Fly-thru

For those rare few who've never worked fast-food I thought I'd explain fly-thru. The operative word is speed. There are timers everywhere, the fly-thru crew is timed on how fast they greet the customer, how fast the customer's order is taken, how fast their money is taken and how fast their food is handed out to them. Secret shoppers fly through and not only time what the timers are timing but also weigh the food and measure the cashiers' smiles.

There are multiple registers in fly-thru depending on how many windows are operating, with a minimum of two registers running all the time. The order taking registers are used only to take orders and provide the customer's order total, the order is then sent to another register that is used solely for taking money. Once the order is sent to the cashier it is not available to the order taker again.

Fly-thru is a tough job, hard on the knees and hard on the nerves, working as quickly as possible a fly-thru cashier may have to take orders politely, make drinks, take cash and hand out food with a smile all at the same time at break-neck speed for hours without let-up.

Sure, everybody's job is hard, and I ain't sayin fly-thru is any harder, just wanted to speak up for the fly-thru people and show why, like anyone else, they don't deserve a bunch of grief on the job.