Everything changed when in August of 2003, the owner who had owned the majority of the stores in Downtown Long Beach was forced to sell the stores. Although Subway is owned through a series of franchises, it is still a part of a corporation. As part of that corporation, if they feel that you are not running the stores to the best of their ability, then they can make you sell your stores to different management. The owner at the time was a class act. He was one of the nicest bosses you could ever ask for. He treated us all with respect, and his employees saw him like family. He had employees that had been with him 5 and 15 years. He paid better than most other franchise owners, and he always encouraged us to go to school and do something with our lives. He even gave us gift cards during Christmas, which is something that not a lot of bosses do. But corporations are cold blooded machines and they are not people. The bottom line was money, and how much they can get there hands on. The stores that he owned in Downtown Long Beach failed 3 consecutive Subway inspection reports. They failed the store for things like employees not having their shirt tucked in. Employees not following proper portion amounts on sandwiches, or not practicing the Subway 3 second rule, which says that every customer at all times must be greeted within the first 3 seconds of walking into a store by a Subway employee. When he announced the stores were being sold, many employees cried. Subway was more than a job to us; those stores were like a home away from home for us. We grew up there, our best friends were there, family members all worked there, and we felt safe there. Even when people left, they still came back and were greeted well by all of us.
The owner called a staff meeting of all 3 stores in the Downtown Long Beach area. He announced that we would be transitioning into new ownership. That's when we were first introduced to the new owners, Ritu and Rahul Marwah. A brother and sister that were educated in business, and who were being groomed by there parents to take over their existing 10 Subway franchises that they already currently owned. As part of that process they bought the 3 Downtown Long Beach stores to try to squeeze the most money that they could out of them.
To me the take over by new ownership represented the death of something I use to believe in. Which was the idea that you could run a business, and treat your employees with respect and dignity, and you could still make a profit because your employees would work hard because they appreciated the care that you show them. But the mentality of the new owners was basically the opposite. There mentality was fuck the employees! It's a fucken sandwich, and if you won't be here to make it, I'll find someone else to do it. And they'll do it for a lot less.
They tried to be polite and nice about everything, but from day 1 we knew we were not going to get along. They kept all of the hourly employees at the same pay rate, but the managers all got there pay cut from where they were to what the new owners called the industry standard of 9.00 an hour. All of the managers were making between 11 and 12 dollars an hour which was above the industry standard in 2003. In 2003 gas was still below 2.00 an hour. So making 11 to 12 an hour meant you were not doing badly at all. The thing that affected the regular employees the most was that we were no longer going to be receiving a free foot long sub. We could get a 50 % discount on a 6inch if we chose to eat inside. And on 3 to 6 foot party subs we would get a 10 % discount if we wanted it. Police officers were no longer going to be eating for free either. Upon learning that the stores would be sold, the regional manager immediately resigned. We were introduced to our new regional manager Patty. She was a puppet for the owners parents, and was being lent out to there kids.
The problem with Patty being a regional manager was that Patty didn't know how to manage shit. Her primary job as regional manager was to hire people who could make a sandwich and who would complain the least about the circumstances that they had to work under. But she had a semi friendly face, and the employees kind of liked her to a certain extent. The thing was that she was a snitch and anything you told her eventually got to the owners. She was bought and sold for many years ago. She had been with them for 15 years, and she was someone who they trusted. Never mind that she had crappy English speaking skills, poor people skills, and was a bad judge of character. She was their loyal snitch, and she was now in charge of all three Downtown Long Beach stores.
Four days later every single one of the downtown store managers quit. And two days after that all three stores had new managers already. That just goes to show you the care that they took in there manager search, and the quality of people that they found. The new managers name was Jolene. She had green teeth, and no I'm not trying to insult her or make fun of her teeth. She literally had teeth that were the green and black with yellow and white spots around them. She was a tall, pale, skinny white girl, who probably weighed no more than a 100 pounds. I found out that she was what people called a tweeker. I didn't know what the term meant at the time, but I later found out that it essentially was someone who had a really bad crystal meth addiction, along with others drugs.
It only took a month, but eventually all but three of the employees that worked for the previous owner had left. One of the ones that were left was promoted to manager, the other was just a regular employee, and the third one was me. It's a trip how much life can change in a month and how you adjust to all of it. It went from working with my best friends, to working with....
To be continued
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