Which is worse, fast food or retail?

[VGmaster9]

Out of the two categories, which do you think is worse to work at, fast food (Mcdonalds, Burger King, Wendy's, etc) or retail (Walmart, Target, Kmart, etc)?

[Fossa]

I'd have to say fast food: often, a more frantic pace, lower wages, and you deal with a lot of grease and crap, and end up smelling really bad by the end of a shift, as with many restaurant jobs, really. Plus, there can be really long shifts. I'd say retail is slightly better, depending on the retailer: there's certain chains of grocery stores here that start people at about $12-13/hr., often with benefits, and I don't think the same can be said about fast food. Plus, there's more departments you might work in, and positions to advance to; fast food is much more claustrophobic. I've never worked it, but have worked jobs from washing dishes to waiting tables to wine/buyer/sommelier. If you're going to go foodservice, waiting tables is generally where the money is, and this is not a thing found in fast food. At a fancy place, you can easily clear $100-200 on a busy night in tips, at least weekends/near weekend nights.

Verdict: Fast food should be a last resort.

[Yarra]

Fast food.  The food and smell will make you sick.  Retail won't kill you but people still need to buy essential things like food and clothing.  The environment is usually clean but the customers aren't the nicest.  

[Vallium]

Fast food by far...

Ive worked both, I quit my fast food job immediately (working less than a month only two days a week) for my retail job. I have a relatively nice retail job. Its a fast-paced, clean-cut, corporate and located everywhere convenience store one might know as walgreens. 

Fast food was anxiety inducing as hell, I found it really hard to memorize orders, make food and ice creams that didnt suck, not fuck up on a regular basis, and engage my apathetic coworkers. Im pretty sure they were glad to see me gone when I got the new job lol.

With my new job I dont sit at a register most the day, the tasks are wide and varied, I have interesting coworkers, and the customers arent always dickheads and actually appreciate my service sometimes. For a full-time, minimum wage job I seem to have it made for the time being until I can figure a way to step up the ladder to something different.

Plus benefits are hella rad...

 

 

Also...props to the people that work hard to make a living and make ends meet in those jobs it takes some dedication and hard work to do that.

[ZorroValdez]

Where's the checkbox?

[LazerMaster5]

I dunno, I have gotten terrible service from both.

Then again, slow and moronic cashiers aren't as bad as fast food workers that don't acknowledge your existence when you walk up to the front counter.

[Gator]

only worked retail, can say that retail is total garbage for sure.. but from what i've heard, fast food sounds worse tbh

[Newt]

I've worked both jobs, and I can say with certainty that working for a fast food business is much worse.

[Mayonnaise]

Never worked for either but I think fast food is worse.

[littlerock]

I work in a single-establishment shop, but from the various positions I've filled there, working dish washing was the absolute worst, and that's coming from somebody that regularly cleans the toilets instead. It's probably worse still in fast food, so absolutely fuck that noise. You end the shift stinking, covered in soap and food slop, tired and sore. The pay sucks, and no matter what you do, you cannot work fast enough to please everybody AND keep the quality up. The sound is deafening, but if you wear hearing protection, you ain't gonna hear important requests from the rest of the staff.

I ended up quitting that position because I was running short of migraine medicine each month. And having a panic attack sneak up on yr ass while trying to work a huge wedding on that shift through a migraine? Never again. Cried in the cooler for a few before getting back to the grind.

At least my co-workers were/are awesome. If they had the time and saw me struggling through a heap of dishes several times my height, the chefs would come lend a hand running loads through. Good people make the job, always.

[Lopaw]

I would hate working fast food what with all the orders of stuff and having to get it done as soon as possible. I don't know how the staff in McDonalds don't go insane from the constant beeping equipment if anything. 

[Wrecker]

Fuck both of them, and major props to the people that can handle the positions. I couldn't do customers. There are some stupid, stupid people out there, and hearing some of them go off on customer service type people over menial bullshit drives me insane.

I was on a job closer to civilization where I could actually drive out and grab a burger and fries for lunch on the odd day. That was pretty cool, but the only problem was there was a train that some fucking geniuses had scheduled to cross the main drag right at about lunchtime that would make me late to get back to work if I got stuck waiting for it to go by. Usually wasn't too hard to do, but I definitely got stuck watching the train on a few occasions. Nothing like cursing at the stupid train, eating fast food in traffic, getting crumbs everywhere, knowing you're going to be late to get back to work, and trying to use those thin crap paper towels they give you to try to prevent getting fry grease on the steering wheel.

There was one time, I was on lunch and next in line for the drive thru window, watching the clock tick, and the person in front of me gets their order. Little bit of time goes by, then they hand it back. Bit of time goes by, the order comes back out of the window. Time, a thing of french fries goes back into the window. More time, fries come back out. Even more time goes by, car's still sitting there, and it was fairly apparent there was some sort of heated conversation going on judging by the way the driver was waving their arms around.

Rolled down the window the window to eavesdrop, and all you could hear was shit like "every time I come here - you can't do this right - you always fuck this up, bla bla bla..." There were two people at the window were trying get the asshole to leave. I kinda lost it myself waiting for this fuck to leave, jumped out of the truck and went off on them to get the fuck out of the drive thru which they finally did after some words were exchanged. I was too pissed off at the whole scenario to remember to get my order at the window, and proceeded to get stuck waiting for a stupid train to go by.

But man, just standing there and listening to somebody berate you because their fries aren't full enough, that takes some patience. I couldn't do it. Same thing with people that go off on the cashier in a grocery lineup over a coupon, like holy fuck, why? It'd be pretty cool to watch some cashier just start running one of those customer's heads off of the item scanner repeatedly.