Regular readers probably know how I feel about Quiznos. But if you’re new, as I suspect many of you are, there are some things you should know about Quiznos.
Maybe where you go to Quiznos there’s a nice Quiznos. Maybe the employees are kind and well-kempt and don’t appear to be on some kind of work-release program for repeat offenders of our laws concerning normal conduct around other humans. But my Quiznos is not that nice.
When you enter you may be greeted a couple of different ways depending on who’s working.
1. Blown-out ponytail woman: Glare of disdain as she puts out her cigarette and comes in the side door, getting to the ordering spot a good thirty seconds after you do.
2. Asshole Mustache Man: Glare of disdain and wordless reaching for bread.
3. Tall Punkish Guy: Actually asks what you want. It’s not so much that it makes him an asshole, it’s more that he’s doing what he’s actually supposed to and it seems godlike in comparison.
We go through the normal procedure. I order from their bizarre size chart that never includes small, medium and large, but instead words like “regular” which really have no meaning. They ask me if I want tomatoes and I say Sure, although if they had told me that they were using tomatoes that were somehow all white I might have given a different answer. Then we get to the register.
The register is kind of a problem because you basically see everything that’s going on with Quiznos. For example, they have a big sheet on display that tells the workers how to deal with an upset customer, everything from mildly agitated to someone finding the corpse of a missing hiker in a Turkey Ranch & Swiss. This isn’t the kind of thing I’m supposed to see as a customer, I’m pretty sure, and the fact that it’s there suggests they get these kinds of calls a lot.
Ah, then we get to today’s problem. Payment.
“I’m sorry, my phone line is down. I can only accept cash, check, or I can write down all your information and then put it in in about an hour.” She must have felt me hesitating because she said, “I’ll be the only one who sees it and I will destroy it personally.”
Okay, now I’m not some billionaire who stands to lose tens of dollars on this deal. But what person would just write down their credit card info for a Quiznos lady with crazy tennis bracelets? I’m sure she would destroy it the moment she finished buying a tiny, shitty TV on Amazon with all the credit I can offer.
So I decide, No, I’ll just mosey on over to the ATM across the parking lot.
On a related note, Fuck You, Wells Fargo. When I pick the language of choice, you don’t have to pop up another screen that says, “You have selected English. Please confirm that is correct.” FUCK OFF! Even if I didn’t speak English this wouldn’t help because I WOULDN’T SPEAK ENOUGH ENGLISH TO UNDERSTAND WHAT IT WAS ASKING ME TO DO.
I get back, and the shocked Quiznos lady says, You went all the way over there?
I turn and look over my shoulder. The ATM is clearly visible, close enough I could hit it with a rock…if the rock wasn’t very heavy and I was throwing like men throw and not like I throw.
Wow, she says. Well, thanks for coming back.
And she should say thanks. Know why?
Because when your credit card machine is broken
in the year 2010,
you should
fucking
tell people that
before you toast the shit out of their sandwich.
Again, Quiznos. Fuck off.