In order to understand the full context of this post, please take a trip through the Wayback machine, and read this blog post from someone who at at a Jimmy John’s restaurant about seven years ago.
I got overly upset and passionate about this, and may have sent him a really long, absurdly long even, perhaps even quite rude string of comments where I’d chopped up my rant into digestible pieces. I was partially amusing myself, and I was fairly certain the person wouldn’t bother to read what I had to say. It’s possible they will, but why should I care. I will now share with you the rant I’d written. Prepare yourself.
Ahem.
It’s been seven years and our menu has changed, but I swear I’m ‘boutta throw hands over this blog post over here. You think it was abandoned. You think it wasn’t seen. But I see it, and boy do I have something to say about it.
I’m currently an employee at a Jimmy John’s franchise, and while I absolutely hate my miserable job here and it’s slowly killing me to the point that I have near existential crisis daily, this blog post is still something that upsets me simply on the basis of its argument.
First of all, I’m going to agree with you on one point. Jimmy John’s is overpriced as FUCK. I refuse to buy food from the restaurant (even with the meager employee discount) simply on the grounds that the food is too expensive for the product produced, even when you take advantage of all the freebies (which I eat). Every time I sell a sandwich to a hungry customer, I read the price they’re going to pay aloud to them and find myself appalled that they find what I’m telling them to be reasonable and that they let me take that money from them. I only ever eat from the store when I work for ten hours or more and receive a complimentary meal, or if a sandwich is made incorrectly on the line and essentially becomes waste. (We aren’t supposed to eat those, but we’d throw them away otherwise. Theoretically it promotes purposely fudging sandwiches in order to take them home.)
With that out of the way, I’ll make my point about what’s upset me so. At the time, seven years ago, when this post was made, the menu was different from what it is now; peppers are no longer listed as a side item, perhaps in part due to this incident. However, perhaps to your dismay or disbelief, Hot Peppers (cherry peppers) can still be requested to be put “on the side”. In fact, they’re the only “Freebie” of ours that we’re allowed to put on the side. However, as you already know, hot peppers can only be put on the side of Subs or Clubs. With these two facts, it should be clear as to why Hot Peppers can only be served as a side for sandwiches that could feasibly be served with peppers added to them.
If you aren’t paying for a Sub or a Club, then you aren’t paying for Hot Peppers.
Regardless of whether or not they’re listed as Free, or as a Side, this is the logic behind when Peppers can be served with your sandwich.
Did you buy a sandwich that can be served with hot peppers atop it?
Fuck no, you got yourself a dry-ass slim shit meat and cheese piece because you’re willing to settle for the minimum requirements of what can be defined as a “Sandwich”. The best thing about your sandwich is that the person making it is -supposed- to give you the freshest bread available since you’re literally only eating wheat, meat, and maybe cheese. Or maybe you added some mayo or yellow mustard like some sort of basic normie. And no, before you ask, I’m not just getting mad because this is the only thing my picky-eating roommate will order from the menu. That’s absurd. I’m appalled you’d think that. And yes, I do sneak mayonnaise onto his sandwiches for him.
So for you to be upset at the fact you’re unable to receive hot peppers with your slim simply because it was listed (at the time) as a “Free” side when you clearly didn’t purchase a sandwich that would give us a valid reason to serve you peppers is appalling. It’s infuriating. I had to stop reading the blog post in order to comment aloud about it. I’d almost be more understanding if you were upset over us refusing to actually slather mayonnaise upon your slim bread, as opposed to giving you peppers. The Mayo is literally right there. It’s sitting there, waiting for some bread to show up just so that it may be sensually spread atop the fluffy innards. But the reason behind both of these arguments is the same.
If you aren’t paying for a Sub or a Club, then you aren’t paying for Hot Peppers.
If you’re buying a sub, you’re paying us to optionally put mayonnaise on the bread.
This is the business model.
Is this a nice business model? No, not necessarily. It’s a stingy one, it’s an economic one. But the rules are there, clearly defined. They make sense.
Would you like to know a secret? You can actually force the staff to put a condiment onto your slim. Can you guess what it is? That’s right, it’s the one condiment you won’t eat.
Avocado.
Avocado isn’t a freebie, it costs about 75 cents to add to your sandwich. And if you try to buy it over the counter, there’s a good chance they’ll deny you. But if you order yourself a slim online and come in to pick it up, you’re perfectly free to purchase yourself a Slim plus Avocado. And there’s jack shit we can do about that if you pay for it beforehand.
So go ahead, if you’d like to cheat the system in order to deck out your bland sandwich, be my guest. While you’re at it, try getting a Slim Unwich to cut out that whole Carb Bomb stuff you mentioned. It makes the meal go down faster, and it’s almost like eating an Irony Wrap. “No veggies, except the one it’s wrapped in”.
.
.
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But if you’re upset about management, you might be onto something.
I’m not going to talk shit about my managers; there’s not much shit to talk about. The managers I work with are honestly awesome people, and I fully respect them. They do the best they can, they try to please every customer, and they take it as personal failures when they’re unable to do that. But I have to admit, when it comes to the -business- side of things, this store, maybe the franchise just takes a fucking hit. A real blow to the nads.
I’m not going to talk shit about my managers; there’s not much shit to talk about. The managers I work with are honestly awesome people, and I fully respect them. They do the best they can, they try to please every customer, and they take it as personal failures when they’re unable to do that. But I have to admit, when it comes to the -business- side of things, this store, maybe the franchise just takes a fucking hit. A real blow to the nads.
You talked about having a frustrating discussion with a store manager. The managers at Jimmy John’s are generally more like Shift Leads. They’re kind of like regular employees who just make sure everything gets done, the paperwork is in order, the register is counted, and any issues are dealt with properly. Like yours. They aren’t the boss, per-se. That’s the General Manager (in most cases). As with all customer service stores, we aren’t here to ruin your fucking day, buddy. We aren’t the official Shit-In-Your-Cheerios squad. We’re here to serve customers, and we do that to the best of our ability.
When there’s a policy we’re following in our franchise, that’s a -franchise policy-. That’s not us. Like when people ask us to give them our Italian Vinigarette to go. We just can’t do that, it’s impossible, the logistics aren’t there. We have no containers. We have no plastic utensils, no I can’t give you a fork. Stop asking if we serve fries, no we do not have a soup of the day, for the last time we haven’t got hot subs. Pizza? That’s the wro- That’s Papa John’s. You are thinking of Papa John’s.
Peppers on the side. Of all the things to be angry about. I’d understand a “manager” coming out to tell you to get off the sidewalk. Although I doubt it was just a Manager, and I doubt it was only their decision. I would guess that had been a Store Owner decision, and trust me when I say… Actually I’m going to be careful what I say. But I -will- say that when it comes to Store Owners, it’s -strictly- business and nothing but. You’re more likely to catch a break with the staff so long as you’re cool and reasonable. Or even slightly uncool, but just calm. We appreciate our regulars.
A blog post like this almost makes me wish You’d been a customer of mine, makes me wish we still listed peppers as a “Free” side just so I could explain even a grain of this rant to you. Maybe just the relevant part, the logical connection between Subs and Clubs with Freebies, peppers being one of them, etc. In fact, honestly, if you were a regular enough, maybe we’d just give 'em to you, hell, I’ve made exceptions. Don’t tell my boss. But hell, when we’ve had angry customers, I’ve personally paid for their meals. I’ve personally voided orders. I’ve put mayo on slims.
I’m not even a manager.
I’m just a guy who used to be a driver.
I’m just a guy who’s car broke down.
I’m just a guy who’s angry about people who wanted peppers with their slim seven years ago.
Man, fuck your peppers.
“Excellent! I can now get hot peppers with my sub!”
Sub?
“The next time I go in there… [a kid] says that they can’t give out hot peppers with a slim.”
Slim.
"What I know is this: Jimmy Johns claims to have the worlds greatest sandwich.”
We don’t. We claim to have the world’s greatest Sandwiches, -plural-. And if you read that lil’ paragraph at the top right hand corner of your menu that you’ve so carefully (selectively) read, you’d know we understand that’s not true. The first bit hasn’t changed, and it reads as follows:
“OK, so my subs really aren’t gourmet and we’re not french either. My subs just taste a little better, that’s all! I wanted to call it Jimmy John’s Tasty Sandwiches, but my mom told me to stick with Gourmet.”
“What you get from Jimmy Johns is cheap shitty food,”
It isn’t cheap, it’s horribly expensive. That being said, I like the food here better than some other joints specifically because it’s just full of veggies, and there’s absolutely no grease. Honestly, that’s one of the pros of working here, no grease. The bread’s baked daily, throughout the day, the veggies are delivered from local produce spots, everything’s pretty much exactly as advertised. And the bread isn’t chewy like at Subway. We just don’t have black olives or other nice stuff like that, which is kind of a bummer.
“stuck up managers,”
areudirty
theartofmadeline
