6 Things I'll Never Do At Tim Hortons After Working There For 7 Months

Demanding fresh coffee

Look, no one wants to drink old coffee. I mean, I personally do all the time because, at a certain point in the day, it's just about staying awake, but I wouldn't pay for it.

As a person who has worked at both Tim Hortons and Starbucks, I can tell you that they've got systems in place to ensure this doesn't happen.

At Timmie's, pots are brewed every 20 minutes to ensure freshness, which is why you're annoyed if you come in asking for your coffee to be "the freshest."

Everyone drinks from the same brew. Even if your server pretends to cater to your request, you're not special. Know that you're not actually getting a superior product. You're just declaring yourself a prude.

Being way too specific about what Tim Hortons donuts I want in my dozen

It's okay to cherry-pick your favourite Tim Hortons donuts. But if you're ordering someone around on their hands and knees for ten minutes so you can get every specific treat you want, you're a problem.

What I remember vividly about working at Tim Hortons was how often people would give me $10 for a dozen donuts and then act like I was their lackey they could rudely boss around.

I once had a person start making a buzzer noise whenever I grabbed a donut they didn't like, despite it being the kind they requested. This was their way of telling me what exact donut they wanted. Brutal.

Even the smallest amount of power can be abused. So don't be like that person.

Yelling my Tim Hortons drive-thru orders as soon as I pull up

If you've never worked a Tim Hortons drive-thru before, let me give you a quick rundown of how it works.

You stand by a freezing cold and dark window for hours because Ontario, with a janky headset on, praying that whoever's about to pull up will wait for you to greet them before they rattle off their order.

Why? Because anyone working the drive-thru is expected to do other tasks as well. You're taking orders, but you're also brewing coffee and grabbing donuts.

Things got hectic during rushes, which is exactly when people start driving up, yelling their orders at you before they've even rolled their windows down.

Of course, these folks were always the same to get irritated when you asked them to repeat themselves and furious when you got their order wrong.

I get needing caffeine to be a person, but anyone who makes a habit of taking out their petty frustration on other people can kick rocks as far as I am concerned.

Throwing cigarette butts in the Tim Hortons drive-thru lane

If you spend every morning smoking darts in the Tim Hortons drive-thru lane, waiting to grab an extra large double-double, give me your number! I think we went to high school together.

Although you should know that those butts you're flicking don't dissolve into the concrete and create a tobacco plant — they get swept up by employees.

I don't remember a single lesson from Grade 10 science, but I do recall the long hours I spent sweeping up discarded cigarettes in the South Edgeware Timmie's parking lot, daydreaming in a dead sea of nicotine.

Paying in nickels and dimes

But you've got so much loose change! Surely, you have to get rid of it somehow.

Yeah, well, get a piggy bank because your mission to rid your pockets of the old jingle-jangle is forcing me, a person who still counts on his fingers, to start doing math under pressure while a line of people groans in the background.

I'm not quite old enough to say the phrase "back in my day" yet, but when I worked at Tim Hortons, pennies were still going strong.

I still recall the panic I'd feel when someone would vomit their change onto the counter before me and say, "how much is that?"

Regularly destroying the bathroom

My Tim Hortons tenure ended the summer before I left for college. I remember it well because I'd gone to work hungover. My friends and I had just recently started pounding Lakers Ice every weekend and had gone full-tilt the night before.

When I arrived, my manager told me I needed to clean the men's bathrooms because someone had "made a mess." I won't go into details about what I saw when I went in there, but it was enough for me to walk out the door without a resignation letter.

You see, this wasn't the first time I'd been asked to clean up a bathroom disaster. I was the only new employee the location had hired in months and thus was given all the jobs no one else wanted to do.

I don't know what it is about a Tim Hortons bathroom that makes people forget their humanity, but I've never been in one since — seriously, I'll pee behind a gas station before I step back into one.