A job that changed me: On midnight shifts as a Subway ‘sandwich artist’ I served clubbers, cops and sailors

Delivering pizzas, with all due respect, was a cruisy gig that fit in with my uni commitments. It was 1998, for Pizza Hut at Como, a well-established suburb 15 minutes from Perth’s city centre. I blasted hip-hop through my car stereo and brought home cash tips and – if I was rostered until close – any pizzas that were unclaimed or undelivered that night. Between deliveries, drivers sat in the alley behind the shop and shot the breeze while folding pizza boxes.

The job’s biggest downside was that it didn’t pay much, especially once you factored in the costs of fuel and vehicle maintenance. So I applied for a job as a “sandwich artist” at Subway in Northbridge, Perth’s nightlife district. I figured that switching to a job where I was on my feet instead of on the road would significantly extend the life expectancy of my hand-me-down Mitsubishi Magna.

Working at Subway was more demanding than navigating apartment block intercoms and trying not to forget people’s garlic bread. Bins needed to be emptied. Bread was baked daily. Tables were continually sprayed and wiped. Salads and fillings required washing, slicing and cooking. Kind of. For one particular sandwich filling, I squeezed biblical amounts of mayo on to shredded seafood extender and massaged the lot by hand.

None of this was roquette science but that didn’t stop me from finding pride in being a tiny, hard-working cog in the restaurant machine.

I spent almost two years working from midnight till 5am every Saturday and experienced the full spectrum of late-night characters out and about in Perth.

There were the pissed clubbers who would prop themselves up against the sneeze-guard and snicker whenever I said “footlong”. There were the beefed-up bouncers and cops whose presence would evoke interest or fear. My boss liked having them around so gave them discounts on their food. There were the guests who wanted a concerning amount of jalapeño.

There were also, of course, the troublemakers. While their antics were mostly harmless – think booby-trapped cups that had their bottom cut out so that their contents would spill everywhere when picked up – there were a couple of moments when things could have gotten spicy but, thankfully, didn’t.

Sometimes I’d be caught off-guard by small, unexpected moments of humanity. Conversations with customers about media, religion and the realities of being a national-level windsurfing athlete. One customer had chosen Subway Northbridge as his final stop while on day release. I did my best not to sound too curious but he was fairly open in his responses. Then there were those whose stony faces, terse answers and intimidating amount of tattoos – this was the late 90s – that suggested they weren’t in the mood to welcome questions.

The sudden appearance of 15 Americans dressed in Fubu and desperate for a taste of home would signal that the sailors were in town – and God help me if I was rostered on solo. They ordered BMT melts (salami, pepperoni, ham, cheese). Americans in general, as I remember, were the only ones who ordered cold-cut sandwiches. Most locals gravitated towards hot fillings including meatball, steak and cheese, and chicken fillets.

If you asked most red-blooded Perth blokes at the time, they’d tell you that all these sailors wanted to do was make out with our womenfolk. It became obvious to me that most of these young men didn’t join the navy to serve Uncle Sam. It was simply a job that let them see the world and take care of their families.

While I wouldn’t describe my upbringing as sheltered, I did tend to hang with the same kinds of people. Through hospitality, I had the opportunity to see and perhaps even understand the world from different perspectives.

Did Subway set me on my current path as a food writer? Not really. I was studying journalism at the time. But in between laying out pucks of sliced tomato and plunging my hand into cold buckets of pickles, I talked and listened to customers – which helped me learn that the secret to telling any food story is understanding the human story behind it.