already running on fumes.
Being Rude Because You Think You Can Get Away With It
Chick-fil-A’s reputation for extreme politeness has created an unintended side effect: some customers treat it as a license to be awful. Because employees are trained to respond with kindness no matter what, certain people push it. Workers report customers who refuse to make eye contact, roll their eyes during order confirmations, lecture employees about how food should be prepared, and generally act like the “my pleasure” policy means they can behave however they want.
One Reddit employee shared a story about a customer who mansplained how oil works while waiting for crispier fries. Another worker wrote about trying to pacify “angry and aggressive guests” while being on the verge of tears during an understaffed shift. These are people making somewhere between $9.29 and $12.23 an hour, according to Indeed. They’re exhausted, burned out, and doing their best.
The “my pleasure” thing started because Chick-fil-A founder Truett Cathy visited a Ritz Carlton and liked how the staff responded. It became part of company culture. But saying “my pleasure” 400 times a day while being treated poorly takes a toll. One former manager who spent six years at the company said that even three years after quitting, they still caught themselves saying it out of habit. That phrase gets baked into your brain whether you want it there or not.
None of these pet peeves are complicated to fix. Check the bag for the straw. Pick a number for your sauces. Stay in your lane. Put the phone down. And maybe, just maybe, remember that the person handing you a spicy chicken sandwich with a smile is probably running on adrenaline and not much else.
