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Difficult customers didn’t suddenly appear when people started calling them “Karens.”

This fast food employee dealt with plenty of them more than 25 years ago while working at a popular drive-in restaurant.

Most of them wanted refunds, free food, or anything else they could get for nothing.

But the worst ones were the customers who decided to take their frustration out on the cashiers for no good reason.

Whenever that happened, this employee stepped in and handled the order himself.

In fact, he had a special trick for customers who made the teenage cashiers cry. And if they complained a second time, he only made things worse.

Read on to see how he used mustard as a revenge tool.

How we used to deal with fast food Karens.

Back in the times of yore, long before we knew to call them Karens, they existed.

Twenty-five-plus years ago, I worked at a fast food joint with a faster-than-the-speed-of-sound name, where the servers wore roller skates.

My job was kind of like an assistant manager, but more of a jack-of-all-trades in the kitchen area. Most of the people who worked there were high school kids. Anyone above the age of 20 was basically in charge.

He didn’t play with people who complained.

We had our fair share of the normal entitlement: refunds on eaten food, people pretending they ordered something they didn’t and then wanting freebies.

I really was not concerned with getting fired, as I only did that job for beer and video game money, so I was ruthless with these people.

As soon as they found out they were not getting their refund, and that their “Let me talk to the manager/corporate” demands had zero effect, they just stopped trying that crap.

Sometimes, though, we would get someone who upset one of the girls taking orders. That was my time to shine.

Luckily, he had a trick for those types of people.

See, this particular joint had this curiously strong mustard. I’m not sure why it was like that, or if it still is, but back then this stuff was MUSTARDY in the extreme.

If I saw one of the girls crying, I would take over making that order. Regardless of what burger they ordered, what they got was what I referred to as “the McMustard.”

I’d slather it on so thick that it was not something anyone in their right mind would want. Often it would get sent back. I would promptly slather mustard all over the outside of the bun, wrap it back up, and send it right back out to them.

Most people didn’t send it back again.

Only once did someone ever send it back a second time.

In that instance, I promptly coated the outer wrapper with mustard, put a second wrapper on it, and sent it back with a couple of good squirts of mustard straight into the bag with the rest of their order. That was the last I heard of it.

Our town also had this dude who would call different restaurants and claim he’d been there earlier in the day and that the food was wrong. A lot of places would just offer to replace it, no questions asked. Not me. I knew his game, and I really enjoyed demanding receipts that never existed.

Yuck! That’s why it pays to be nice to service workers!

Let’s check out how the folks over at Reddit feel about his mustard trick.

It brought back some memories for this reader.

Apparently, their mustard is mustardy.

According to this comment, the mustard isn’t the only thing that’s messy.

Here’s someone who worked at Burger King.

That’s actually a pretty good way to get back at people who treat service workers like garbage.

Nobody should think they can bully or intimidate employees into getting their way.

And if someone does decide to act like that, then they shouldn’t act surprised when things don’t go the way they planned.

Maybe a burger covered in mustard won’t change someone’s attitude, but it might make them think twice before picking on another cashier.