Subway Customer Forced to Leave After Embarrassing Interaction With Worker

A "rude" customer was forced to leave a Subway restaurant over the weekend after being repeatedly ignored by the employee taking orders.

Another Subway customer, Charlie (@charlie_kincade), posted a video of the interaction to TikTok, writing: "I felt so bad for the server. She was doing her job and this woman started yelling at her." The post has amassed over 2 million views and thousands of comments applauding the worker.

Rude Customers

Some research suggests that "bad" customer behavior has become commonplace in the food service industry.

An October 2021 survey by Snagajob-Black Box found that 62 percent of restaurant employees have experienced "emotional abuse and disrespect from customers," said Nation's Restaurant News. Additionally, a separate poll found that as of May 2021, 39 percent of food service employees reported "quitting over concerns about hostility or harassment from customers," the Harvard Gazette reported.

Their concerns are valid, as shown by many on social media, like one in July that showed another woman berating a Subway worker over a chocolate chip cookie, a video of a Starbucks customer throwing a "tantrum" March, and that same month, a drive-thru customer was heard calling a Jack in the Box employee a "f**king p**sy" in a clip with over 5 million views.

The team behind Toast, a popular restaurant point-of-service (POS) system, advises employees dealing with rude customers to stay calm, empathize and apologize, even if they did nothing wrong.

"The simple truth is that the customer doesn't care whether you did something out of malice or not. They want to feel justified in being upset and know that their feedback is understood and valued," the Toast team said.

If apologizing doesn't work, the Toast team recommends finding a "solution," such as giving the customer a discount or offering a free menu item. If that still doesn't quell the customer's anger, then it's time to escalate the issue to management.

Much to the internet's delight, the worker in Charlie's video dealt with things her own way and simply ignored the "rude" customer until she left.

'Karen in the Wild'

It's not clear what led to the now-viral argument, but the video opens with the customer telling the employee to call someone, presumably the store's manager, adding: "But finish my sandwich first."

The employee tells the customer that she's not going to finish her sandwich because she's being disrespectful, which upsets the customer.

"You need to respect your customers," the woman responded. "And I'll tell them you don't respect your customers."

The customer then asks the worker to finish her sandwich, but the worker ignores her and takes Charlie's order.

"Finish my sandwich!" the first customer exclaimed.

When the worker doesn't respond, the customer walks toward the door and threatens to report her.

"Call your supervisor right now," the customer said. "You wanted to call her a while ago, call her now!"

Again, the employee ignores her and continues making the other customers' sandwiches, giving the woman no choice but to leave.

"Karen in the wild!" read the video's text overlay.

Viewers React

Viewers loved that the worker chose to ignore the customer, saying this is how all employees should deal with rude customers.

"Perfect response...IGNORE THEM!!" thatgyrl404 exclaimed.

"She [the customer] was so embarrassed at the end," Hayley Andrews commented, followed by a laughing face emoji.

"This is EXACTLY how everybody should [respond to] them instead of all that going back and forth!!! Kudos to that server!!" missbush06 wrote.

"They need to promote her to a trainer teaching conflict/Karen management. This was perfect," Ken said.

AromaTooTherapy added: "I used to be a fast food worker & politely ignoring rude customers works every time...it takes two to argue they eventually just leave."

Newsweek has reached out to Charlie for comment.