r/mildlyinfuriating • u/50calTaco • 21d ago

I'm slightly vexed Grown man gets mad because he doesn’t know what ordering a “plain” burger means

So I work at Five Guys and for those who don’t know, when you order a burger there you get to fully customize the toppings on it (helps justify the price tag a tiny bit i guess). And you choose between a little (single) or regular (double) burger.

I had a pleasant enough exchange with a customer while ringing up his food… and when it came to his cheeseburger I asked what toppings he wanted on it. He looked at me and said, “Oh you know… just a plain, regular cheeseburger.” Ok great, a cheeseburger with nothing on it, easy enough.

Well we make the food, and a minute after he gets it he comes back up to me, visibly annoyed and holding the burger.

“You made my food wrong. There’s nothing on it.”

“Oh I’m sorry sir, I thought you’d ordered a plain cheeseburger.”

“I did. Do you not know what that means? Like a McDonald’s burger.”

Ok first of all, “McDonald’s” is not a standard for how someone orders burger toppings and second of all, this guys in his late 40s to early 50s and has never once run into this issue ordering a plain burger?

“Ok I’m sorry about that sir, we’ll remake that for you. What exactly did you want on it?”

I shit you not, with an annoyed voice he ordered:
Ketchup. Lettuce. Pickles.
So notably NOT a McDonald’s cheeseburger???

He got what he wanted in the end and I apologized because customer service but like?? I’m in awe at the sheer level of misunderstanding and audacity.

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146

u/King_Of_Uranus 21d ago

As someone who hates pickles on burgers, this hurt my soul. I swear that clown has it out for me. Fortunately I havent eaten McDonalds in years but yes "no pickles" apparently means "no pickles should be left remaining in this zip code after you are done putting them all on my burger"

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u/tuC0M 21d ago

I also hate pickles on my burger, and am old enough that McDonald's would do zero customization to your toppings. My mom would ask for plain cheeseburger and it would still be ketchup, mustard, onions, and pickles. Maybe that's why to this day if a pickle has even been on the burger I'd rather just have a new one without escence of pickles 😂

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u/premiumdude 20d ago

My recollection from back in the day (70s/80s) was that asking for any customization on a McD's burger was just a mess. It would always take longer, and as you mentioned, it still might show up wrong. My parents stopped trying and just told me to take off what I didn't want 🤷🏻‍♂️

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u/bassmadrigal 20d ago

am old enough that McDonald's would do zero customization to your toppings

Out of curiosity, when was this? I'm in my mid-40s and don't ever remember not being able to be picky at McDonald's.

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u/Z3r0C0o 20d ago

I know in 2020 it was still not made to order. We were still dropping common sandwiches in the slots fully made. If you ordered with any changes, that sandwich got made special, took longer and probably had to wait on something as the buns and patty's were already counted on

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u/bassmadrigal 20d ago

When I worked there in the late 90s and early 00s, the only things we premade were some of the common breakfast sandwiches. Everything else was made to order.

It still only took maybe 45 seconds to wait for the buns to toast and to assemble and wrap the sandwich.

Either way, having premade sandwiches but allowing changes and requiring building a custom sandwich is different from not allowing any customization, which is what the previous comment was talking about.

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u/tuC0M 20d ago

This would have been early 90s

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u/bassmadrigal 20d ago

I wonder if this was just your location, because I definitely remember ordering my cheeseburger in my happy meal without pickles and onions. This would've been mid to late 80s.

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u/collin3000 21d ago

I hate pickles to. Pickles ruin everything they touch. I'm pretty sure a pickle touched my parents marriage

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u/Redthemagnificent 20d ago

Show us on the doll where the pickle touched you

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u/Saucermote 20d ago

I like pickles, but not on most sandwiches/burgers. Pickles cannot be removed once added, the taste from the pickle juice taints everything it touches. It's not like picking off a tomato slice or leaf of lettuce.

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u/iwilldeletethisacct2 21d ago

I also don't like pickles on my burger, but I accept that it's a fairly standard topping for a lot of people. The thing that drives me nuts is pickles on chicken. Absolutely not, pickles do not even belong there.

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u/105_irl 20d ago

Yeah I just get the nuggets and don’t even try with the burgers anymore

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u/WartimeHotTot 20d ago

I don’t understand why pickles come standard on burgers. I also don’t understand why so many people like that.

I like pickles. They’re great by themselves. But as soon as you put them on something like a burger, the flavor of every bite becomes 95% pickle, 5% burger. It overpowers everything it touches.

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u/CatProgrammer 18d ago

Acidity to balance the fat. Not so important on a burger, sure, but a fried chicken sandwich just isn't the same without them. 

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u/Kazehana127 20d ago

I just want cheese and ketchup on my burger and every order from every fast food location in town had me sitting in the car picking off pickles and wiping mustard and mayo off the bun and applying ketchup myself. I’ve since just completely stopped eating fast food, which was a good decision for my general health, but it still blows my mind that 10 different establishments could never get it right. 

Know who always gets it right? Five Guys. Guess what’s two towns over. 

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u/ArcadianDelSol 20d ago

pickles on burgers is horrible. They're tart and have the consistency of raw oysters.

If they were crisp bread-and-butter style pickles, maybe. But McDonalds is putting slices of Pickle-Roll-Ups on their burgers.

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u/CatProgrammer 18d ago

Sweet pickles have zero place on a burger, yuck. The crunch I agree on though, limp pickles are just disappointing. 

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u/ArcadianDelSol 18d ago

how do we solve this impossible dillema? How do we get crunchy dill pickles on burgers?

Its like we werent good enough to deserve it or something.

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u/Redthemagnificent 20d ago

I thought I hated pickles as a kid. Turns out I just hate those specific fast food burger pickles. Idk what it is about them. They're gross. But I love a jar of pickles and pickled onions

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u/feedthechonk 20d ago

The value menu cheeseburger doesn't even come with pickles and I've had them put pickles on it. They really don't give a fuck.

The absolute fucking worst was sprechers in lake Geneva, Wisconsin. I'd order a burger, no pickles with the side of veggies no carrots. Not a single carrot, but there's be pickles on the burger every damn time. Thankfully they were fried and skewered on top, so there were no juice to fuck up the burger

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u/hillside126 20d ago

Tbf, I have been ordering no pickles on my burgers from my local McDonalds for 4 years and they have never gotten it wrong so far.

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u/skankenstein 20d ago

When I was in high school, my friend who worked at McDonalds and I went thru drive thru at the only McDonalds in our small town. She asked for extra pickles on her cheeseburger. The manager who hated her must have made it because when we got home, the burger was thicc- it had like two dozen pickles on it. The burger was inedible after soaking up the pickle essence of that many pickles.

I regularly think about the pettiness of that pickle burger and that happened in 1995.

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u/Kilocentric 20d ago

I have never returned a messed up order before because I am not picky and as long as the food is appropriate to the cost I'm happy. I picked up a big mac with no pickles for my brother and re-iterated no pickles and saw it on the screen.
Get home and he opens the burger to buns stuffed to the brim in pickles. I was furious. It had to be a joke and I had them remake the burger. I wasn't rude about it but why mess with other people's food.

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u/PotatoesAndChill 20d ago

Same here, but I didn't have issues ordering without pickles. The only time it was a bit problematic was when the cashier got a bit confused by me ordering a hamburger without pickles, so she thought I was allergic to everything and asked about all ingredients: "Is ketchup ok? Is onion ok? Is mustard ok?". But it's fine.

Has a much bigger problem in Burger King where the electronic menu thing had customisation options on the Whopper, but for whatever reason it didn't include pickles.

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u/Calypsosin 21d ago

I had this happen with a Schlotzsky’s in my home town. I’d get an original with no veggies because I’m a savage. Still wanted the cheese and sauce, tho.

I’d constantly get olives put on, and they’d not put cheese or sauce often. One time, after like the 5th time in a row of it happening, I asked them, “do you consider cheese a vegetable?” And they just shrugged at me.

I don’t really go there anymore lol… the only other place that does me dirty like that is Whataburger. Order is always right, it just takes 30+ minutes. Shambolic.

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u/ermax18 20d ago

As someone who loves pickles, it annoys me when you get the random pickle hater working at Chick-fil-A that alters the standard ordering protocol and asks me if I want pickles on my sandwich. It has pickles by default, this isn’t even a question they ask by default. Every time I get the random person at Chick-fil-A asking if I want pickles, I say yes with a confused look and then my sandwich comes out without pickles anyways. Hahaha.