‘Too strict for me’: Chick-fil-A trainees say it’s hard to remember to say ‘dine-in or carry-out’ instead of ‘for here or to go’
Working at Chick-fil-A is unlike a job at any other fast-food restaurant.
Instead of a lax atmosphere where workers run around like chickens with their heads cut off ( pun intended), Chick-fil-A employees are held to extremely high standards of customer service.
While this has been good for the company—it topped the American Consumer Satisfaction Index for seven years in a row—employees have been known to crack under pressure.
This was poked fun of in a viral TikTok video by @cfalakeforestand380, a TikTok account for the Chick-fil-A location in McKinney, Texas. The Daily Dot reached out to the account via TikTok comment.
In the video, which had 4.1 million views by Tuesday, two employees engage in a mock training session. “POV: you are training someone on front counter and they say ‘for here or to go’ instead of ‘dine in or carry out,’” the text overlay read.
The video shows the trainer gasping when the trainee messes up his words. Then, the embarrassed trainee slaps a hand over his mouth and hits himself over the head with a paper. It’s all set to the sound of a scene from SpongeBob SquarePants in which Squidward asks Patrick, "For here or to go?" and bangs his head on the cash register when Patrick is befuddled by the question.
The caption, going along with the light-hearted theme, had the words, “Are you new here?”
While the video was intended to poke fun at Chick-fil-A’s strict rules for customer service, people in the comments made it known that these rules may be too strict.
“[Chick-fil-A] was too strict for me,” one user commented. “Most traumatic place to work,” added another.
“WE uSe ELeVaTed lanGuAgE hERe,” a third joked.
Some Chick-fil-A workers chimed in with additional word changes they were instructed to make while working there.
“Refresh vs refill lol,” this user commented.
“When they say ‘I can help who is next’ and not ‘I can serve the next guest,’ another added.
Commenters mentioned other word swaps including “customer” vs. “guest” and, “How may I serve you?” instead of, “What can I get for you?”
Similar to the TikTok video, some users hilariously embellished what happens when workers mess up. “Managers when I accidentally say you’re welcome or no problem instead of my pleasure (they will skin me alive at the next meeting),” this user wrote.
“As a team lead I can personally confirm we will take you in the back and water board you until you get it right!!” joked another.
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