By Blackwell Thomas

Columnist

There are few lines of work that can test one’s patience like a job in the food service business. Minimum-wage, demanding customers and, of course, the work itself is enough to threaten any person’s sanity. A part-time job at a local sandwich-making establishment has helped enlighten me to this reality.

The first fact I took note of shortly after beginning work (for the sake of keeping this job I will not name the restaurant but, let’s face it, there are only so many possibilities) is that it is actually possible to be bad at making sandwiches. In fact, it’s possible to be so bad that co-workers can’t laugh at you because they are too busy scratching their heads, trying to comprehend how one person could make a simple task seem so baffling.

My always observant roommate, who happens to work at the world’s largest coffee shop chain, made the point recently that my performance on the job is probably not nearly as bad as I think. Well, I can gather a group of five co-workers and a half-mile long line of unsatisfied customers as evidence of just how wrong she is. Years of research and thousands of hours of trial-and-error went into ensuring that the system for making sandwiches at my place of work was idiot-proof and in one short month I have destroyed it all.

Here is a typical scenario to illustrate the point:

Manager: “The gentleman asked for no onions or mayonnaise on his sandwich.”

I dutifully remove the onions.

Manager: “He doesn’t want it on wheat bread.”

I throw out the bread I’ve already smeared the mayo upon and begin cutting another piece. From there I assemble the meat and lettuce, tomatoes, vinegrette and onions, no wait, he didn’t want onions, and the peppers and, finally, begin wrapping the sandwich and, voila, the customer has his food, my boss has an ulcer and I am left wondering just why sandwiches get the best of me. Then another customer is ready to order and the process repeats itself again.

Being busy makes the hours go by quicker but the trade off there is that being busy means making a lot of sandwiches and, aside from my ability to explain boneheaded errors and hide from customers, I am not getting any better at this job.

The rule of thumb at our restaurant is that a sandwich should be made in about 30 seconds. The manager of our eatery and a couple of the more experienced fellows regularly clock in at around 20-25 seconds. Right now the minute-and-a-half mark remains my holy grail and it is amazing how frustrated a customer, and a manager for that matter, can get in 90 seconds. Confused, frustrated, disbelieving, angry and, my personal favorite, exasperated: this is the range of emotions and accompanying levels of despair that my work creates.

Many people have said the definition of insanity is repeating the same behavior over and over and expecting a different result. But what about repeating the same mistakes over and over? The word for this I believe is likely something along the lines of retardation.

Fortunately I am able to laugh at how bad I am (I’ve found that crying leaves the customers a little weirded-out.) and I think my co-workers appreciate that. The effort is there even if the mind is not.

Outside of the astounding extent of my own ineptitude a few other surprises awaited me in this business. First off, many people seem to think that because they are at a restaurant there is no need to be tidy, or even observe basic commonsense rules like picking up things you drop. Unfortunately, I am not talking about crumbs and wrappers here.

Paying $5 for a sandwich, it seems, is license for some people to have tomato tossing contests with their kids.

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