Working somewhere while short-staffed can be stressful, and a Taco Bell employee recently vented her stress about running the store by herself to a DoorDash driver in the drive-thru.
TikTok user and DoorDash driver Brence Walters (@brencewalters) sat in his car in a Taco Bell drive-thru. While waiting to take his order, he recorded his conversation with the Taco Bell worker. “Right now, I’m the only one making and taking both orders at this time. So, if you’ll be patient, I will be with you as soon as I can but we got at least five minutes because of the size of the order I have ahead of you,” the female worker informed. This took the content creator by surprise.
“I have only one other employee here and I have to have them focus on cleaning,” the worker continued. “Or else I’m going to be stuck here well past 6am.” After a moment of silence, Walters was in utter disbelief. “Oh, my gosh. Do you guys feel like you get paid enough to do this?” he asked. Then, the other worker chimed in. “Nope. We only get paid about $12 an hour.” The female worker added, “And managers only make $14 which is still not enough. Just give me a moment, darling.”
“No worries,” Walters answered, concluding the video.
In the caption, Walters elaborated more about the clip. “Doing #Doordash tonight and came across a Taco Bell manager +1 other employee going THROUGH IT at an Indiana store on Valentine’s night.”
The Daily Dot reached out to Walters via Instagram direct message and TikTok comment and Taco Bell via press email. The video amassed over 597,000 views where viewers appreciated Walters’ kindness.
“ur so sweet for understanding,” one viewer wrote.
“as a fast food worker, thank you for being so understanding!!” a second stated.
“the fact that I can hear the tears in her voice. thank you for being so kind to her,” a third commented.
In addition, commenters identifying as current Taco Bell employees explained why the store was understaffed.
“unfortunately it’s like this I work at taco bell and they will literally only have 2-3 people on shift to cut labor costs,” one user explained.
“that’s unfortunately very true. they literally only scheduled two people for the night shift,” a second elaborated.
@brencewalters Doing #Doordash tonight and came across a Taco Bell manager +1 other employee going THROUGH IT at an Indiana store on Valentine’s night. #tacobell #valentinesday #valentinesnight #doordash #grubhub #gigwork #managersbelike ♬ original sound – Brence Walters
Taco Bell being understaffed is a common trend. In 2022, a viral video circulated of three teenage workers running a location without a manager. Furthermore, a senior manager quit after 20 years, citing one of the reasons “understaffed stores” and “burnt-out employees.”
