A tale of Subway(sandwich shop) Douchebaggery.

[Evil Queen]

I am actually hearing impaired, so I got a fair amount of customers throwing a fit when they had to repeat themselves. Thankfully, most people were nice about it, once I explained myself.
Talk with your lips TOWARD the cashier people!
Thank God I can read lips now.

I use sign language when I'm having a hard time conveying what I want. Unfortunately, the people that I tend to meet who are hearing impaired have the implants and never bothered to learn to sign. For some reason that just burns me up!

I'm not hearing impaired, but I do have tenatus (Doubt I spelled it correctly; ringing in the ears) which makes it difficult to hear certain voice pitches.

[mattm04]

I get that occsanially and I hate it. I work in a supermarket bakery. This means i have two big rack ovens behind me with a exhaust hood over them and a fan proving fresh air into the building above the hoods. Also i have several speakers for the background muzak. We need the extra speakers to hear the pages if the fans (which automatically adjust the speed by the amount of heat) crank up to full. This happens often in the summer. If it is windy occasionally the baffles on roof vents will close to prevent the "dirty" air from getting back in the system. This causes a loud bag to be heard.

If a cust. talks really softly it is hard top hear them. Usually that are understanding when I explain the background noise issue but some get really mad as assume that I am retarded. I had one SC even point to his list and S-L-O-W-L-E-Y read the item to him. I S-L-O-W-L-E-Y told him it was on the shelf 1 foot to his left.

[Pagan]

I've noticed that over the phones, as well, people seem to take "I'm sorry, you're coming in very quiet, could you please speak up?" and "I'm sorry, you're cutting out a bit, could you please repeat that?" as personal insults worse that calling their mother a dirty pirate hooker.

Oh, that drives me insane!!!

Quite a bit of my phone contact is from people who are stranded in airports, or calling from their rental cars to find out if their flight is delayed, etc. There is an INSANE amont of background noise on at least 50 percent of the calls I handle.

Most people are pretty cool about it when I cant hear them, but I get the occasional douchebag who takes personal offense because they have chosen to stand DIRECTLY under the flight-announcement speaker at the airport whilst making their call and, therefore, I couldn't hear what they said.

I had pretty much the same thing at work the other day. Some woman (and she was already being pissy) was getting registered for a class and just as she was giving me her info, one of the meetings decided to break for lunch. So, about 50 people milling around in an area that echoes. I couldn't hear her and this is what I asked her, verbatim: "I'm sorry, it just got really noisy in here and I couldn't hear you, could you repeat that please?" Got a huge pissed-off sounding sigh out of her and she proceeded to get snarkier. I almost asked her if she was having that bad of a day, could she please wait and call us back!

[Sliceanddice]

Paper and pencil, before you get there. No need to talk.

ive had that back fire on me. Alot

[Andara Bledin]

I'm not hearing impaired, but I do have tenatus (Doubt I spelled it correctly; ringing in the ears) which makes it difficult to hear certain voice pitches.

Tinnitus. It's often caused by damage to the cilia within the ear, but can be caused by sinus problems, wax buildup, some medications, and can be evidence of other problems, such as thyroid issues. For some, it's just a minor nuissance, and for others it can disrupt their lives, such as interfering with actual sounds or even keeping the person awake at night.

I have it, too, and for me it was likely caused by a combination of life-long sinus difficulties (including many infections), hypothyrodism, and too much loud heavy metal when I was young (not always my own fault). My own ringing is often multi-toned and to my perception also quite loud. However, I have yet to notice it interfering with my ability to hear any actual sounds, no matter how soft. Funny thing is that if I hear a real noise that is the same type and pitch, I have to hunt it down and kill it, but if it's in my head, I can ignore it completely.

A word of advice to all concert-goers: get yourself a good pair of professional grade ear plugs before you get to the point where you get to find out how well you'll cope with constant ringing the hard way.

^-.-^

[ValPal]

Girl, take a load off tonight...and I am excited to see that I am not the only one who uses "douchebaggery."

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I may not work at a drive-through, but I'm really temped to yell, "PLEASE SPEAK DIRECTLY INTO THE CLOWN HEAD!" at people.

Potential drawback: the mumbler gets right into your face and YELLS. Because they mistake you for the clown head.

[TheTigress]

Thank you for the warm welcome to this site. I've been reading here for several months now and it amuses me and depresses me at the same time. (finding out how disgusting society really has become in public.)

Usually I am very hot tempered and would have went off on the dude in a much more aggressive fashion. I refuse to take shit from SCs as I don't get paid enough to be treated like a sub-human. But that day I was so emotionally depressed that I just didn't care enough to get super angry. I basically said "fuck it" and walked away from the scene.

I agree about the $5 dollar deal. A lot of customers come in saying how wonderful of a deal it is. (and it is for them) I promptly tell them that while it's great for them, it's horrible for us, and they mostly all agree on that part. What makes it worse is that it's very rare for anyone to want just one sandwich anymore. That and I also think I forgot what a 6-inch looks like.

Douchebaggery is an awesome word! I think I have seen it somewhere before. Most likely the deviant art forums.

[Alphanoob]

I feel for you, deeply. My girlfriend works at Subway. This $5 foot-long deal is practically killing her and, by proxy, killing me. It's absolutely ridiculous. Sure I'd expect an increase in business for the deal, but this surge of customers astounds me.

I really just want her to quit. She's worked everyday since the deal started. Not just at one store either. She opens one store in the morning and then runs around helping at several stores until she closes one. It's insane. However, the last thing she needs is more stress from me pressing her to quit. I'm beginning to suspect she's the only Subway worker left in the city...

Frankly, if it were me, I would've probably bombed all the stores by now.

[XCashier]

I don't think that customers realize just how noisy a fast food kitchen really is. I used to work at Arbys, and between the shake machine, the fry vat alarms and the general hubbub of a kitchen, I usually had a difficult time hearing the customers' orders. It did not help that most of them would converse in a normal volume with their friends while waiting in line, then when they got up to me, they'd drop their voices and whisper their orders like they were divulging CIA secrets!

Speak up and speak clearly, folks. Then you don't have to repeat yourselves.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Nevermind that there have been lines out the door for hours on end for a week straight. They are still certain that we have a hidden basement underneath us where our bread grows on magical bread trees.

*snerk* "Magical Bread Trees", now that would be a sight. I had the same problem working at the pizza place; sometimes, we'd run out of side orders or toppings and people would act incredulous as if all we had to do when we ran out of stuff was wave a magic wand and pull it out the air. And yeah, the condescending manner too; and always from either mumblers, or people who either need to clean their ears out or stop yacking away to their friend/boyf/secret lover on their mobile.

[Sliceanddice]

My sister currently works at subway. She hasnt been working as much as she wants and is goignt o be looking fo a new job soon. The other day after we run to my grandmothers to clean out my aunts car (shes in the hospital and i am going to be making a thread about that ina moment) we stop to get soda, snack food, and to bug my sister. It is 8 o'clock.
We are surprised to see her eating dinner. She said she had a pause and was taking advantage.
She then shared this.
They have 3 and a half feet of bread left. for the next two hours.
At 4 they had almost 80 feet.
at 5 60
that means in 3 hours they sold 56 feet of sandwichs (6inches comendered for her sandwich)
right as we where leaving her coworker yelled in panic 'Holly!! (btw my mother is evil, we are bother plants and both Hs) help!!! call cathy.' Why? a nice lady who laughed and talk to my mom real quick, came in and order 3 foot longs and 1 6 inch.
no no more bread.
For 2 hours, and none to start the day with.
it is wrong to laugh at her.

[JenCdn]

I'm a Subway Manager in Canada and we're not running the $5 special. However, I knew of it coming up back in January.
Where the heck were the managers of these stores when I first heard the announcement of this special? Why on earth don't they have enough product and staff in their stores? They've certainly had enough time to plan for it and get proper stafffing.
I agree, that particular customer was a jerk/douchebag like specimen, whatever. But I think your anger would be better directed at your Manager/Franchisee.
At the very least, if the staff are that stressed out from this sale, the Seniors in the business should be handling the stress on the line, right along side their crew!

[chainedbarista]

i'm realistic about these things; if they're out of something, they're out. my dissapointment is temporary, so i get over it, get on and order the next best yummy thing.

i'm flexible like that.

we're just a couple of stores down from a subway, so we share some of the same 'distinguished clientele,' unfortunately.

*off topic*

i can always get my vinegar/salt chips jones fixing, so i'm happy. mmm, salty goodness...

[Anriana]

We have so many people who try and spit out their entire phone number in under one second, or put it in stupid format like 6184-3-923-5 or
'439, I mean 8, 85, I mean 4, 33, I mean 7, area code 618
' and then use "you're a retard" voice when you ask them to repeat it. So annoying.