I work in a fast food chain that makes sandwiches. We are located near a university that has a football game this Saturday. Earlier this week, we received an order of 113 sandwiches for the opposing team, who is driving up. The order must arrive no later than 7:30, and the coach says he will provide us a parking pass for us to park on campus and deliver the food. This never occurs.

To help with the order, our location closed early, and we started making the sandwiches at four.

We have almost finished the remaining seven or so sandwiches. The time is 6:55. The phone rings.

Me: “[Sandwich Chain], how may I help you?”

Caller: “Is this the chain we bought sandwiches for the catering order from?”

Me: “Yes, sir.”

Caller: “Is someone on the way?”

Me: “No, sir, we’re wrapping the last few sandwiches now.”

Caller: “Okay, well, the game’s over already. And we expected the sandwiches here at 7:00. We’ve actually got to pull out of here soon.”

Me: *Slightly panicked* “We’re finishing the order now, sir. We’ll get it out to y’all as soon as possible. I apologize; we thought the original time of completion was 7:30.”

Caller: “It’s all right, just get them out to us.” *Click*

I relay this information and we scramble to finish. As I am placing the last few sandwiches together, the phone rings again.

Manager: “[Sandwich Chain], how may I help you?” *Pauses* “Okay. Yes, sir, I understand the situation, but the agreement was to have the sandwiches delivered by 7:30.” *Pauses* “Yes, sir. Yes, we’ve got them on the road now. Okay. Thank you.” *Hangs up the phone* “Geez.”

The manager and I started hauling the bags to her car so she could deliver them. As we were packing the five sandwich bags and 133 cookies into the car, the phone rang again. The other employee got it. As I ran in to get the napkins and receipt for the sign-off, she called to us that it was the team again. Now, the guy wanted to meet at a new drop-off point, about ten more minutes from where the stadium was located. I relayed this to my manager, and she sighed and drove off.

About thirty minutes later, she returned. Apparently, the guy had called earlier that day to double-check the order and said something about delivering the sandwiches “anytime between 6:30 and 7:30,” which was his way of telling us to bring the sandwiches at 6:30. He also called my manager on her way over to scream at her. He promised never to order catering from us again. It also turned out that our university’s team had won the game, smoking this coach and his players forty-four to ten.

I work at a sandwich shop in the USA. Basically, my job is to wipe down tables and take care of any trash that’s left out. One day, an older woman starts a conversation with me, and she asks these questions.

Customer: “Where are you from, dear?”

Me: “I’m from here.”

Customer: *Chuckles* “No, I mean, where were you born? Somewhere in France?”

Me: *Confused* “No, I was born in this city, at [Hospital]. I’m not French, either — mostly Irish and German.”

Customer: *Knowing smile* “Oh, so you must be from Ireland, then. How nice! Well, here’s a tip for you. I know it’s not much, but it should help you a little bit. If only they had cities like ours in Ireland; they would be much more modern. Well, goodbye, dear. See you tomorrow!”

She did come back the next day and told my manager that I was from Ireland and she’d better treat me right. My manager said she’d keep that in mind and then laughed when the customer left. The woman also gave me another five-dollar tip.

I work at a popular sandwich shop. We get a new hire, and he’s not the greatest of workers. He tends to show up late, if he shows up at all, often with little to no warning beforehand. But it’s nothing too bad, and I start to think he’s an okay guy.

About five weeks in, my manager decides to have him trained to open. On his first day opening, I come into the store for the evening shift to find things are not going well. They ran out of bread earlier in the day and had to bake more. I just think it was super busy that day and the new hire didn’t bake enough bread in the morning. As things go on, I find out more and more.

Every day, the evening worker is supposed to put a certain amount of frozen bread in the retarder, which will soften the frozen sticks and make them faster to bake in the morning. One of the most important opening jobs is to bake all the bread in the retarder. The new hire didn’t bake any of that bread. Not only that, but he didn’t cut any of the vegetables, which is another one of the most important opening jobs. I also find out that when one of my coworkers came in for the midday shift, the new hire was sitting outside in front of the pizza place next door where his girlfriend works and ended up leaving an hour before his shift ended.

Amazingly, the new hire doesn’t get fired for this fiasco, though he does get written up and chewed out, and he is warned that if he misses another day or shows up late without warning, he will be fired.

The next Wednesday, he sends a message to our group chat asking for someone to cover his shift that Friday for him, but nobody is able to. The next day, he sends a message saying that his brother has been hit by a car.

Friday is Homecoming for the local high school, and this is a small town with not many places to eat, so when I come in for my afternoon and evening shift, I find the store packed with high school kids that have been let out of school early. The new hire is nowhere to be seen, so it is just my boss and me left to fend off about forty teenagers. I find out that the new hire didn’t come in for his shift and ended up coming an hour or two later just to tell my boss that he didn’t want to work Fridays and Saturdays. I guess his brother was fine if he was able to take the time to do this. He ended up getting fired.

But there’s still more.

That evening, I am working with the closer when the recently fired ex-coworker comes into the store and grabs the key: apparently, he thinks he’s still opening tomorrow. When he leaves, I quickly excuse myself from the line and send a quick message to our boss to let her know.

When I come back the next day, I’m told that this guy came into the store and started putting the key back in the safe. My manager was there training another coworker to open so he could cover the recently fired worker’s shifts. She asked him what had happened the day before and he nervously and quietly muttered, “My brother got hit by a car.” He was informed that he would not be opening that day or the next day, and my manager went back to training the other coworker. After staring at the register for about ten minutes, he left his store-issued hat on the counter and left the store. A few minutes later my manager got a text from him: “I quit.”

In the end, I guess he did get those Fridays and Saturdays off like he wanted. My manager says hiring that guy was her worst mistake.

I’m a manager at a popular sandwich shop that gets stupid busy during the lunch rush. I come in for my shift mid-crazy rush and basically help put out fires. The ticket machine is printing a list orders that has now reached the floor, and the oven is more overflowed than the shop is with customers that keep pouring in.

We don’t have a fryer, so side orders of onion rings, fries, etc., have to be put through the oven multiple times to be crispy. The wait time is over twenty minutes, and after about two hours, it finally calms down.

Then, someone hands me the phone because a customer is asking to speak to the owner — not the manager or shift leads. Sigh. I literally hold the phone away from my ear as she starts screaming at me.

Caller: “My daughter was waiting for thirty minutes for a phone order! You are a terrible manager! You should be ashamed of yourself for letting it get so busy that the wait times aren’t what we were told.”

She goes on for a few minutes, belittling me in any way she can.

Me: “Ma’am, she wanted four sandwiches and three side orders, and that takes a little more time. What can I offer you as compensation? I can offer you a refund or some free sandwiches.”

Caller: “I WANT MY MONEY BACK!”

I agree to give it to her.

I’m dreading the bad Yelp review that’s probably going to follow, saying goodbye to any chance of a monthly bonus and another bad review for our store. Customers like her happen, but I try not to let it bother me. Being in food service for as long as I have, when people are like that, they just want to put you down.

I’m opening the next morning and I get another call asking for the manager. It’s the lady from yesterday. Expecting to hear her say she got in contact with corporate or she’s still not happy, I’m in shock when she says:

Caller: “I want to apologize. I had a really bad day yesterday and what I did was completely uncalled for. I want to make up for it.”

Me: “Ma’am, just you taking time out of your day to apologize is enough.”

But she insisted on ordering a sandwich, not picking it up, and tipping $50. She said that was her way of buying me lunch. In all my years of working food service, I’d never had an angry customer apologize.

At the end of the day, even though we are behind a counter doing you a service, we are still humans with feelings. Thank you, [Caller], for remembering that. To be honest, your apology was more than enough for me.

A number of years ago, I worked in a sandwich shop, primarily on the closing shift. One evening, two ladies came in about thirty minutes before closing. They proceeded to sit, eat their food, and chat. No issue; I had things to do.

I did everything I could for my closing, but all that was left was the floor. I proceeded to sweep up everywhere else other than their section. I put chairs on the tables and prepped my water for mopping. I started at the opposite end of the store and mopped all I could.

We had been closed for nearly an hour when one of the women spoke up.

Customer: “I think it’s totally disrespectful to clean while customers are eating. The smell of those chemicals is making me lose my appetite!”

Me: “Ma’am, we closed forty-five minutes ago, and this is the last thing on my list to do so I can go home.”

I had never seen that shade of red before, she blushed so hard.

Customer: *Clearly embarrassed* “Well, you still should wait, no matter the situation. ”

Sheesh, lady, can’t read the signs? Didn’t see me cleaning for the last forty-five minutes? Heck, almost all the lights were turned off in the dining room!