The other day I, once again, stopped by a Subway Sandwich Shop for lunch. After previous sandwich adventures I’d switched shops to a location north of my home. Having given up on the franchises to the; south, west, and really, really west.

I was greeted by a new employee. She was short, attractive, Asian, young – OK, so the staff at fast food restaurants are always young – tremendously enthusiastic, and much to my surprise appeared to be pretty darned efficient. She said all the stock phrases; “Welcome to Subway. Is that Here, or to go? Did you want the lunch?” (Instead of just the sandwich.) And said all this with vocal inflections that seemed to indicate that she actually understand what she was saying. As opposed to just rattling off words and sentences without paying attention to what the customer answered, or even what her words really meant. It also seemed that she was striving manfully to surpress some sort of accent. With little or no evidence I assumed that she wasn’t so much an employee, as a franchisee, or more probably the daughter of a franchisee, learning the ropes before taking over as manager at her own location.

Anyway, her Germanic… competence intrigued me so much that I paid more attention than I usually do whilst watching the assembly of my lunch. She kept asking all the right questions, “Do you want lettuce and tomato on your sandwich?” I suppose I should pause here for a comment on how low my luncheon standards have dropped that I was impressed when she asked about lettuce, rather than waiting for me to tell her about it. So my sandwich proceded along the assembly line with all the Teutonic inevitabilty of the German army driving across the border of a small European neighbor.

Then, with the sandwich tightly wrapped in paper and inserted into an official Subway sandwich plastic bag, she rang up my purchase on the cash register. She looked down at the display, which was 5.62, looked back at me, and said, “Thank you for your purchase. That’s five hundred sixty two please.”

Now I thought to myself, “I wonder if they currency in Korea works like the lire in Italy, and five hundred is a reasonable price for a sandwich?” But while thinking that I gently expressed my opinion that perhaps she had mis-read the price on the screen. Actually, I think I said something along the lines of, “Gug, gug? Five Hundred? That’s can’t be right!”

She looked very embarrassed, squinted at the display and had another go at the price in English. “Five thousand?”

I don’t think I said anything this time. My mouth just sort of opened and closed.

Then another employee, with a much thicker accent, leaned over her shoulder and said, “Just read out the numbers. Say five-six-two, and they’ll make the right change for you.”

The efficient Asian looked at me with concern, and I said, “Absolutely! Let me count out Five Sixty Two.” She seemed a bit humiliated by the whole thing. So I was the one who said, “Thank you. And have a nice day.”

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