My daughter worked at the local Diary Queen.

They must take their diaries very seriously up there.

Trouble is, if you confront such a person, you are liable to get assaulted, or worse. You're taking your life in your hands. I wouldn't recommend confrontation unless you were pretty sure you had the ability (or equipment) necessary to deter such a response. Sad, but reality.

Gee, what a tough guy, calling a little girl names!

Got the same kind of treatment when I was 18, working in the auto parts store (never did the fast food thing myself). If a customer phoned after closing, my boss told me only to say, "Such-and-such Auto Parts. Sorry, we're closed." I remember one guy telling me I was full of shit, and another called me something really vile. We had one lady working there, a few years older than I was, who'd give back as good as she got. People learned not to mess with her.

He was completely in the wrong.

But we have become an immediate gratification society, and even adults when this immediate gratification is delayed, don't know how to cope and frequently lash out at people.

When I was 15, my first weekend working at Burger King ended in a similar way. Some guy at the drive through couldn't hear me/I couldn't hear him, etc. so I asked him nicely if he could please repeat himself because I hadn't heard him the first time. He hurled a string of obscenities at me and tore away. I can remember being so upset that I nearly started crying.

This kind of sets off a "not such a good idea" alarm, both as to confronting such a guy alone, and for only a couple of young girls to be alone in the store.

It's very common around here for fast food restaurants to be robbed at closing, the genius-types who do such things imagining a big cash haul. It's not uncommon for the closers to end up dead.

Oh, fast food jobs are the worst. I spent my teenage/early adult years working at McDonald's and 7-11 and the only thing I learned from it is that people suck.

I will never work with the public again.

Luckily, my restaurant job was as a dishwasher in a family style, privately owned, place, back in '83-'85 range.

I can say that the waitresses had it pretty good. Most customers were nice. The worst we had was a church group (about 15) that scheduled a room around XMas one year. The waitress made $7 in tips from the whole crowd.

I took my grandchildren and their friends to our local McDonals's this afternoon. As I was waiting for them - they were in the playroom - I was people watching. One of the older, handicapped employees at McDonald's had just finished her shift, had purchased her lunch and appeared to be waiting to be picked up. Sitting at the table next to her was a mother and father and two little girls. The McDonald's employee got up and went over to their table and offered a coin to one of the girls to "put in her piggy bank." The father yelled at this employee to "get away from them - leave them alone." The woman apologized and went back to her table. I was shocked at the tone this man took with a older woman, obviously, mentally handicapped - actually, he was the one that was mentally handicapped by his behavior towards another human being. I followed her out to her cab - a service cab for seniors - and apologized for the man's behavior towards her. She thanked me and told me to have a good day. I do understand this man's reluctance to let someone give his daughter a coin, but I feel he could have used another approach. However, having worked in a domestic violence program, I felt it was best for all concerned not to speak to him.