Did you get hookups from friends at stores / shops?

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Exotic_Knee_5621@reddit

Grew up in a small town (20k pop). Every single fast food joint was 98% staffed by kids I was in high school with. Everywhere I went I ordered fries and a water and left with multiple bags of food.

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Green_Conclusion3443@reddit

My best friend worked at DQ. She would put anything I wanted in a blizzard.

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Can confirm. I worked at a DQ, and I'd hook my friends up. We were supposed to charge for extra fillings in Blizzards. I never did. My friend Keri always got at least double the cookie dough. In exchange, I got double meat at Subway when she worked.

For my boyfriend (now husband), I'd make his chocolate shakes with chocolate ice cream.

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Green_Conclusion3443@reddit

Mint oreo blizzard with chocolate ice cream...

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Lucky-Remote-5842@reddit

I also had a friend who worked at DQ. I would order a Blizzard and he would hand me a tray full of chicken tenders to go with it. 😃

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SignificantApricot69@reddit

We only had the combination Orange Julius with no food but I could get any drink or ice cream I wanted for free

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FriedBreakfast@reddit

For some reason I thought you said you had a chicken tender blizzard

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Lucky-Remote-5842@reddit

Well a couple of comments down, someone had a cheeseburger blizzard. 😅

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Ws6fiend@reddit

Mine worked at a regional chain deli. They have a line of loaded baked potatoes. Everytime I would order one, I got the biggest potatoes he had on hand and double everything. Sometimes he would even forget to ring me up.

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whyisthissticky@reddit

I used to work at Baskin Robbins in high school and one time McDonald’s was doing their $0.49 cheeseburger promotion. A few buddies came in stoned with a sack full of burgers. After chilling in the walk in freezer, I made cheeseburger “blizzards” with a little bit of milk and french vanilla. I’ve never had it sober but i remember it being amazing.

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Leilani3317@reddit

One of my buddies worked concert security at a large venue and snuck me in constantly. i saw so many awesome 90s/early 00s bands and artists that way.

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pina_koala@reddit

This is post-grad school but I'll share anyway. I became friendly with the woman that ran the register on my favorite lunch truck in Austin. That's when I found out that tipping 50% up front gets you a free sandwich every time!

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Imaginary_Attempt_82@reddit

I was the one working in the store lol

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blue_suavitel@reddit

I was the one hooking everyone up, but yeah I did get hook ups too. Oh the days of manual check outs. I could enter whatever price I wanted into the register.

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okay1BelieveYou@reddit

One time my friend was working her last shift at a gas station so we all came and filled up our cars for free.

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JackBlackBowserSlaps@reddit

Yep, clothes from Randy river and used dvds at blockbuster

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Moist_Rule9623@reddit

In the 1990s I got literally thousands of gallons of free coffee in exchange for pitching in and putting up chairs & sweeping the floors at closing time. I also had a bar/restaurant where I was on the “buy two get one free” plan for draft beers, plus had a standing invitation to the after-shift festivities

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iamGordanShumway@reddit

A lot of my friends were and still are bartenders , yea my tab is never as high as it should be

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NotXenos@reddit

Oh yeah, my buddy in college worked at Blimpie subs (lol) and he gave out so much free shit that they fired him within a month. We were all eating like kings!

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Accomplished_Exit_30@reddit

My friends family ran a sno-cone stand every summer. There were times I didn't have to pay for shaved ice.

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NoContextCarl@reddit

Had a friend working at a gas station briefly in high school. Gas, cigarettes...EVERYTHING for free. This went on for like 6 months until he was fired. Absolutely glorious to be 17 and get a full tank of gas, a few packs of smokes and a soda and not paying a dime for it.

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mousee3176@reddit

My friend worked at goodwill for a bit. Everything in my cart was a quarter. True thrift shopping.

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edasto42@reddit

Of course. Free food, employee discounts etc. And I returned the favor.

My wife worked in at a spot in a food court at a mall. She would tell me about a whole trading system that existed between employees at other stores, food places, and movie theaters. You hook up the movie person with free food, they gave you free movie tickets. Or if she wanted something from Sbarro, she’d work out a deal with someone from there to trade food.

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MTCannon08@reddit

Food trades in the mall are still a thing. I traded Subway for Chinese food, burger King and Sbarro. Huge no no since it screws your food cost but whatever 🤣

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coci222@reddit

I had a couple of friends that gave me the employee discount at Tommy Hilfiger back in the mid 90's

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kl1n60n3mp0r3r@reddit

I sure did! Mostly fast food though.

McD’s, Taco Bell and subway

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anannanne@reddit

I had a friend who would give out Subway stamps like candy.

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MTCannon08@reddit

I managed to steal an entire roll of those stamps. Girl left it on the counter after she rang me up, walked back to the gas station to finish her cigarette. No camera, nobody around, don't mind if I do.

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kl1n60n3mp0r3r@reddit

My roommate in University that worked at McD's would steal whole boxes of burger patties and buns and bring them home and we would have amazing bbq's on the weekends.

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Hot-Parsley-6193@reddit

We’d hit the Burger King my friend worked at at close to eat all the extra fries. Truly I think he just made them for us.

Also this is when you could smoke in Burger King.

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FormidableMistress@reddit

I had friends that worked in the food court at the mall and they'd give me free food.

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johnvalley86@reddit

Had a buddy that worked at Circuit City and would get stuff for me with his employee discount. That was pretty badass for a while. Then the same guy got another job with Bushnell so I got binoculars and rifle scopes for cost. I work at an appliance retailer now so I've been able to repay the favor to him years later

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FormidableMistress@reddit

Dude getting a brand new fridge at cost? 🙌🏼

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moarlo@reddit

We had a friend who worked loss prevention at an electronics store watching the cameras. We would take a vacuum box and with ipods and other electronics, pay for the vacuum and profit.

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Rich-Truth5329@reddit

That isn’t a hookup, that’s theft

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Intelligent-Camera90@reddit

I worked at the mall from when I was 15 to 26 at various stores - there was a lot of reciprocity between those of us in the trenches.

As recently as 8 years ago I worked at a car dealership and still get friends/family treatment across 3-4 different local dealerships, due to former coworkers moving to new places. And, if I ever need a job, I have a bunch of people that would vouch for me. I know people hate buying cars, but dealership people are one huge dysfunctional family.

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snwbrdngtr@reddit

I was that friend. I worked for Mrs Fields. My friends never paid lol

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Mrpeewee982001@reddit

Back in highschool, I had friends that worked at McDonald's, the code word through the drive-thru was 40 piece chicken nugget. We would get charged for like two cheeseburgers and a small Coke, then get the gargantuan sack of food filled for free.

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S_A_R_K@reddit

My buddy was an assistant manager at a pizza place in HS. We'd get really high and go make pizzas at 2am

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inabighat@reddit

My girlfriend worked at DQ. She made some wicked upgraded shit for me and the boys

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Kinetic_Silverwolf@reddit

I once had a friend who was the manager of an Oakley store before Luxotica bought them. He would occasionally ring things up for me under his employee code. A shirt here. A backpack there. A silver GMT wrist watch with an extra black band. The usual.

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Freakin_A@reddit

Friend worked at the theater and the concession stand was open season. They only did inventory like twice a year.

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CunnyMaggots@reddit

I got so much free food from fast food places. And if a waiter at like Denny's thought one of us was cute, the whole group would get free stuff.

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cbih@reddit

Yes. My friends ran the local Hot Topic from 1999-2002.

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Bulky_Pop_8104@reddit

I assume this still happens, but I just don’t know anyone at this point in my life who works at these sorts of places

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Raff102@reddit

The jug

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Baked_Potato_732@reddit

Sort of similar, I worked at a hotel and every time Pizza Hut delivered a pizza to a unit, they would give us a coupon. 10 coupons equaled free pizza.

But, they never asked fo the coupons so we basically had unlimited free pizzas as long as we didn’t go crazy.

Another restaurant gave us 50% off anything we ate while working so we would recommend them to our guests.

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cloudydays2021@reddit

I have always worked in entertainment here in NYC, even as a teen. Used to bring friends as my +1 to concerts because I was often on the guest list and in turn, those friends would hook me up with drinks or meals or discounts on clothes wherever they worked. It was so fuckin sweet.

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poodog13@reddit

Free pizzas and movie rentals pretty much fueled my summers in high school and early college.

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justtapitin65@reddit

My friend worked at Pizza Hut and she would sometimes bring us pizza after her shift if they had one made “in error”

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moarlo@reddit

Free jack in the box from a friend and we used to smoke weed on the roof when the dining room closed

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flatulating_ninja@reddit

I worked at a video store. I was the friend that gave hookups. Wiping late fees was a given and the easiest to do but I could also slide new releases into the 5 movies, 5 days, 5 dollars deal when I was working by myself.

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Coitus_lnterruptus@reddit

Hardees in my hometown had a kid that worked late who knew me and my friends were stoners. He used to say, "Stoner's discount!" when he would see us come through, and he would give us the senior citizen's discount.

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Worth_Specific3764@reddit

always got the hook ups and kick downs. Miss those days. Don't miss people though.

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ChaucersDuchess@reddit

In college, we had a very “green-friendly” crew at the local Moe’s, and all of us college kids took advantage of $5 Moe’s Mondays. My first husband and I were regulars and one day the cashier was giving “regular discounts” and we got two Moe’s Monday deal plus a huge thing of queso for…$3.

Another friend worked at Pizza Hut and only charged us for one buffet. The Taco Bell routinely gave free tacos. The early 00’s were nice.

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jtmann05@reddit

I grew up in a small hometown with very few employment options for high schoolers. The only thing we really had was basically every fast food restaurant you could name due to the location off the highway. As such, I knew somebody at almost every one of those places and could always get some sort of hookup of free or deeply discounted food.

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andronicus_14@reddit

I worked at a fast casual Italian eatery during high school and college. Started as an associate and became a manger during college. We had cards to give out free entrees that just needed our signature. I gave free food to almost everyone I knew. As long as I rang it in properly attached the free entree cards, our GM didn’t give a shit.

If I knew of you, and you came to that restaurant, you got free food.

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WhosYourPadre79@reddit

I worked at a sporting goods store and hooked up my friends with my employee discount. We also had what was called Pro-deals where you can order stuff from the company direct at cost. I hooked up my friends with snowboards and gear for cheap using that perk. This was late 90's - early 2000's

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elMurpherino@reddit

Main one I can remember is I had a friend who was a waitress at red lobster. We would get high and then she would run out to the parking lot and bring us a big bag of the cheddar bay biscuits.

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sexwiththebabysitter@reddit

Buddy worked at a movie theater. We’d go with him when he was off and his coworkers would let us all in. Until we got drunk during a movie and he got fired. On his day off. Hahaha.

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thisisanalaia95@reddit

My friend worked at AM/PM mini mart and used to let us steal bottles of Strawberry Hill

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Blackbird136@reddit

Oh god, Strawberry Hill. 19 year old me just 🤢 in my mouth.

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ThisIsACompanyCar@reddit

Yes Little Caesar’s, Subway, Whataburger, Wendy’s, and Dairy Queen.

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Illystylez619@reddit

My friend worked at AMC, he would let us in the fire exit and we would spend the day watching movies til his shift was over and then he would join us. Usually with popcorn and snacks.

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thewalruscandyman@reddit

Oh totally. Mostly a place called On-Cue (if ya know ya know, but basic CD/DVD store). My friend behind the counter pretty much let us rob that place. And when corporate shut em down her boss actually did let us rob the place.

And later after my life spiraled I had a friend who worked at a gas station where we would hang out in the drink cooler and smoke meth.

But my favorite, actually, was a friend who worked at and eventually bought a dainty little tea shop. The group would stop in for a cuppa at least every other day. (Sober now.)

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bassman314@reddit

The girl I dated through most of college worked at the library.

If she was working, no one cared if I was on the other side of the desk. Usually, she worked closing schedules, and I’d use her boss’s desk to study.

I got a quiet place in the library where my stuff was safe. She had someone 14” taller than her to help with closing rounds. This was needed after some of her coworkers encountered men using the library computers to look at porn with their pants around their ankles. It took like 4-5 such encounters and about 3 months before campus security took it seriously and provided a security escort.

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FatReverend@reddit

I had a friend who was able to get a whole bunch of cartons of cigarettes from a local grocery store they worked at. 2 years worth of high school I got cartons of cigarettes for 20 bucks a pop, equaling $1 per pack. Another friend let us use their Hot topic discount and our Dollar tree friend would hook us up with free soda and candy. We also had an Annie's pretzels friend that could get away with giving us the cheese sauce for free and sometimes throwing in an extra pretzel.

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thotuthot@reddit

I had an econ class speaker come once in 12th grade and when talking about personal budgeting, said "there's going to come a time where you won't get hooked up by your friends anymore and you'll have to pay for everything" That hit hard.

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bridge1999@reddit

My old roommate would add so much extra stuff in a 20 pice nugget box at McDs

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xt0rt@reddit

Hell yeah, subway, little Caesars, the record shop. Good times

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OkInspector7470@reddit

Our whole downtown community operated on hookups. We got by surviving pretty well that way for a long time. Give and take close knit community economy. If you were super local, we all looked out for eachother. Not like that at all anymore.

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el_pinko_grande@reddit

I went to high school very close to Universal Studios in LA, and a ton of my friends worked at Universal CityWalk.

I didn't get much in the way of free stuff, but they did teach the rest of us how to sneak into the park, so we'd just go do the tour or whatever when we were bored.

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bookofgray@reddit

I used to a pizza delivery driver and may or may not have delivered weed to other locations (this is the 90s before prop 215)

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JDz84@reddit

I worked in a bakery and would set up extras of mine/my friends faves one night so there would be extras the next night and I’d box them as day olds and price them for $1/doz. We ate a lot of day old donuts in high school.

My buddy worked at Pizza Hut and he’d frequently turn up to things late with a couple pizzas for us.

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night-swimming704@reddit

Best one was a friend who was a bartender. Would give me unlimited refills on draft beer after I bought the first one. Plus I was 19 at the time and he wouldn’t card me. After a couple weeks all the other staff there knew me and assumed I was 21.

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Kitchen-Fisherman280@reddit

I used to hook up my peeps with free food at McDonald's in high school. My kids have worked fast food and that shit is a lot harder. Shit, I stole a whole pack of McDonald's cups and brought them as my contribution to a kegger once

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ButterscotchAware402@reddit

My best friend worked at Nancy's coffee café and I worked at the JC Penney Portrait Studio right around the corner. We were very caffeinated.

In addition to the above mentioned JCP Portraits, I worked at The Picture People later on. There are many, many ridiculous professional quality photos of my friends and I floating around out there. My favorite is the Easter event with live bunnies. I did a whole shoot with my high school boyfriend and some bunnies. A good portion of my friends senior photos were done by me as well.

Right after high school my best friend worked at the Rescue Mission donation trailers (stand alone trailers in a business parking lot). We would sit there all day, picking through the donations before the truck came through to haul it away to the warehouse. We got so much fun shit. I still have a massive painting of The Last Supper that used to hang above my couch but I've (mostly) outgrown my blasphemous phase so now it's in storage.

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Dalionking225@reddit

I had all kinds of hook ups at one time. The movie theater guy let me in free anytime, the GameStop gave me employee discounts, the Hibachi restaurant always gave us free shots

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nerdylegofam@reddit

So many times!

I had a friend who worked at Nordstrom in the Brass Rail department (teen/young men). I'd go to the Brass Plum department (teen/young women) and pick out a bunch of stuff, go over to his register in his department, and he'd scan one or two of my cheapest items and ring me out.

A few of the kids in video rental shop near me would delete your late fees for an 8th of weed.

Bartenders at this one club I went to all the time would mix wildly strong drinks for the price of a shot, or sometimes free, and we'd all just tip them extra instead.

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normllikeme@reddit

Ya. I was an alcoholic at 19 cause my Buddy worked at a liquor store.

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GlenBaileyWalker@reddit

I worked a lot of mall jobs. Gadzooks, Waldenbooks, Spencer’s Gifts, Sunglass Hut, and a Xmas at Victoria Secret. If you smoked you made friends with all the other mall employees on their breaks. You basically got 30% employee discount at every store in the mall. None of that 10% mall employee discount. The only benefit to smoking.

Also, a lot of places would get rid of clearance items by changing the price to a penny and then throwing it all in the trash. When I worked at Walden we would rip the covers off paperbacks and throw them out but return the covers. My collection of coverless books was ridiculous.

At Sunglass Hut I would buy all the pennied out clearance sunglasses and load them into a backpack. I had the cases and warranties and everything. I would trade good and services for $150-$300 sunglasses.

“Buy me a beer and you can have these $200 Oakleys.”

“If you buy me a pack of smokes, I’ll give you these Rayban Aviators.”

Once a quarter you would show up to the bar and everyone in there would be in last season’s hottest shades. What a time to be alive. I even paid down rent a couple times with sunglasses.

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Burlington-bloke@reddit

I used to work at Payless in the mall, I would give the people at the A&W a 20% discount off regular shoes and a 50% discount off their non slip work shoes. They would also give me a 50% discount and free apple pie after closing. Usually mall workers only got a 10% discount, but I was a manager and I gave 50% discounts to the shops I liked to shop at 😈

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bynaryum@reddit

Yep. Friend of mine managed a movie theater. Got a free ticket every time I went until he quit.

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queenofcaffeine76@reddit

When I worked at the movie theaters, I'd hook friends up with free popcorn

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PlagueDrWily@reddit

I went to school with most of the part-time staff at a used CD store; they’d give me the staff discount on anything in the store and let me rummage the damaged bin for free CDs - these weren’t sellable because of scratches and would be sent off to be refinished, but anything I grabbed was playable.

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zoominzacks@reddit

Worked at subway for like 2 yrs in high school. Unless management was there I don’t think any of my friends or family ever paid for anything 😂

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gnark1lla420@reddit

I knew someone at Dunkin Donuts so they would hook us up with drinks or a donut or 2 during the day and if we came back around closing we would get at least a dozen or 2 before they threw them out.

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Trashbagok@reddit

Had a friend who was a barista a Starbucks inside a Barnes & Noble, back when the only Starbucks in my state were attached to them.

Didn't pay for books or coffee for a good 2 years.

Several bartender friends who only made me pay for my first drink, and they'd just keep them topped off.

Another friend who was some kind of special events gopher for a local house builder, they had box seats reserved anywhere that had them. So many free concerts I wouldn't have ever afforded on my own.

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Glad_Industry4788@reddit

My small town had a mom n pop type corner pharmacy / convenience store kind of thing. Who knows how long it was there? Prob more than a few generations.

In high school few friends got jobs there and started "hooking up" prob every teenager in town. Free/cheap cigarettes, snacks, etc. you name it.

Anyway, in short order whole place went bankrupt and shut down. Idk if the hookups were entirely the cause but they certainly exacerbated it. Kinda sad actually.

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MSB218@reddit

I worked for the foodservice/catering company that did all my university’s food for a little while during my freshman year, and when I’d run the snack bar in the student center in the evenings, I hooked my friends up sometimes. One guy would come through almost every evening five or 10 minutes before we closed because he knew we had to throw away whatever by-the-slice pizza we hadn’t sold, so I would throw it away into his hungry mouth.

We were allowed to eat and drink what we wanted whenever we were working, and my magnum opus is telling my girlfriend to meet me behind the building, where I had filled a trash bag with bottles and cans of the sodas, juice, Gatorade, etc., that we stocked the coolers with. She and a bunch of her friends filled their dorm fridges.

My favorite part of that bit is that I was trying to be a good guy in those days, and I convinced myself that it wasn’t stealing since we were allowed drinks while we were working. Ha ha

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Belleraphon1@reddit

I was the hookup for my friends. I worked for Pizza Hut and was giving out free pizza and bread/sticks all through Junior and Senior year of high school.

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Colambler@reddit

Independent places can still do that. I lived next to a local bakery and was friends with the folks that worked there, and sometimes I'd a bag of end-of-the-day baked goods from them.

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AYearInOaxaca@reddit

Most of my friends worked for small businesses, and so did I, so I never experienced any sort of benefit like that. It would have been actual theft, and since we all worked directly for or with the owners of the businesses it would have been way too personal.

It's sort of interesting to think about though, because I did have friends who worked for a couple of the local corporately owned supermarkets and man, the way they treated their employees really influenced how my friends felt about their jobs. Market Basket is a chain famous in New England for being family-owned and for treating its employees well and having low prices, and it's hard to imagine any of the friends that worked for Market Basket stealing from them. But the other corporate supermarket was just another faceless behemoth, and I could easily see how teenage employees might feel like they deserved to smuggle out whatever they could get past the front door.

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Naive-Cow-631@reddit

My friends worked at Dunkin' Donuts and when they were on shift we were always able to get them to toast croissants. Managers wouldn't allow it if they were on shift and saw it. Toasting croissants was very controversial, because those things catch flames on the DD toasters of old of the late 90s. Also, we always got Styrofoam cups for insulation with our iced coffees free of charge. By the time I hit college some stores charged for the extra cup.

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