Step to the side, babe’: McDonald’s is so understaffed customers are now doing the job for staff

In a wild turn of events, when a McDonald’s was completely understaffed, customers stepped up to manage the chaos and essentially became the staff themselves. It’s a moment of community (or maybe just desperation) that’s gone viral on TikTok, and it really shows the ongoing labor shortages in the food industry under Trump.

The scene unfolded in a TikTok posted by @styledbymoonkk on October 12, 2025, showing a McDonald’s utterly overwhelmed by a flood of DoorDash orders. With no employees around to handle the deliveries, one customer in a cozy cardigan took charge.

This woman immediately became the “McBoss,” calling out order numbers and telling those who were still waiting, in a wonderfully assertive way, to “step to the side, babe,” before asking the next person for their 3-digit order number. The on-screen text in the clip perfectly summed it up: “McDonald’s so understaffed the customers in here passing out the orders”.

The clip has racked up millions of views and thousands of comments. The reactions online have been pretty split; some commenters found the woman’s bold initiative to be a little rude or bossy, but others were quick to call her a hero and a true leader. It sparked a wider conversation about society, with one comment reading, “This is how society supposed to be ; everybody helping everybody out just to get stuff done!”. It’s a great sentiment that people are willing to pitch in when things get tough.

Customers seem expected to help McDonald’s employees

The struggling staff actually appreciated the customer stepping up. As someone who works at an understaffed McDonald’s said, “I’d appreciate this,” demonstrating that customers don’t have to make a difficult situation worse by acting entitled and demanding. Instead, they can recognize the humanity of the situation and lend a hand.

But this story isn’t all positive. The massive help from the customers, while noble, also brought up a big question: is it right for McDonald’s to rely on unpaid customers to cover for their own staffing issues? Many argued that McDonald’s needs to address its staffing problems instead of burning out its employees and accidentally creating a system where customers pick up the slack. I mean, it’s not like we haven’t seen those workers purposefully make people wait, but still.

One wary TikTok user had a great warning for corporations: “Bro don’t give corporations any ideas”. You really don’t want to get into a situation where you’re doing a corporate job for free. The bottom line is that while this customer’s leadership moment was an interesting display of people coming together, it highlights a much bigger issue in the fast-food world that needs a real solution. It’s time for McDonald’s to seriously start hiring. Huh, maybe is why other countries have better McDonald’s than we do…