by Johnny Guatemala
Aug. 2, 2008
FORT ROYAL, VA-- In a petty power play on a job where little is left to personal discretion, Hardee's employee Tonya Struthers decided to negate the water order of a drive-thru customer, Mary Hartridge, Thursday evening.
Hartridge, inspired by an old personal photograph to lose weight, started making small changes to her diet. One of the first was the deletion of french fries and soda from any order at fast food restaurants. On her way home from the library, she decided to purchase a roast beef sandwich, accompanied by a water.
After hearing Hartridge's request for a water, Struthers repeated, "Water?" in slight disbelief. She rung the order up, which Hartridge viewed from an order screen at the drive-thru menu. Struthers was easily distressed by the unconventional order, having to push four register buttons instead of the usual three for a combo meal purchase. Despite her robotic efforts to upsell Hartridge on a combo or a milkshake, the order stood.
Upon pulling up to the drive-thru window, Hartridge found Struthers appearing to look incredibly busy despite no other cars being in the drive-thru, followed by an abrupt call for $2.49. As she handed Struthers the money, with her order visibly on the counter, Hartridge asked for some ketchup through the rapidly-closing window.
Denying Struthers the ability to foist the meal upon her without condiment dispersion obviously enraged the worker, who put one ketchup packet in the bag, as Hartridge discovered when checking her bag after Struthers shut the window, sans water.
"I have ketchup at home, which will have to do since one packet isn't enough. And I don't think it's really practical to go into the restaurant and ask for a forgotten water from the lip ring girl. I'd just like it if I could go to a fast food restaurant and get my drive-thru water more than fifty percent of the time," said Hartridge.