From footlongs to flatbreads, the Subway counter has become a pinnacle of customizable sandwiches. Greeted by wafts of warm dough, toasted bread, and at-times, some questionable deli meat, many people find themselves in the midst of it all during their lunch hour.
But with more than 20,570 Subway restaurants nationwide, there’s always bound to be a few questionable customer interactions.
In a TikTok posted yesterday, one Subway employee came forward about a recent Karen encounter that occurred within her store located in Oregon. Receiving more than 33,500 views and 2202 likes, TikToker Delaney (@delaney_mccannell) walked her audience through a gripping narrative of sandwich-making trials and tribulations.
“I had the worst [expletive] old couple come in today,” the 22-year-old begins.
Having just got off of work, Delaney sits in the driver’s seat of her car and begins to share her perspective. With bread crumbs sprinkled along the inside of her cap, it was clear Delaney had been through a long day.
“They came in with a coupon and the coupon said ‘Two Footlongs, Build Your Own,’” Delaney explained.
Unfortunately for the elderly couple, the build your own option was not quite what they had expected. According to Delaney, the coupon only vetted a series of select meats and excluded sandwiches on the Subway Series menu.
At this point the couple grew aggravated, but continued on.
“The guy was like, ‘Ugh I don’t want that one,’ and his wife ordered,” Delaney says. “She wanted half tuna, half meatball. And I was like ‘We’ll have to charge that as two 6 inches cause they’re two different meats.”
Viewers of Delaney’s content made sure to shout-out this sandwich combo in the comment section.
“½ tuna ½ meatball is foul,” one commenter said.
“Diabolical,” another one mentioned.
The video continues and the woman quickly claps back to Delaney.
“So you’re telling me I can’t,” the woman allegedly said.
But after talking with the woman, Delaney made it clear that she can have the combination, their coupons will just not cover it. But Delaney was more than willing to search through the woman’s coupons and find one more fitted for her sandwich desires.
“They were just being pissy the whole time,” says Delaney.
After toasting the couple’s sandwiches, Delaney pulled them to the fresh produce counter and offered the couple their basic fresh condiments. As she was filling each sandwich, Delaney had noticed she was running low on banana peppers. So, per request of the old woman, Delaney quickly ran to the back of the store to grab more.
“I went back to grab more banana peppers and when I was in the back… I heard a thud,” Delaney says.
Knowing exactly what the sound was, Delaney came back to the counter to see that the glass covering for the vegetable portion of the serving area had been knocked over. A common occurrence.
“Customers will lean on it and knock it over, and I was like, ‘Oh God it just fell,’” Delaney explains.
“So, I go out there and the glass had kinda squished the footlong sandwich that was on the board and they were laughing and giggling,” Delaney says.
Though an annoyance to Delaney, she was not overly frustrated. According to the video, it’s a simple mistake made by customers, which takes but a few mere seconds to fix.
Delaney wrapped up the couple’s sandwiches and moved toward the cashier’s desk. Ringing them up, Delaney was able to find coupons suited for both the husband’s footlong and the woman’s, which was now considered two six-inch subs.
“I rang them up and the lady was like ‘Well what about that one sandwich, the one that you crushed?’” Delaney reenacts.
Not remembering when she had done this, Delaney begins to question the woman.
“And she [the woman] said, ‘When you grabbed the container, you knocked it and knocked it over on the sandwich,’” Delaney says.
The couple then began to haggle with Delaney that the price of their footlong surpassed that of the expected $12.99, which she once again clearly itemized for the couple.
@delaney_mccannell ITS THE FACT THAT THEY TRIED TO FRAME ME (also for the record I did offer to remake the one that was squished a little and they said it was fine) #greenscreenvideo #customer ♬ original sound – Delaney McCannell
“You got a Subway Series and two six-inches, and I used two coupons for you,” Delaney says. “I used the footlong Subway Series and one of the six-inch coupons.”
Finally, the couple left the store and Delaney was left to her own vices. As she sat thinking about the tense interactions, Delaney decided to go back and check their security footage to see if maybe the couple was actually right. Maybe Delaney had dropped the glass covering on the sandwich.
“I found the security footage of it, and let me show you,” Delaney says passionately.
Delaney green-screens the footage behind her head. Pointing at the screen, Delaney sees the entire situation clearly.
“I did not touch the glass, and she leans her arm on it and knocks it over and then she laughs about it,” Delaney says. “They’re laughing.”
Viewer’s still committed to Delaney’s story made sure to leave her some affirmations, assuring her that this entire affair was not her fault.
“Working customer service jobs makes you realize that a lot of older people have 0 common sense and it’s impossible to explain the simplest things to them,” one commenter said.
And technically, they were right, according to a study conducted in American Psychologist known as “Testing Common Sense,” while 76% of older adults claim to become wiser with age, based on psychometric performance tests, their common knowledge actually declines.
Now this isn’t the first the Daily Dot has heard about a Karen-like interaction in a fast-food serving line. Just a few months ago, Chipotle workers were asked to stop talking after simply putting “too much salsa,” on a customer’s taco.
So, whether you’re at your local chipotle or you pulled off to that random Subway in Oregon on a long-haul drive, please remember that Karens are everywhere. So be wary.
The Daily Dot reached out to Delaney (@delaney_mccannell) via TikTok direct message.