If you, like so many grade-school children, dreamed of one day working at Taco Bell, but worried whether you had the technical aptitude to master their complex procedures and delicate processes, study this Taco Bell insider document, snagged by ANIMAL, and possibly the most scintillating of all the leaked materials we have ever posted, and you’ll have a leg up on all the former i-bankers clamoring for the same position. Flowchart in full glory, inside…
Taco Bell Training Illustration: Not Fit for Public Consumption [ANIMAL]
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I want to see the sign on how to deal with high and or drunk folks at 2am looking for “HANGOVER” food….
FOURTHMEAL!
That’s right America. EAT MORE!
I think the funniest thing about this is that the instructions aren’t even written in proper English: “Please pull [up/drive up] to the window.”
@queenlizzie: Someone just complained about that to me today. I haven’t heard it yet, but I can just IMAGINE it’s annoying. “Hi, how are you?” “Uh …. hungry?”
I’d seriously be wondering if they’d replaced the ordering box thingie with some kind of loudspeaker telephone.
OMG. this is serious ?
hahahaha
This isn’t too bad a training aid. My local Taco Smell always has an overly friendly greeting at the drive-thru. I usually am hungry and just want them to take and fill my order quickly. Since I know that the person taking the order probably doesn’t give a f@*k about how I really am doing, asking me how I am doing does little to make me like Taco Smell better.
Still my local T-Bell actually has pretty decent employees, many who do not have prison tattoes on their fingers.
Instead of “Hi, how are you?”, why not simply “Hi, what would you like to order today, sir/ma’am?”
“Does that complete your order?”
Worst line ever. KFC and Pizza Hut are also owned by the same company, yucky!
taco bell is pretty good about this sort of stuff, cheap too!
but yea its clear from the chart they think their employees are complete retards.
@thewriteguy: Agreed but I still like it better than “Order when ready.”
@RINO-Marty:
Ditto. I’m doing fairly well in the corporate world but I was the most God awful waitress at Pizza Hut as a high schooler. Absolutely atrocious. Eventually I quit because as a customer, I would never have put up with me.
I’m not going to make fun of any job or anybody that works for a living.
Save a ton of money. Bring your own drink!
@G-Dog: Well said.
“Would you like something to drink with that?”
Yeah, gimme a liter’a cola!
I’m sorry, but how is this different than the training material in any fast-food job? And thinking of that, do you think the telemarketer calling you or the verizon customer service rep or the pollster calling about the elections isn’t doing the same?
It’s called a McJob for a reason.
@Youthier: If a customer is eating at Pizza Hut, do you think the service is his biggest problem?
@thewriteguy: Using “Hi, what would you like to order today, sir/ma’am?”" is a horrible idea because you have a guy in a well-lit room using a black and white video camera to look into a dark car and try to figure out the gender of the customer. Any dude with a long hair would look like a ma’am and any girl with short hair would look like a dude.
I think I must be the only guy that doesn’t see a problem with this. Seriously, the job is to sell food. You’re shocked that a food establishment would like to sell you more food?
I’m just glad that Taco Bell is training their employees in the first place =D
This is just standard training. Straight to the point, easy to grasp for everyone.
What’s the deal? Afraid you’ll get good customer service at fast food restaurant?
I worked at taco bell when I was sixteen. Was my first job actually. Wasn’t a bad place, clean..not greasy. The food is boiled in a bag, the meat, chicken, beans. All of it. You boil it.
@akalish: Yes, this happens to be the only post-worthy element about these instructions yet it’s not even mentioned in the OP!
My god, they endorse lying in the training catalogs! I’ve never had a single taco bell employee tell me about the tomatoes in the cheesy beefy melt or the cheesy bean and rice, but damn it, they’re there, and they’re disgusting.
I should complain, damn it, I spent 2 dollars on that crap! Each time! So, somewhere around 4 in total I suppose, those lying bastards.
At least it’s not as bad as McDonalds, there if a child asks an employee where hamburgers come from, they are required to answer “they come from hamburger patches”. My dad is a vegetarian and read about every book on corporate beefmeisters like them.
I used to work at Taco Bell and I’ve seen this brilliant piece of literature before.
I don’t think the upselling part is even that bad, what is a crime is that we we’re instructed to only give 1 packet of hot sauce per food item! Shocking I know, especially when I got the usual guy who buys one taco and asks ‘ah lemme get a ton of dat dere fire sauce’. So unfair.
@Smitherd:
that means point of sale, its what on their registers.
I’d be a little creeped out if someone was staring at me with that cheesy smile the whole time I was making my order.
@CRNewsom: The local cops said they love the baggy pants — prevents the suspects from running too far/fast. Those types also tend to be the same ones committing crimes for some strange reason.
@megan9039: There are some dialects of American English which I have difficulty understanding (heavy black or heavy southern). I don’t seem to have as much difficulty understanding the broken Spanglish or Indian Engrish. Could just be me ‘though. I’ve only resorted to ordering in Spanish a couple of times. Might have to brush up on my Hindi for talking with the offshore customer (dis)service agents.
@RINO-Marty: So how was life at Arthur Andersen? (Sorry, had to) I’m just glad you didn’t go into engineering. I routinely have to drop-ship everything I need for a job, right down to the last screw. Buying some of these parts locally is out of the question. Plenty of second-guessing beforehand.
@vitonfluorcarbon: I saw something like this recently at one of the fast food chains. The guy had tattoos all over his neck and up the lower portions of his jaw. Real smart dude — that’ll help you get plenty of jobs.
@G-Dog: I don’t want to criticize anyone who is making an honest effort and working, but sometimes I have to wonder. I see so many piss-poor attitudes from employees of various companies, including my own. I don’t care what the job is, if you’re going to do it, do it right. A customer asking you to do something that is part of your job shouldn’t come off as a great effort or inconvenience to your social life of talking with other employees about non work-related issues or your bootie-call on your cell phone while at work.
The fast food companies and many retail chains spend millions of dollars a year in R&D to idiot-proof their business model. Unfortunately, idiots are quite crafty.
Wow, how things have changed. Taco Bell was my first job… this was 1988 or so. The hamburger did come in big bags, but it was raw, and we cooked it ourselves. The beans were dry, and we cooked them ourselves (yes, with real, authentic, rendered pig fat). I was under 18 so I couldn’t do this next part: we fried the tortillas to get taco shells, tostadas, and the flour tortilla tostas.
McDonald’s was my second job. Again, this was a long time ago, but we were never told to tell children that hamburgers came from hamburger patches!
Dontcha just LOVE when a Fast Food moron assaults you with, “Hi, would like like to try an (fill-in name of overpriced menu choice) today? before you can order? It’s SUCH a fun annoyance and waste of time. I’d LOVE to know the success rate. Just shows to go that the only mcEmployees dumber than the clerks are the managers
FLConsumer: Even worse: BearingPoint! Aaargh!
Hey, nothing wrong with instructing your employees to be polite and courteous.
Maybe more restaurants need to post charts like this to remind employees that they are there to serve the customer in a courteous manner.
Fun fast food information about taco bell.
This is from ~2.5 years ago.
Drive Thru:
The greeting is recorded about once a week with the new ‘special’. The greeting is there to try to speed up the customer and assumes that you have looked at the menu BEFORE you have pulled up to the speaker. You have a target time on the speaker, 60 seconds if I remember correctly. Someone trying to hit target time hates people who say “let me look for a minute” then take 5 minutes to figure their order of 2 soft tacos.
If there are two windows the first one where you pay is not timed. Where you receive your bag of food you are timed beginning when the weight of your car rolls onto the sensor in front of the window. The target time here was 60 seconds as well if I’m remembering right. The timer does not stop until your weight leaves the window. The cashier will love you if you pull a full car length forward BEFORE you start checking your food. Come inside if you had a discrepancy as if the cashier is good and was actually trying to hit the time, it is a well run taco bell, and especially if a manager or the drive thru cashier can see you then you’ll usually be taken care of fast. Lots of times your missing food was made but was just left in an out of way place and forgotten about (like mexican pizzas above the preparer’s head). It is easy to forget one thing when you are making thousands of tacos as fast as possible. This is especially true when you order 2 or 3 grande meals (20-30 tacos) and add on 3 pizzas and they made your order in less then a minute.
Food Preparation:
As stated before pretty much all of the food comes in plastic bags that are refrigerated. They are not huge garbage bags. They are small white plastic bags. Beef takes 2 bags to fill up a metal line pan. Cheese takes .5-.75, lettuce takes ~.5, chicken and steak are smaller bags and also are 2 bags put into a pan half the size of the beef pan.
All cold stuff is put into pans and placed on the line with the extra stuff put in mini fridges under the line and used to replace the line when low/out.
Hot stuff comes straight from the fridge (except the nacho cheese, rice, and beans it is non refrigerated) to a big heater that is full of superhot water, placed into the water, then heated back up for a certain time period. That thing is ridiculously hot and some silly highschooler actually stuck his whole hand into it to fetch something out. He was a moron.
Rice is stored in bins and measured out and mixed with super hot ass water a scoop of lard/grease, and their flavoring. Beans come out of prepackaged paper bags and are mixed with the hot water.
All the flour is taken from shelves and steamed in a steamer as it is used. Deep fried stuff is fried once twice possibly but hopefully not 3 times a day. The deep fryer is also used for chalupa shells, empanadas, and potatoes. They try to deep fry the cinnamon twists, salad shells, etc at the beginning of the day and in down time as it takes up the deep fryer and takes a huge amount of time.
Grilled stuff is the biggest rip off you can buy at taco bell since you’re paying 2 bucks more for what amounts to the added benefit of having your item smashed between two hot plates for 40 some seconds.
Fun Facts I’ve randomly remembered or things that you get dirty looks about:
-I would never drink baja blast in my life as it leaves a blue film on everything it touches.
-When you complain because there are no napkins inside and see there’s only one cashier and a line of 30 people don’t be mad when the cashier simply places an opened bag of napkins on the counter for you to grab some out of.
-Please use proper grammar when you are cursing out a manager and accusing them of not having a highschool education. ( You aints got any highschools education! )
-If you go to a taco bell where the person in the drive thru is taking money+handing your order+taking orders+making drinks+checking your order, it is during a rush, and you got your order in less then a minute(at the window) then that person is most likely insanely good at their job and the line supporting him is as well.
-People are cyclic. It is really freaky and if you ever work at a place with the public a lot (any food) you will notice the fact that when people come they all decide to come at the same time. This is a given for lunch, dinner, etc but at taco bell it was even crazier because randomly at X:XXPM/AM on a slow day you just get a bajillion customers that wanted to eat at the same time. It is seriously freaky.
Ask more questions if you want to know. Much hasn’t changed since I’ve left even the training is the same as we had tons of what is shown in the picture. They always revolved around the new special product and upsaling drinks too.
I’d much prefer to see a flowchart instructing Taco Bell employees how to place gloves onto their mitts before they handle my food. Oh, right — there’s no rule for that.
@first2letters: Gloves are a false sense of security.
@theblackdog Oh so true.
I loved working at BK just to criticize the really funny flow charts on really simple things like making a cheezeburger, or filling a cup with pop. Too bad I don’t have pictures of them… they were too funny.
@specialed5000
@Nicholas_schaulsohn:
Yeah they’re clear bags but you remember how it’s GRADE Z meat??
@Buran: I agree and always try to be extra polite to fast food workers when I occasionally get fast food. Of course, I also enjoy how the workers look at me like I have two heads when I say “Yes, may I please have a spicy chicken sandwich?” I don’t think they get many polite fast food customers in NYC.
OMG. “no further suggestive sell.”
my respect for taco bell just went up. seriously.