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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Lurking_Moose on 2025-08-25 12:42:53+00:00.
Years ago I worked mostly retail, with a scattering of retail food service. I worked at a QuickChek for a few months, which is similar to a Wawa or Sheetz. Gas, subs, snacks, basically mid-range. I did a bunch of different jobs there, including making food, which I kind of hated. Everything was just reheated slop or low-grade pseudo-food, which is standard, but some regulars got very picky about their food. Some I get - I mean, you want to be sure you’re putting something at least ok into your body - but some people were just complainers for the sake of it.
One dude came in just about every morning to sit in and eat a poppy seed bagel, buttered, with multiple bacon rounds stacked thick, and extra black pepper. My one coworker who normally made it showed me how she made it for him and he was always happy with her. I followed what she did to the letter each time. But each time, he’d come back and complain. “My bacon isn’t crisp enough,” “There isn’t enough bacon,” “This isn’t toasted enough,” “This is toasted too dark,” and his personal favorite, “There isn’t enough black pepper on this.” Every. Single. Time. No matter how much I put on, it was never enough. I followed what my coworker did, she’d even tell me it looked good, and still, he’d complain. I vented to my coworkers and they said they stopped making his sandwiches because of it, since he did the same to them. Jerk.
So one day he comes up, and preemptively complains about the black pepper. “Make sure you put enough this time!” Ok, fine. I smothered that frigging thing like nobody’s business. The inside of that bagel looked as dark as the poppy outside. “Here you go!”
He came back a few minutes later and quietly said, “That’s about as much black pepper as one could tolerate.”
“Was it not enough still?”
“It was too much,” he grumbled.
He still kept coming in almost every day for that disgusting sandwich, but at least it seemed like he was timing his approach for when I wasn’t there at the deli section.