The Secrets of Subway

I'm a sandwich artist and proud.  This was my last week working at Subway, but once a sandwich artist, always a sandwich artist.  I'm never gonna lose that skill.

Sandwich Artist?  Pshh Sandwich Hero.

I've wanted to write this post all summer long, but thought it would be a better idea to wait until I'm no longer employed at Subway.  Better safe than sorry.  So no, this post isn't all secrets about Subway, because in actuality, there aren't many.  I'm just going to write about everything that has to do with Subway, being a Subway employee, and other awesome stuff you probably don't care about.  

Subway Subs

One of the most common questions people ask me is if I ever get sick of the food at Subway.  My answer is no.  We don't get free food at our Subway.  Or discounts.  We get free soft drinks though!  And I thought I was cheap...So back to the original question.  No, I'm not sick of Subway, because I hardly ever eat it.  After all, one sub costs almost as much as an hour's wage.  That thought automatically kills my craving for any overpriced sandwich.

Alright, let's get down to the nitty gritty.  The food.  Subway is known for being one of the few fast food restaurants that serves healthy food, but that doesn't mean they don't have unhealthy options too.  There are PLENTY of fattening sandwiches to choose from and that is why we get lots of thin costumers and lots of fat customers.  After all, you are what you eat.

And that is why with only one glance, I can make a fairly accurate guess of what kind of sandwich the customer will get.  Old people usually get the tuna.  Thin women get the 6 inch turkey on wheat.  Kids get ham or turkey with mayo.  If they're feeling wild, they might add olives and pickles.  Construction workers buy the spicy italian, BMT, or steak.  Teenage boys pick the chicken bacon ranch or buffalo.  Teenage girls buy the chicken teriyaki or oven roasted chicken.

I could be wrong of course.  But rarely.


My favorites/The subs I recommend are:

• Subway Club: Delicious, and pretty low in fat and other bad stuff
• Chicken Bacon Ranch:  Not healthy, which is why it's so good
• Steak and Cheese:  Toast the green peppers and onions with the sandwich for complete satisfaction
• Subway Melt: Who knew turkey, ham, and bacon would be so delicious together.  
• Italian BMT:  Pepperoni, salami, and ham.  Well, at least it has ham on it too...
• Meatball Marinara:  Most people don't get anything besides cheese on this sandwich, but it is so good with all the peppers and onions on it too.  Don't skimp out; the veggies are free.  Be warned.  This sub has the most calories out of them all.  580 calories for a 6 inch.

The subs I don't recommend are:

• Oven Roasted Chicken: I used to get this sandwich until I started working at Subway.  Words cannot describe how disgusting they smell when heated up in the hot well.  
• Cold Cut Combo:  This also smells disgusting.  It also looks disgusting.  No one who works at Subway eats this sub.  No one.  Also, it's basically bologna.  Not worth five bucks.
• Tuna:  Do you want to know what our tuna mixture is made of?  Tuna and light mayonnaise.  That's it.
• Seafood Delight:  Imitation crab covered in light mayo.  Yet again, disgusting.  Why would you put that on bread anyway?

Subway Customers

Subway couldn't be a restaurant without it's customers, and they come in many different forms.

Every so often we get the Subway noobs.  They freaking tick me off because they have no idea what they're supposed to do or what to order.  Either they walk in, stare at the menu for ten minutes , or they look at all the meats and make up their own sub creations. 

Here, I'll recreate these situations.

1)
Costumer: "What's the Subway Club?"
Me:  "It's turkey, roast beef, and ham."
Costumer: "What about Italian BMT?"
Me:  "That has 6 pieces of both pepperoni and salami, and 4 pieces of ham."
Costumer:  "Ok, well I think I'll just get the Ham and Cheese sub."

2)
Costumer:  "What's that stuff?"
Me:  "It's steak."
Costumer:  "Ok, I want that and the turkey."
Me:  *sigh*

But I never get too mad at the noobs, because before I worked there, I didn't know anything about how Subway worked either.  I never even realized they had a menu board...

Then there are the regulars.  They eat Subway every. single. day.  And they get the same thing every. single. day.  I'm always proud when I can make their whole sub without even asking what they want.  Either I work too much, or they eat too much Subway.  Probably both.


We also have customers that ALL the employees know about.  We called one such customer Olive Boy, because he always asked for extra olives.  Actually, he asked for almost all our olives.  At one point our manager had to write a note for all the employees saying, "Learn to say no to Olive Boy!!  We can't afford to give him that many olives."  One of the customers was well known for getting every kind of sauce on his sub.  Ok, maybe not ALL of the sauces, around 10 different kinds.  Sick.  Another kid was known as the Wedgie Sandwich Boy because he had some foreign accent and couldn't say veggie.  Poor kid.


What it's like to be a Subway employee

Working at Subway really isn't as bad as I make it seem.  (I have a problem with complaining).  All of us have the same job, and that job is to do everything.  We have to make the sandwiches (duh), work the cash register, bake the bread, prep the food, do the dishes, clean everything, and try not to strangle customers...I mean communicate with customers.  All that food you choose from on the line?  Yeah, we have to prep it, including cutting the onions, green peppers, and tomatoes.  Subway really is eating fresh.  Well, most of it.  The bread comes as frozen dough after all...

I usually don't show up to work dreading the time I will be spending there, because if I get sick of one thing, I can usually move on to another.  There's almost always something to be done.  "If you have time to lean, you have time to clean."  If you can't tell, I've been brainwashed.

So why does working make me angry after a few hours?  Oh, just lots of little things.  Like how no one will do dishes, so I end up doing them twice in one shift.  How I'm trying to finish the last of the bread, but customers keep trickling in.  Cleaning up spills by the fountain area for the third time in one hour.  You know, stuff like that.  But that could happen at any fast food job.  I want to tell you about the things that customers do that bug the living crap out of Subway employees.  Or at least me.

1) Ordering 5+ sandwiches when there is a line of customers behind you.
2) Ordering the steak, or chicken on flat bread without it being toasted.  Then we have to toast the flat bread, and heat up the meat in the microwave instead of just toasting it all together.
3) Vegetarians telling me to change my gloves if I touched meat before starting their sandwich.
4) Forgetting to mention that you have 3 other subs when they are nearly to the register.
5) Asking for "a little more" meat or cheese without being charged.
6) Acting like it's all my fault for running out of a certain item.
7) Having their kids order their sandwiches. 
8) Ordering five subs at 9:50pm or later.  I know it says we're open till 10, but give us a break!
9) Middle Schoolers.

But I have to be fair about this.  The customers aren't the only annoying people, so are the employees making your sandwich.  I can hardly stand going to other Subways now that I know how things are supposed to be made.  Everything they do is sloppy and wrong, and it drives me crazy.  I used to get Subway at BYU a lot last year because it was on my meal plan, but I always left feeling angry.  Apparantly our Subway at BYU is the busiest in the country, so they have four different lines with four different cash registers during lunch.  That's pretty crazy.  Even though they are dealing with huge amounts of customers, I don't want my meat and cheese being thrown on with no order and then getting skimped on the veggies. 

I don't want to be a hypocrite, so I apply the Golden Rule to my sandwich making.  "Make other customers' subs how you would make your own."  I try to fold the cold cut meat the same repeatedly, so it looks nice and tidy, and I always spread out the steak or chicken after dumping it on the bread.  I always hated it when there was an inch of just bread on the ends.  The thing that annoyed me the most was the cheese placement.  You know what I'm talking about.

 

I always make sure I place the cheese like puzzle pieces.  I may have a slight OCD problem when it comes to this job.  

And that's everything you don't need to know about Subway.  If you're still reading this, congratulations.  This post was more like a novel.  Sorry.

Time to be a grownup

Right now I am sitting at our dinner table finishing off the last of the Graeter's ice cream. 

I'm also wearing my Subway uniform because I just got off my last work shift at that place.  FOREVERRRRRRR.   I'm kind of excited if you can't tell. 

This week has basically been the worst ever because while all my friends and roommates were moving into their new apartments out in Provo, I was still at home, working.  Everyday.  Usually work isn't that bad, but last week we lost our manager and we basically ran out of every kind of food we make the subs with, so it was really stressful.  Oh well.  It's done.

I leave tomorrow morning, but you wouldn't be able to tell by the looks of my room.  It's a mess, and I haven't started packing yet.  So naturally, I'm blogging instead of doing anything productive.

I kind of feel bad though.  I was home for four long months, and all I could think about was going back to BYU.  I didn't really appreciate the time I had home.  Now, I'm realizing how crappy my living conditions are going to be and I won't be eating my mom's homemade bread anymore.  At least I spent a lot of time with Lily though.  I guess she's pretty cool.  

And that's as reflective as my blogs are gonna get.  I don't want to bore with my actual thoughts and feelings.  At least the ones that have to do with my life...

All I can say is I'M SO EXCITED TO GO BACK.  I HOPE I DON'T GET MARRIED THIS YEAR!

K bye.

I used to to be a tomboy.

I'm sure you're all shocked.

I drew a lot when I was little, played with cars, climbed trees, rollerbladed in our basement, and swung on our swing set.  I played with our doll house and occasionally some hand me down barbies, but that's because they were there.  I NEVER liked princesses.  They didn't do anything besides sing and wear dresses.  Plus, I wasn't born a princess, so why dream about it?  My first favorite color was yellow.  Then I started to spend more time with other girls and decided that my favorite colors were pink and purple.  If that's not an example of socialization, I don't know what is.  Well, after a few years I decided to screw pink and purple and girl stuff in general.  I didn't like it, and no one was going to make me.

And that's when I became a tomboy.      

I hated all girl clothes.  They were dumb and I wasn't going to wear them.  I wore soccer shirts and shorts.  Eventually I even started to shop in the boys section, but that was awkward and I got weird looks.  I remember having the same pair of shorts as a boy in my 5th grade class.  He wasn't thrilled about that.

Lily calls my shirt the Drake and Josh shirt.  Also, that tie is paper.

I bought that shirt in the boy's section at Khols.

 For a little while I was bitter that I was even a girl.  I used to get so mad that I had a 50/50 chance of being a boy and I ended up being a girl.  Haha don't worry, I've gotten over it, but I can empathize with my younger self.  Guys get to do all the fun things.  Girls Scouts?  Lame.  All they're good for is those delicious cookies.  The guys in church get to go on those High Adventure trips, and we go to girls camp.  Boys can pee standing up; I'm jealous of that fact when I'm crouching in a dirty port-o-potty.

Eventually I got over the whole tomboy stage.  By 6th grade I was wearing mostly girl clothes, but nothing crazy.  Basically I was wearing girl jeans with a t-shirt.  Well, I never got over THAT stage, except now I force myself to wear something nice at least two times a week.  Excluding summer. 

boy shirt, boy necklace, boxers. 

I was so cute.

Hahahaha.  Look at Lily.

First day of 5th grade. 

First day of 7th grade.  I refused to look nice the first day like all the other girls.

I HATED that dress.

Sorry for the quality of the photos.  We don't have a good scanner, so I had to take pictures of the pictures.  I couldn't find any photos of when I was actually wearing boy clothes.  These are all from 4th grade on, once I cooled it a bit. 

I'm not a tomboy anymore, I wear girls clothes all the time now.  Yayy!  But that doesn't mean I've fully converted, I'm too lazy to do that.  Athletic clothing is just so much more comfortable.  I really do enjoy fashion, and there are many types of clothing I love to see other girls wearing, but I would never wear them.  It's just too much work and I wouldn't want to wear that all day.

Here's a list of all the things I've purchased this summer.  Excluding gifts and food.

• Running shorts
• 3 hats
• 2 spandex capris
• 2 pairs of running shoes
• 2 bike jerseys
• 3 sports bras
• Bike shoes
• Bike pedals
• Bike tires
• Triathlon entry fee

Notice how I haven't bought a single item of clothing I can wear to school.  Last week I was online shopping -- the only shopping I enjoy -- and I had a ton of clothing I was going to buy on sale from urban outfitters.  Everything was a pretty good deal, but I couldn't make myself buy it.  I have no problem buying everything else, but once it's nice clothing I'm hesitant. I waited too long, and half of the clothing sold out.  Oh well.

So I'm not a tomboy anymore, but it's something that will always be a part of me.  My future children better not like princesses.

My First Triathlon

It is true.  I, Kristen Oda, have finally finished my first sprint triathlon.  If you didn't know, this is my third summer training for one, but this is the first I actually competed in.  (I'm a pretty dedicated person).  It was quite an experience, and I plan on explaining the whole process to you.  Don't worry, there will be pictures.

I participated in the Findley Triathlon, which is in Wellington, Ohio.   It's only 30 minutes from home and it was on a Saturday, so it was the perfect option.  Well, I thought it was the perfect race. 

The order of the events in a triathlon are swim, bike, run.  Like a serious racer, I didn't warm up or even stretch before the race.  I didn't have the slightest idea what the course was like either.  (I was hoping everything would be well marked). 

I had heard that the lake we would be swimming in was pretty dirty, but I didn't think much of it.  I'd only be swimming in it for 400m, so I could deal with it.  Let me tell you.  That water was disgusting.  While we walked out to the starting line, I sank down to my knees in goop filled with who knows what.  Actually I do know what it was.  Poop.  Lots and lots of goose poop.  I could feel all the floaters when I moved my arms through the water, and my goggles did nothing for my vision underwater. 

I'm not a swimmer, so my goal was to swim the whole thing without drowning or swallowing any of that poopy water.  I was successful in those two goals, but I didn't swim fast enough.  I had to catch up a lot of time on my bike. 

The biking was definitely my best part of the race.  The course was pretty flat except for one huge hill at the end.  I biked the 16 miles in 55 minutes, but it still wasn't fast enough to catch up with any of the real competition I had lagged behind during the swim. 

Then the 5k.  That was not fun.  At all.  In any way.  Have you ever biked aggressively for an hour and then tried to run immediately after?  Me either.  It was very unpleasant.  This triathlon was special because it was a trail run.  When I signed up, that sounded awesome.  I thought it would be better than running on some hot black asphalt, but basically the shade was the only good thing about that run.   The trail twisted everywhere and there were random steep dips and hills that I had to climb.   Anyway, it took me 34 minutes to finish the run.  34 MINUTES.  I have never ran that slow in my life.  And this time I was racing. 

Oh well.  It was my first triathlon and I came in first for my age group.  Of course there were only two of us, and the girl I beat finished 45 minutes after me.

I might do another this summer.   I'm not sure.  But I do know that next time I'll skip the poopy lake and trail run.

If there were audio to this picture you would hear a lot of women making squealing noises about the poop.

I've said this many times, but why am I so attractive??

Swim to bike transition. 

Butt shot.  You're welcome.

Getting off my bike.  Scarier than you think with those shoes.

 

End of my run.   Too bad I didn't realize that was the finish.

Aww yeahh.

No big deal. 

The County Fair

I went to the Medina County Fair a couple of days ago with my family.  Who else would I go with?  The whole time I was there I kept thinking, I have to blog about this.  It's a gold mine of writing material.

I should probably start from the beginning.  That would be my childhood when I was in 4-H.  Hey, I was homeschooled back then; obviously I needed another cool outlet for my social skills.  For those of you who don't know what 4-H is, shame on you.  Just kidding, I don't really care.  Basically all those posters and projects at the fair that you never look at are made by 4-H kids.  They're also those farm kids who show their sheep, cows, and other smelly animals.

So many boring posters.  A few years back, my archery poster was up there too.

Yay organizing!  I bet her mom made her do that project.

Haha I'm so immature.

I wasn't one of those farm kids with livestock though.  No, I showed much cooler things like artwork, knitting, guinea pigs, and archery.  BUT I won showmanship for my guinea pig project.  That means I was the nerd who knew all the information.  My guinea pig also won first place for his breed.  He may or may not have been the only white crested breed...Also, I went to State Fair for my archery project.  Before you get excited, I didn't win some archery shootout.  It just means my poster was better than the others. 

Man, I'm not helping myself out.

So as a 4-H student, I had a very different view of the County Fair.  It meant procrastinating till the last day to finish my fair project, judging, trash can painting, booth decorating, and the most busy/social week of my summer.  Now that I haven't been in 4-H for many years, I saw the fair from the typical fair-goer's eyes.

It was freaking weird. 

The fair seems almost pointless, and very trashy.  You might walk around the animals, but that's only entertaining for so long.  Then you buy fair "food."  That's the main reason you went to the fair anyway.  Then you walk around some more.  Then you risk your life on a fair ride, and possibly lose your previous meal afterwards.   Then you walk around more.  Then eat more fattening food.  Then you go home.

It seems like the county's most classy residents show up at the fair.  I saw lots of pregnant teenage girls.  I saw lots of rednecks.  I saw lots of booty shorts.  I saw lots of fat people.  Worst of all, I saw lots of middle school and high school students.

Is it just me, or do they all look exactly the same?

Like mother, like daughter.

I don't understand why people dress up for the fair.  You're going to be walking around for hours in the heat, surrounded by poop and animals.  You shouldn't get dressed up for that.  But that's just me.  I never look nice in the summer.  Never.

And here are more pictures for your entertainment.

IT'S SO FLUFFLY!

These piggies were born that day!

The economical way to use your food.

That's Lily as a bee.

That's me as a cow.

Jenai used to do cake decorating too.  Though her cakes weren't so...bright.

I don't know how to end this post, so I'll leave you with some words of advice:  Don't judge humanity by the people you see at the fair.  If you do, you will leave feeling very depressed.

The Oda kind of vacation.

I have never been to the beach.  Yep, I'm 19 and I still haven't swam in salt water.  I have been to lots of beaches off of Lake Erie and Lake Michigan, but those aren't exactly the same...

I used to complain about this.  I really love to pull the whole "deprived child" thing, but in reality, I'm really not.  I just like to complain about not going on awesome vacations.  (White People Problems).

As an Oda, we don't go on huge planned-out vacations.  We might visit family out in Washington, or go skiing, maybe drive to Erie, Pennsylvania and have a lower key beach vacation, but chances are we're not going to South Carolina, Myrtle Beach, or Outer Banks.  That was a really long sentence, but I'm too lazy to revise it. 

Once we did go on a real vacation.  We were going to Disney World over Spring Break when I was in 7th grade.  We were staying in a really nice Marriot Hotel with a huge pool and palm trees and valet parking where you pay even more to tip people who park your expensive car.  Pretty fancy yeah?  That's because we stayed there for free.  My dad was there for a business conference.

Anyway that was an awesome vacation until my dad's retina detached the first night.  Jenai, Lily, and I had to go to the parks by ourselves while my poor dad had to have surgery on his eye.  My parents also couldn't fly back with us because the pressure would be pop the gas bubble they put in his eye, so they got to drive back. 


And that ends my list of fancy rich people vacations.  The rest are like the one we just spent last week.  We drove to Michigan and stayed in this little cabin.

This was our shower.

I only took two showers the five days we were gone...

I felt like I was Laura Ingalls because our cabin was very similar to theirs.  We even had a ladder to the up stairs where Lily and I slept.

If you haven't already noticed, Lily made sure she was in all these pictures.

It was really fun though.  One day we rode jet skis.  That was way too much fun.  I want to be rich so I can have a lake house with boats and lots of jet skis.  Lots of them.  We also went on a dune ride.  That wasn't as fun, but still cool.

It was really duney.  And sandy.

Oh, and it's not an Oda road trip without a stop at Cabella's.

Probably the only place where a mannequin holds a gun.

We're attractive.