One of those fancy, new, gourmet, sandwich shops opened around the corner from my office about 6 months ago. You know the ones, $12 sandwiches just because they put sprouts or free range chicken on it.
My grip is not with the price. Nor with the taste. It’s with the service. I know I live in NYC and shit is expensive. But for $12 you better be doing me a service by getting my sandwich quickly, correctly and tasty. So the story goes like this:
I walk into the store the other day. There are 2 people in the place. Usually the place is mobbed and you can’t even get to the counter. There is no sign that says place order here. There is not clue as to how to begin ordering. The packed mass of people usually stumble aimlessly around each other trying to get in, or out, of the place. It more resembles a bar with a BAD bartender than a quick bite sandwich shop. People push to the front trying desperately to catch one of the “sandwich makers” eyes and yell an order at them. The tall or loud people usually get sandwiches before the short or quiet.
But today there are only 2 other people in the shop. I walk up to the bare counter and a casher notices me, asks for my order and then interrupts a sandwich maker who is half listening to one of the other two customers in the store. She tells him my order and he begins to go make it. The other customer, who was speaking in a soft sheepish tone in fast English a minute ago, now yells out to the sandwich maker, “Excuse me! Excuse me! Can you get me some of that rice.” This panics and freezes the sandwich maker. “Ohh shit, here we go” I think. The sandwich maker completely forgets about my sandwich and starts helping the women with her rice.
Ok a few things about this situation.
1- The women is right. She was first and the Sandwich Maker was trying to help her.
2- If you are short and are standing in front of a plastic “germ” wall in a deli and the person on the other side is also short and speaks little English. Open your goddamn mouth more and project your order over the f’in plastic so he can at least hear your words. Whether he understands is another issue.
3- The cashier does not take orders on a busy day. Because it is not busy she should not change the system and take my order. The sandwich maker is not looking for an order from her. He is looking for an order from me. BUT, she is his boss and he doesn’t want to get fired so he listens to her. He has seen his friends get fired for using their minds or speaking up and saying, “I am helping a customer right now.”(in Spanish). So he keeps his mouth shut says nothing to no one, including the women asking for rice, and does what he is told.
I sit down on a stool, settling in, to watch the chaos unfold. My sandwich takes 12 minutes to be made. In that time 3 other customers came into the store ordered and received their sandwiches. A second sandwich maker showed up and asked the next person behind the counter what they wanted. I was already on the stool sitting so I was not noticed as next. Actually I had placed my order already so I was, technically, “being helped”. I could have made a stink at this point but I enjoy watching incompetence at work. Especially when it is a result of several people working together. (or not together) The cashier noticed I was still waiting and asked the original sandwich maker where my sandwich was. The cashier didn’t bother to notice that the women and her rice trumped my sandwich. Now, in Spanish, all three are discussing my sandwich. Finally the cashier lets the original sandwich maker finish with the rice and makes the second sandwich maker make my sandwich. This pissed him off for some reason. I couldn’t understand why. His job is to make sandwiches. The cashier asked him to make a sandwich not shovel shit into a furnace in the non-ventilated kitchen. Disgruntled, the second sandwich maker proceeds to make my sandwich in under 2 minutes.
This type of bullshit you can find all over NYC and the US for that matter. It is especially alarming when all you do is make one item. Sandwiches for example. How is it possible that all you make, all day long everyday, is sandwiches AND STILL 6 months after you open you have no fucking idea how to do this. The most annoying thing of all is people still flock there because it has a fancy sign and expensive gourmet look. They get annoyed at the terrible service but keep coming back because Mike says its good and Heather said she saw it written up in the Times.
Two words said in a thick British accent.
Fucking Hell
