Sub-par

The customer asked the female teen worker behind the counter at Subway, “Can I have a couple of more pickles?”

With a smile, the ‘sandwich artist’, her left hand covered by a plastic bag, grabbed a few more tiny pickle chips and tossed them on the customer’s tuna 6” sub. At the end of the sandwich processing line – at the cashier position – the owner of the store, a shaven-bald, mustached man in his 50s, grimaced, and rung up the order. As the customer took her food to a table to eat, the owner walked to his employee on the sandwich assembly line, winced, and said, perfunctorily, “Don’t give ‘em extra anything.”

Does a little extra of a single sandwich ingredient break the back of a Subway franchise’s business? Or, might it enhance customer satisfaction and boost return visits?

Without that freedom to have a little extra of that sandwich component, competitors like Jersey Mike’s and Quizno’s just might have the edge on Subway. In any case, isn’t it well understood that a business owner should take an employee aside in a private area to provide operational guidance?

With a bitter after-taste in my mouth after witnessing the Subway franchise owner, in front of patrons, teach his worker to scrimp on sandwich ingredients, in walked an obese teen wearing a Carl’s Junior uniform, his headset with microphone draped around his neck. I thought about taking a picture of that via my cell phone and sending it to Subway Corporate, which would relish a real-life photo of an order taker from a fast-food competitor standing in line at Subway.

“Dad don’t; no photo”, my daughter, rightfully advised, “It’s an invasion of privacy and, worse, might get him fired.”

It was time to leave Subway and head west on the I-10 freeway. We had several more hours to drive before returning home, where a warm meal awaited us.