I'm so glad I never worked in a drive-thru window because if I did, I would've floundered the second somebody wanted to pay for the person behind them. I don't know how to pull up the credit card information of a customer who just left! What are you, nuts?
Against all odds, drive-thru employees find a way to manage a "pay it forward" line, especially at Starbucks. I would surmise that pay-it-forward lines at Starbucks are popular because customers need to cancel out the guilt of using a drive-through to purchase their coffee, a beverage that they should make at home, and do so by sending over a few measly dollars to the passengers behind them. While that's all well and good for customers who only have to pay for a $4 coffee (which is still unreasonably expensive for a breakfast drink, in my opinion), but what about when the car behind you is a group that bought $42 worth of coffee?
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