I work at a chain sandwich shop. Our jerk manager fires a coworker for putting too many olives on sandwiches. How many slices did he put? Like twenty on a foot-long sandwich. How many is the correct number? Five for a foot-long and three for a half-size sandwich.

This leaves just [Manager] and me in the store. He then goes on break for twenty-five minutes while I get slammed with a bunch of customers.

Me: “Can I get some help, please?”

Manager: “No. On break.”

I go on break later that day, and [Manager] gets slammed.

Manager: “[My Name], come back to work.”

Me: “No, on break.”

At the end of my shift, [Manager] informed me that I was being written up. I walked out. I got a call a week later from the owner begging me to come back. Seven of the ten employees had been fired or made to quit by that moron.

I go to a sub-sandwich shop that’s just around the corner from me. They have a soda fountain and a tea fountain thingy. I pay for my food and turn to the drink fountains while the employee who helped me rounds a corner and goes into the back of the shop out of eyesight. I’m in the mood for iced tea, so I walk up to the iced tea fountain.

At the top are some buttons, while there’s a traditional spout at the bottom. I don’t notice that the spout has a little switch you lift to dispense the tea since it’s all matte-black and kind of blends together. Without thinking, I place my cup down and press and hold the most obvious top button, assuming it will dispense tea. I am suddenly greeted by an immediate hissing sound and steam. I quickly realize the button is used to brew tea and let go. About five seconds later, hot water/tea begins to overflow and lightly spray from the top of the machine since it was presumably already full.

I go into a panic and start mashing buttons to stop it. This does nothing as more water/tea flows out. I grab my cup and back up. The employee hears the commotion, comes out, sees what’s happening… and literally leaps over the counter. He runs up to the machine and pulls it forward, spilling more tea and making the top come loose, and manages to wrestle it and shut it off somehow about ten seconds later.

The employee backs up and turns, totally covered in VERY hot tea. He begins to try and pull his shirt forward to cool down while letting out little “Ehhh!” and “Uhhh!” noises. He looks back and forth, not sure what to do, darts around the counter, and runs into the back again while pulling his shirt off.

I stand there, flabbergasted. About fifteen seconds later, another employee — a woman — comes out, looking very confused. She sees me holding a sub and an empty cup, sees the iced tea machine, which is completely pulled out and emitting large volumes of steam, and sees the soda fountain counter and floor completely covered with tea. She looks dumbfounded.

Employee: *Turning to me, wide-eyed* “Wha… what happened?!”

Being a rational man in my thirties, I did the only thing I could think of: I dropped my sub and cup on the floor, closed my eyes in embarrassment, and darted out the door behind me like a scared child.

And that was the last time I visited that particular sub shop for about four years until I was pretty sure that either they had forgotten or new employees were working.

Back in the mid-1980s, a friend and I frequented a certain sub shop across the street from a shopping center. There were three key reasons we went here: 1) at the time, it was the only sub shop that was open on Sundays in that neighborhood, which is the day we were typically in the area, 2) they used very high-quality meats and ingredients, so the food here was quite delicious and high quality, and 3) their prices were very reasonable.

Initially, there were no problems. But after a few months, a guy started working there every Sunday. He was a college student who I swear would score a minus on an IQ scale. These are just a few of his, shall we say, shortcomings.

We had to be alert to be sure that what we got from him was what actually we ordered. For example, if I ordered a chicken breast sub, I might get turkey or ham, or one time, a meatball, which I fortunately noticed just as he started making it. If I asked for no tomato, I had to watch him to be sure he didn’t put it on anyway. He also could not make change to save his life; electronic cash registers were just reaching their peak in popularity among retail stores, but the owner of this place still had the older mechanical ones, where the staff had to figure out the change in their head. For example, if my meal came to $4.50 and I gave him a five-dollar bill, it would literally take him a good sixty seconds to figure out that the change was fifty cents, and this happened every… single… time.

One of the more idiotic things this employee did occurred one day when I ordered a large turkey sub. For sake of explanation, let’s say that a large sub was $5.00, a medium was $4.00, and a small was $3.00.

Me: “I’ll have a large turkey, with lettuce and pickles, please.”

Employee: “Sure thing. Oh, sorry. I forgot we ran out of the large sub rolls. Do you want another size?”

Me: “Ah, yeah, okay, I’ll have a medium, then.”

Employee: “Sure thing. Oh, you know what? A medium and a small together equal the size of a large. Do you want to do that?”

I agreed at first, but remembering his knack for screwing things up, I asked him an important question first.

Me: “Oh, thanks so much. That sounds good.” *Pauses* “Oh, wait. How much would that be?”

He turned and looked at the menu board above and behind him, and he took a few seconds to figure it out.

Employee: “The small is $3.00 and the medium $4.00, so $7.00.”

Me: “Sorry, that makes no sense. You said they are equal in size to a large sub.”

Employee: “Yeah.”

Me: “Yeah, so why are you charging me $7.00 when a large sub is only $5.00?”

Employee: “Well, a medium and a small together cost $7.00.”

Friend: “Are you seriously going to charge him $2.00 extra because you’re out of the large sub rolls? That is plain silly. At your suggestion, he is still getting the equivalent of a large sub, with the same amount of meat and so forth, but yet you’re overcharging him $2.00? Come on, man. Can’t you just think about that and see the obvious logic?”

At this point, I was practically banging my head against the counter at the absurdity of this guy’s lack of reasoning ability, logic, and even common sense.

Employee: “Well, it costs what it costs, you know what I mean?”

Me: “No, I don’t. You are the one who suggested it and even told me that they are the equal to a large size; it’s not my fault you are out of the large sub rolls. You suggested the alternate as a solution. It’s not like I demanded an unreasonable solution; you brought it up, not me. I shouldn’t be penalized for accepting your reasonable suggestion. I mean, why is this such a difficult concept for you to understand? If you’re going to charge me more than a large size costs, why are you even bringing it up in the first place?”

Employee: “Yeah, but I don’t want to get in trouble with the owner, you know, by giving away two subs at less than the menu says they should cost.”

I was completely frustrated at this point.

Me: “Honestly, geez, that’s just not going to happen. The owner can’t possibly be that stupid. I mean, really. Apparently, you have no clue about making the customer happy, a practice I’m sure the owner would have no problem with you doing.”

Employee: “Well, they cost $4.00 and $3.00, so I have to charge the $7.00 for both of them.”

Me: “Geez. You know what? Forget it. Just give me a medium.”

Employee: “Okay, so that was a turkey, right?”

Me: “Yes, with lettuce and pickles only, please.”

My friend and I looked at each other and just rolled our eyes at the total cluelessness. My friend ordered the same thing. We would have gone elsewhere, but the only thing open in the area on a Sunday back then was a [Fast Food Place] which we weren’t interested in. We were also really baffled that someone actually hired this guy. I mean, every week there was something beyond ludicrous he’d do.

I tried to call the owner during that week to complain, but he was impossible to find or get ahold of. He was never on site and never seemed to be in his office. He apparently owned several other retail businesses and was the epitome of a hands-off owner. 

Sadly, this type of thing went on for over a year until, finally, another sub shop opened across the street, basically putting this place out of business within only a few months.

I work at a sandwich chain. These two girls around fifteen come in. One doesn’t order anything; the other gets a six-inch sandwich. The one who orders asks to leave a pamphlet with me, and I decide it’s easiest to just say yes. The pamphlet has a cartoon of animals and people sitting together with the text, “Soon, all suffering will end.”

“Great,” I think. “Vegan hippies.” But then I see “The Watchtower Society” on the back of the pamphlet. Oh-ho! Not vegans, Jehovah’s Witnesses! Even better!

Fast forward to them leaving. They purposefully leave a gigantic mound of napkins and such on the table… with another pamphlet on top of it.

Yes, they made a huge mess just so someone would be forced to come over to clean it, and thus find the pamphlet.

Why would I want to join a religion full of such inconsiderate jerks?

One day, a friend and I were headed to a game night at another friend’s house and decided to grab something to eat. We decided on a national chain of sub shops once famous for $6 subs.

Usually, I get something loaded down with veggies — not that day. That day, I was craving protein and lots of it.

Me: “Could I get a twelve-inch pastrami and swiss, double meat, lightly toasted, with mayo and extra mustard? No veggies.”

Worker: “Sure!”

I watched as he made my sandwich, and I was practically drooling. My friend laughed at me until I pointed out that I hadn’t eaten since lunchtime the day before.

Friend: “Good Lord, let’s feed you before you take off someone’s arm. You’re mean when you’re hangry.”

Worker: “Extra mustard?”

Me: “Yes, please!”

He picked up the bottle. He squeezed over my sandwich, and then the lid popped off and half the bottle of mustard poured out over my poor pastrami sandwich.

He and I were both staring at it in horror. Then, we looked up at each other. I knew what he saw: a woman with a Let Me See Your Manager haircut and dye job who had been described as being hangry. I saw him brace himself for what he thought was the inevitable.

Me: “Well, I did say extra mustard.”

My friend about keeled over laughing, the sandwich worker looked so relieved, and I couldn’t help but giggle. We managed to save the sandwich by scraping most of the mustard off. I DID ask for extra mustard, and that day, the universe decided to oblige!