And with these words, Stephanie Cloud, assistant manager at Jimmy John's, sealed the fate of the company and guaranteed my immenent departure.

    To give a little background here, I have been employeed at Jimmy John's, a Lawrence area sandwich shop for almost exactly a year.  Roughly the first nine months of this time was spent as a driver, the last few months as a shift manager. At the beginning of this last summer, I found out that the store had been sold and that a new general manager and assistant manager (the general manager's girlfriend) would soon arrive to help make the store make some money.

    I tend to roll with the punches, and although the notion of working for a couple bothered me just a smidge, but oh well.

    So then They arrived.  Jayson and Staphanie, the new managers.  They made it clear that They wanted to work with existing employees to build a fantastically affluent business. In order to do this, Their first step was to stop trading with other businesses, to end employee meals, and cut everyone's hours.

    Well, as I said, I try to roll with punches.  I took all of the new rules and regulations with what I consider, in my particular case, to be quite a bit of dignity and patience.

    However, it soon became clear that while Jayson was one of the most passive humans on earth, Stephanie (what is it with psychopathic females named Stephanie?) was a raging loon a few grapes short of a bottle of wine.  She talked shit on *everybody,* whined about the fact that she is 25, has a degree, and is working at a sub shop, and belittled everyone, including Jayson.  She told her boss and boyfriend to "grow some balls," she asked people why they even try to have jobs, etc., etc.  In other words, a psychotic little harpy woman fit to rule a kingdom of masochistic failures and self-loathing knaves.

    She whined.  She bitched.  She complained about everything from her status in life to her menstrual cramps.  She put people down to their face and humiliated them in front of customers and coworkers.

    Even I, as a manager with seniority at the business, was not safe from her tirades of hate and disgust.  She reminded me daily how fragile my employment was, and seemed to take joy in the fact that I was not perfect (gasp!).

    It clicked at 9:43 PM on Saturday, October 27, 2001.  I am a 22-year-old manager.  I'm smart and capable, and am neither paid enough nor a bad enough employee to be treated like a teenage punk working to save up money for heroin and/or Gwar tickets.  I am a good mother-fucking employee, I realized.

    Now don't get me wrong. For $785.00 an hour, you can call me a sack of shit and make me clean the lint from your foreskin with my tongue if you want.  But for $7.00 an hour plus a rather measly bonus check I may or may not get (depending on her mood), I will not tolerate being treated like shit.

    Now here comes the really great part; every employee on this fateful shift felt the same way. So, one by one, we called Jayson at home (interrupting his admitted high) to inform him that we were underappreciated, underpaid, understaffed, and, well, walking out. I was the last to go, holding down the fort until my stoned bosses could arrive to take over.

    Upon arriving, Jayson's first question was if I was leaving, and if so, exactly why.  I said yes, I was, and started to walk out. He informed the raging cunt beast Stephanie that I was leaving, to which she replied "Good, I'm glad, now we're done with all the crap."

    What she meant by this was that my previous theory had been correct.  They were slowly but surely attempting to weed out all the employees who had worked under the former, "corrupt" management.  I had recieved training from them, and therefore must surely be thieving and crooked (another fact she delighted in pointing out).

    So now the thorn that is Robb was removed from the side of They, and (humorously) it was quite a painful excorcising.  I felt bad about walking out until she made her little comment about the "crap" being gone. Now not only do I not feel bad about leaving, but the guilt has also left in regards to the flesh-eating bacteria I dispursed in the restaurant via the air ducts and three small vials.

    I am now employed as the highest-paid cook at Gumby's Pizza, a huge step down on the eating establishment ladder, but a place where my slightest of well-done tasks proves to be most impressive to a crowd of ex-cons, high school dropouts, and crack dealers.  (I wish to make it known that although this sounds like a Robb joke, it is not - I quite literally, and in all earnestness implore you to believe me when I tell you I work with the three aforementioned lowlifes.)

    So this is my story, which has gone on quite long enough.  Some of you may be relieved to know that the man who was clearly holding back the economic evolution of Jimmy John's has now been purged.  Others may be in shock, knowing now that your sandwiches will no longer be sandwiches without the tangy zip of Robb.