Stupid with Chips and a Drink

New Subway Job Goes Stale : Anger Management: Occasional Rants And Raves

This article is a good example of why many animals eat their young. Stupid factor 9.9/10
By Addison Herron-Wheeler courtesy of Fredricksburg.com

I usually don’t pick on the mentally retarded but that is more of a guideline than a rule…so I shall press on.

July 17, 2008 12:15 am

IT NEVER FAILS: Murphy's Law. When applying for jobs, the one place you do not want to call you back inevitably will. Nice to know that in this horrific economy we still have job that people have but don’t really want. I encountered this annoying fact applying for jobs in Richmond, when I landed one at the local Subway. In the immortal words of Drew Carey, there is a support group for people who hate their jobs. It is called everyone.

Of all the interesting, vibrant-looking places in my area that I could have worked, this was definitely my last choice. Which really says something about you, your attitude and your resume. But the only other places I had wanted to work told me it would be a few weeks or months, and I had to have something ASAP so that I could pay the rent. What, your subrpime mortgage already lead to a foreclosure?

At first glance, the job didn't seem as horrible as it could have been. I have plenty of experience making sandwiches and working in food service, so it wasn't hard at all. Thank god, you have skills. Now shut up and make me a tuna on rye. The man who hired me seemed nice enough, and I liked a few of my co-workers. I even got all subs at an employee discount, which made the delicious veggie sub I love cost mere chump change. I failed to take into account, however, my inability to function in this kind of a situation for very long and my disdain for the restrictions that come with employment at any fast-food restaurant. Restrictions? Like showing up on time and asking if I want chips and drink? Welcome to adulthood, its going to be a long trip so shut your mouth and enjoy the ride.

First of all, some of my co-workers whom I met later are not exactly savory. Something tells me you aren’t exactly the belle of the ball either. They are much older than me and don't seem to respect me at all, even though I am doing my best to comply with their every wish and to be the best employee I can be. Wrong, they don’t respect you because you are a sniveling little failure. The management also demands that I remove my lip rings while working--which is ridiculous considering how many people with piercings I serve every day. Hey, moron, I don’t care what the people buying the food are doing, I care what the people making the food are doing. So put on your hairnet, take out the lip ring and put on your plastic gloves. And where is that tuna on rye? This makes things a bit difficult due to the fact that I don't have the extra money right now to go out and buy spacers to put in the holes while I'm at work. Then shut the hell up and work until you have some money.

The one fellow employee that I really liked has crumpled under the awful pressure and quit, and I am being paid minimum wage--a fact I did not learn until the first paycheck came out. Ah yes, the awful pressure of the boardroom or trading pits? Laughable until you’ve gone eyeball to eyeball with a meatball sub and lived to tell about it.

But what makes the situation really unbearable is not the employees at Subway or even the stupid rules and pay, but the fact that I am barely getting any hours at this terrible job. At places like this, a worker is just a commodity, serving the functions of the business--not a person with needs that should be met. Maybe if you were better educated, had a better attitude and din’t show up to work looking like a circus freak, better things would come your way. Six hours a week is not exactly going to cut it for someone who asked for more than 40 hours and has rent and bills to pay. I worked more hours than that a week as an intern at The Free Lance-Star, a job that was supposed to be educational and never a means to earn a living. Too bad, you are just stupid enough to make it as a journalist.

To top it all off, the fast-food industry is wasteful and goes against even the most basic environmentalist practices. Mishandled food or food that can't be served is thrown away, not saved to be taken home by the workers. Something tells me a guy like you makes enough mistakes without the restaurant rewarding you for it. Each sub is wrapped in paper and then placed into a small plastic bag--basically the equivalent of a grocery store giving customers one bag for each grocery. Even the apples we sell come sliced and packaged in plastic, although they would be perfectly sellable without any of that. In short, it is all about the profit and not about the overall good of society. Ah, the old "more packaging for more profit" trick. Please, skip the next hackey sack tournament and check in your Economics 101 class, okay sport?

So what can I do about all of this? Well, apart from complaining in my column and trying to get another job as soon as possible, not much. In actuality, probably nothing at all given your track record of abysmal failure, but good luck. I just have to keep going to work and hoping for the best. And maybe, some day, I will start my own restaurant, just to combat all the evil that I see in the fast-food industry. But until then, I will have to try to content myself with the fact that at least I am getting paid. Evil capitalism wins again…insert maniacal laughter here. Something tells me your restaurant is just a pipe dream and that forty years from now when you are poor and alone you will look back on these years of your life and say "I really wish I hadn't been such a douche".

Addison Herron-Wheeler is a rising freshman at Virginia Commonwealth University. I don’t know anything about VCU except that my children will be strictly forbidden from attending there. They will be encouraged, however, to road trip there and incessantly mock the workers at Subway.

This article is proof positive of our need for more birth control, legal abortions and re instituting the draft.