Not epically bad service, but the Subway post below inspired me. I went to Subway a month or so ago...I live in a student town, and they have a lot of student staff, as you might expect. Last year they were absolutely amazing, caring about every detail. This year, not so much.
I headed up the counter where the queue normally begins, and wait there, looking directly at the two staff members. Another guy walks in; the female staff member clearly knows him, and he jumps to about the salad part of the counter and starts ordering. Grr.
About about three or four minutes, the guy staff member (who is doing nothing) comes up to me, and starts putting on his plastic gloves. This takes, no lie, an extra two or so minutes as he can't figure out how to get them open enough to put on his hands. I wait patiently until he's done, and he asks what I'd like.
I reply, 'A 6 inch chicken sub on wheat, please,' clearly and distinctly.
'On what bread? See, we have Italian bread, which is this one here...' I cut him off before he can go through EVERYTHING.
'Wheat, please.'
'Oh...right.' He starts cutting up a foot long and then cutting into the sandwich...REALLY close to the top. I mean, instead of cutting halfway through so it actually resembles a sandwich, this thing has a top layer of about 1/5 of bread, and bottom layer of 4/5s.
He starts putting cheese on. 'Um, no cheese thanks.' I said.
'Oh..what was it you wanted again?'
'Chicken, please.'
He asks me the usual chicken questions, and that's done. Then he just wanders off randomly, and returns a minute or so later with a bag of lettuce, which it takes him another two or so minutes to open, even with a knife...At this point there is a wasp flying around under the counter, and landing on various items of food. He watches transfixed, as my chicken continues to get cold. Snapping out of his haze, and doing absolutely nothing about the wasp or the food it touched, he turned to me again. 'What salad would you like?'
I replied, 'Tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber, onion and gherkin please.' I'm perfectly willing to repeat any part of this since I know that often they can only remember the first 3 or so, perfectly natural.
He puts the first three on, then reaches for pepper. 'Um no pepper, I'd like onions please.' Again the classic 'Oh...right.'
He then reaches for the sweetcorn, my pet peeve. 'No sweetcorn; gherkins please'. Why not just ASK if you're not sure/got it wrong EVERY SINGLE TIME previously?! And what if I'd been allergic to any of the things he'd just dug his gloves into? He then wraps my sub up, and pushes it over to his colleague. By this point I'm relieved I don't have to go through the paying process with him, since his brain might explode or something.
When I got to the table, he hadn't even closed the sub, so there were toppings and sauce spilling out everywhere.
All I wanted was a simple chicken sub. No fancy adjustments, no big rushtime queues. Is it really that hard?! He might have been new, I understand. But why not just double check things with the customer instead of doing your own thing?