The Major Struggle Chick-Fil-A Employees Face Isn't An Issue At Most Other Fast Food Chains

In the business of fast food, quickness is king. The quality of the product coming out of the drive-thru window must meet customer standards, of course, but the speed of service is especially paramount here. When would-be customers see a line of cars snaking around the restaurant, they are likely to pass right on by. As such, wherever chains can find a way to shave a few seconds off the time it takes to deliver a meal, they take it. Unfortunately for employees at Chick-fil-A, though, this often means spending their shift standing outdoors to take customer orders face-to-face, rather than through the industry-standard menu board and radio box.

According to Chick-fil-A employees on Reddit, this technique is meant to be deployed typically during peak hours and leads to a vast improvement in overall efficiency. As soon as an order is put in, the order taker can move on to the next car, eliminating, for example, one car blocking the next from ordering while they wait for their food. The system must work considering how much it is used, but it does come with an obvious downside: The weather outside isn't always nice.

On a beautiful spring day, employees might welcome a stint in the outdoors, chatting with customers and avoiding the faster-paced work happening in the kitchen. When it's hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk, however, or pouring down rain, it's hard to imagine that those employees wouldn't prefer to revert to the radio and accept that they might not serve quite so many cars that shift. As one alleged employee on Reddit confessed about working during a particularly hot season, "I absolutely despise it. They put me on outside serving all week last week. I'm desperately looking for another job because of this."

There is some evidence of Chick-fil-A stores calling in employees when outdoor conditions get to be especially bad, such as when wildfire smoke brings air quality to hazardous levels. That said, it does appear to be up to the management of individual restaurants to make these decisions, and those folks may not always make the most responsible choice for the health of their employees. There are plenty of reports of Chick-fil-A order takers braving rain, snow, hail, severe cold, extreme heat, strong winds, wildfire smoke, and everything in between. 

Chick-fil-A's management is not blind to the concerns about the welfare of employees forced to take orders in all manner of climatic conditions, however. Some locations have been known to issue strange wearable clear plastic boxes to employees on rainy days, and restaurants operating at the extremes of the temperature spectrum also often make arrangements. In Edmonton, Canada, at Chick-fil-A's northernmost free-standing restaurant, the order takers are issued winter apparel and operate from heated canopies. In hotter climates, employees rely on fans and ice water, though many consider it to be insufficient, with reports of employees passing out from the heat.

Most places, stopping by a fast food restaurant in inclement weather might mean thinking about the rainy day drive-thru etiquette rule of switching off your wipers to avoid splashing the employee. At Chick-fil-A, though, picking up one of the chain's new chicken sandwiches might also mean inadvertently supporting an employee being forced to stand outside in the sun during a historic heat wave.