The Customer Fast Food Drive-Thru Pet Peeve That Can Add To Your Wait Time

There are a lot of unspoken rules for motorists who enter a fast-food drive-thru. While "paying it forward" seems nice, it can be a real downer. And if you're trying to order off-menu, it's best to do so on the app — and not while the restaurant is getting slammed. Yet it can be frustrating when you, as the customer, show proper drive-thru etiquette, only to get stymied by the staff. Case in point? One major pet peeve for many fast food fans is when the person working the window asks them to pull up or park to the side while their order is being prepared.

The reason customers dread being asked to do this is that, as quite a few Redditors on an r/PetPeeves thread commented, it can take forever to get your food. One user shared a story of how they were asked to pull forward, and they complied; then, "after an unreasonable amount of time," they got out of their car and went inside the restaurant to obtain their food, and found it abandoned in a bag that none of the employees knew what to do with.

Some customers believe that if they are going to be forced to wait longer for their food, they should receive compensation of some sort: a discount, a freebie, etc. So, you should know what you want to order and not start your turn at the speaker by looking at the menu to pick your meal — and if your server asks you to pull forward, be polite and try asking nicely for a free drink or dessert next time it happens to you.

You might suspect you're asked to pull up or over while at a fast-food drive-thru because you've ordered something that takes longer to prepare, and the employees want to make way for the people behind you and avoid line congestion. Well, you're half-right, as it turns out. But the more pressing reason some customers are invited to move their vehicles from the drive-thru line is that in many fast food restaurants, there is a timer keeping track of how long it takes employees to do anything, including getting through drive-thru orders. The moment your car approaches the lane, it sets off sensors, and the timer starts.

The timer keeps going until presumably you receive your order and drive off. But occasionally, employees will "game the system" a bit and have you park outside of the sensor zone, so that their numbers stay within the optimum range (it's also why you might be asked to pull forward when there is no line behind you). This gives fast food workers some breathing room, but it can be incredibly frustrating to be moved off the line and then made to feel like your order isn't as much of a priority — or in the worst-case scenario outlined above, your order ends up completely forgotten.