#so most reliably good was thursdays teriyaki like... beef strips

[soaringsearingphoenix]

It was a study some college students were doing about teens' sleep habits. I was about 13 i think, and i volunteered, because what they were looking for was "teenagers who don't get enough sleep" so all of us subjects were like

Anyways, for part of tje study they had us spend the night in the psych building on campus. It wasn't the most restful night of my life, because who ever sleeps well in an unfamiliar place? But after doing the cognitive function tests the night before, we'd spent that evening in low light (or, if we had to go to the bathroom down the fluorescent-lit corridor, we wore welding goggles to limit our light exposure.) playing card and board games with fellow test subjects and supervisors, who occasionally administered cheek swabs to test our sleep hormone levels over time. Uno was tricky because it was hard to tell blue and green apart in the dim, blue-reduced lighting. We settled on monopoly (this was also when that guy complemented my Piano Player's Hands.)

My point is, i was given all the tools needed to relax and have probably a decent night of sleep. They did the cognitive tests again in the morning after somewhat monitoring how well we slept (i dont think they stuck anything to my head, but i know there was a camera in the room). So i felt pretty good about them.

But the study was not about the effects of hunger, so they told us that if we wanted any snacks they had some to offer, and encouraged us to eat if we would normally have breakfast. It was like, cheez its, and grapes or maybe oranges, and some other more plain cracker. I saw them on the counter on my way to the test room. There were two boxes of cheez its.

I asked for cheez its, because they are my favorite. I watched the proctor crack open a brand new fresh box and pour a handful of them onto a napkin for me, and i went about my task. I was sat at a computer and did tasks like clicking the space bar when a certain image appeared on screen, or matching words to pictures. I think there was one with faces and names and we had to remember which name went to which face. Anyways, I'm an idle eater, and I already had a habit of snacking while working. Plus, the task was pretty engaging so before i knew it I reached over and my cheez its were gone. So when the proctor swung by again, asking if I needed anything, I requested more. By the fourth time she honored this request, she gave me like twice as many as before.

That may have been the final portion I got. It may have been more than that. I truly do not recall. This was almost ten years ago now and even at the time I was in a bit of a daze from a first-night-somewhere-else kind of sleep. I was also not particularly keeping track of the cheez its. I was Dilligently doing my tasks.

So i'm not sure how many times I asked before she frowned, left the room, and came back a moment later to say

"We're out of cheez its"

Now of course, in retrospect there were other participants in the study. Maybe four others were there that night, i'd seen them, we'd played board games. It's more than likely I wasn't the only one eating them. But something about the way she seemed surprised to have run out of them so quickly, and the fact that i hadn't actually seen the other participants that morning (they were doing tests in separate rooms), my sleep-addled recollection of that moment was the certainty that this was because of me and me alone.

Surely it's unlikely that I ate two entire boxes of cheez its myself. But I don't know that for sure. I was a growing teen. I had no sense of passing time. I was barely even paying attention to what i was eating. And i'd been plenty hungry - after dinner, we hadn't been allowed to snack the night before, so as not to contaminate the cheek swabs. As absurd as it sounds, i remained vaguely convinced for years after that I alone had eaten all their cheez its, or at least most of them

But no, it wasn't a reward system. Eating cheez its is its own reward

thinking about the time when i was doing alertness tests for a brain science study and i ate like all the cheez its in the building

[fuck-customers]

Done...

Way of the Subs Heathen is back…

Winding down my possible last days in the hell hole that is attached to a gas station we have encountered several issues and several more complaints. So I bring to you at least three stories of the issues presented with working in the last month.

Story One: Everything is Breaking

When I speak of that everything is breaking… It is. For months our Ice Maker has not been working. A few weeks ago our owner fixed the machine. Now we have a rule at our store. This rule is: Once something is Fixed, something else will break. As soon as the Ice Maker was fixed, the front cooler which we store our front line ready vegetables broke. So we store the vegetables in the cooler.

A few weeks later, our Owner fixed that. Then… our Freezer stopped working. Mind you, we do not have the walk in cooler/freezers. They are free standing so they are not connected. Moving all of our frozen goods to our sister store, here we are with out our freezer. Not even a day later our vegetables prep cooler on front line breaks -again-. And now? The pipe under our front line is freezing over.

What is even life now?

Hopefully they push for our remodel soon. But so far it is looking like Winter of next year and hopefully I am gone way before this happens.

Story Two: The Tale of No Food

Our boss is in fact terrible when it comes to some things. Amazing person when not in Boss mode however. A couple of weeks ago we have been having slow days. Making below averaged at lunch and dinner times. Makes sense to not order a bunch of things. Then a week later our business has been speeding up since school is starting soon. So now we are making average to above average days.

Our manager does the truck order but our boss decided to cut it in half. Our truck comes in on Friday…

By Monday we were out of Steak.

By Tuesday we were out of Spinach, Bacon, and Pepper Jack Cheese.

By Wednesday we were out of Chicken Strips, Ham, and Turkey – we borrowed from another store to make it through Wednesday and parts of Thursday.

By Thursday we were out of Chicken Teriyaki, Cucumbers, Rotisserie Chicken, Tuna, Carved Turkey, and Roast Beef… during Lunch.

When the truck came in Friday many people where there and many people complained to the boss.

He learned the lesson the hard way. Now he will no longer cut our truck and trust our manager.

It is pretty bad when all you can really make four or five things on the menu.

Story Three: Wait in Line.

Ah the tales of the bathrooms. The Gas station owns them. The bathroom in which the little dress figure stand in the sign for only has one toilet in it. The other has a toilet and a urinal. So naturally, lines happen. Not so much for the men’s bathroom, with the lock not really locking, two can do their thing, wash, and leave. The women’s… there is a line.

On this particular day of shark week, I was waiting in line with two others behind me. So we were chatting and waiting for the other to come out. When they did, with out missing a beat this woman comes trotting up from the gas station door and make a bee-line to the women’s bathroom.

Me: “Excuse me, it’s not your turn”

Just saying that line I was met with a very masculine, deep toned voice telling me something similar to the following (paraphrasing a bit):

“I am allowed to use this bathroom, you are discriminating me, I am a woman! I identify as a woman!”

Look, I absolutely respect the transgendered population. My best friend and ex (tried to date but we been friends way longer so it was a little awkward) finally had the courage to tell her family and the rest of her friends about her transition. You bet that I was there supporting her every step of the way. However, this woman here… This woman here took a simple “not your turn” into a whole other level.

I moved to the bathroom, because I’m honestly not wanting to ruin a nice pair of work jeans. She goes on and off with some of the following that I remember:

“I’LL HAVE YOU FIRED FOR TREATING ME LIKE THIS.”

“I’M GOING TO DRAG YOUR ASS OUTSIDE AND FIGHT YOU.”

“I’M CALLING MY LAWYER YOU C**T.”

Among other very choice and very threatening word followed by banging on the door. When I opened the door after I was finished, I pointed to the camera that looks down at the hall. Telling her a few simple things.

“That camera has a mic and recorded EVERYTHING you had said. Go ahead and call your lawyer, you have no case. If you do. My lawyer is better than your. Good luck.”

When you work at Way of Subs in a smaller area… you tend to make friends with some very nice people. For example.. I’m close friends with the DA in our area. Super nerd, love him to bits. Brought me flowers when he found out my mother may have had breast Cancer (She is in the clear!).

Story Four: What is Pay Even?

The one that that irks me the most is that we have had four new hires. Two make the same as I and another made a bit more but was fired for being not so reliable.

So manager hired another. Now here is the thing, I’ve gone above and beyond this job with in my means. Meaning, when I have the ability too, I’ll do what I can to help improve the job. I’ve also been here over a year and never was given a pay raise – there was suppose to be one at 3 months, 9 months, and a year.

I’ve been trained to open and close the store, do most of manager duties, am a key holder, been employed at this subway for over a year…

Guess who has been making minimum wage for over a year now?

The new hire is in her late teens… and is making $0.60 more than I an hour. Just hired.

I’m done. I’ve went to both the manager and the boss about getting a raise after being here a year with all the qualifications under my belt… along with certifications in first aid and cpr!

I’m tired, I’m done. I’m about to just shift into mediocre setting and just get by at this point.

TLDR:

Story One: Once Something is Fixed, Something Else Breaks Story Two: Boss shouldn’t fuck with our truck order, ran out of 90% of menu items Story Three: Transwoman threatens physical harm and livelihood of me. Just cause there was a line to the bathroom and it wasn’t her turn. Story Four: Not getting required raise with all the stuff I do. Teenager gets paid more then I and haven’t even worked a full week yet.