complich8′s journal

OK, this entry comes with a prepended perspective check. It’s an entry about sandwiches. That’s all. I know in the global sense, or even in the sort of problems in life that people deal with, this doesn’t amount to a hill of beans, and is really not a big deal. And it’s probably not going to change my behavior patterns either. I know that people are starving, that people are homeless, and that my ability to bitch about bad service at a subway is a great luxury that many people in the world don’t have. So don’t even bother pointing that shit out, I already know. That said …

When I go to the local subway to get a sandwich, is it wrong to expect that the sandwich is the way I ask for it? That I don’t get shortchanged? That it’s not so poorly assembled that it falls apart before it even gets wrapped up?

So here’s the story.

A couple days ago, I go in to subway, and this one guy (henceforth “black guy”) is working there. I tell him what I want, it’s pretty simple … I ask for a footlong club on wheat. He reaches for a loaf that’s sitting on the counter that’s been sliced completely apart (so that instead of forming a nice pouch, it’s just a loose top). I ask him to give me a different bun, so it can hold some toppings, and he is like “ahh aight”, and takes a minute or so to lazily turn around and get a different bun. Builds the meat halfassedly. I tell him what veggies I want, and he puts them down … on about 2/3 of the sandwich. Leaves about a third of the sandwich bare.

Also overdoes it on the salt and pepper, makes for a generally not-so-good sandwich. Also takes him about 2 minutes to ring the thing up and give me change … this is at a time when there’s no other customers at all.

So I go in again yesterday, during the superbowl (so again, no other customers). This girl (henceforth “latino girl”) is working.

I tell her what I want, she does fine on that, a bit lazy on the veggies (pretty uneven, not as heavy as I wanted). Then she goes to ring me up. It’s like $6.03, I give her two fives and a dime, she hands me back 7 cents. I’m like “umm, what?”. She’s like “huh?”. “Umm, I gave you two fives”. “Yeah, I gave you your change”. “Umm, no, the bill was six bucks, I gave you ten. look in your hands”. She looks, “oh, umm … wait … ” … thinks about it for half a minute or so, and gives me the rest of my change. Craptastic.

And I’m in there again today, because I’m a glutton for punishment I guess. Latino girl starts putting the veggies on my sandwich (and again, lazy and uneven). Then “middle-aged white woman” takes over. I ask for spicy mustard, she hoses the thing down with regular yellow mustard.

Now, I dunno if you know, but regular yellow mustard has a significantly different taste than spicy. And it’s not something I particularly enjoy on a chicken sandwich. So I pointed out that I said spicy. She realizes what she did, goes back to the beginning of the line and remakes my sandwich. This isn’t a big deal, just one of those sort of careless things that happens sometimes. But as she’s explaining to the girl at the front of the line (henceforth “the blonde bitch”) how she (in her words) “ruined” my sandwich and is making me another one, the blonde bitch says “oh, yeah, he’s not a very nice customer”.

I’m thinking … ok, so in the last 5 days I’ve eaten here three times, and had to put up with two halfassed sandwiches, someone trying to shortchange me 4 bucks, someone carelessly wrecking an otherwise great looking sandwich, and you’re saying I’m “not a very nice customer”? What … the … fuck.

Seriously. What the fuck? I mean … none of this is a really big deal, it’s just indicative of carelessness or laziness, of people not taking pride in their work, whatever. But I’m not a nice customer because I keep coming back despite the consistently shitty service? Jeez …

This entry was posted on Monday, February 6th, 2006 at 12:46 pm and is filed under life and times, whining. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.