The most important business hours for this job are in the early morning, between 5:00 AM and 12:00 PM. Therefore, employees must be ready to get up extremely early in order to get to work.
Under-caffeinated customers can be extremely ill-tempered and difficult to work with. It's not their fault: they're in a rush to get to work, and have to wait through a long line of other scowling clients before they get to you. But you must be ready to deal with this, and try to ameliorate their already unpleasant circumstances as much as possible. Service with a smile, as the saying goes, is extra important when it comes to the emotional well-being of early-morning Dunkin clientele.
The schedule is erratic and changes constantly. One usually gets different hours every week, which makes it difficult to develop a regular routine around the job.
And finally, on average, Dunkin Donuts is extremely cheap. Store policies require that fresh coffee is brewed every eighteen minutes, and that all unsold baked goods are thrown into the garbage at the end of each day. But when it comes to items that are about to be trashed, employees can't just (as an alternative) take them for themselves. The only options are to actually buy the to-be-trashed items or just throw them out. Not a single donut or coffee can be had for free, even for those who work there.
This last practice strikes me as shockingly wasteful. Granted, employees are allowed a 50% discount on whatever they buy, as well as free ice from the ice machine if they want to drink tap water, but that's it. Everything else must be either bought or trashed. I feel like the day-old donuts could at least go to a homeless shelter, but they don't. And if there are good, pragmatic reasons for the company to do this, I am not aware of what they are.
