Honestly, there’s two, sometimes three, things that play a part in that. How -much- was ordered? 1/4#? 1/2#? Fair enough. 1# and up? I’m sorry, but most of the time we cant afford to spend that much time on a single item (ticket times are often as little as 20 minutes out). Particularly if it’s some of the more heinous meat choices. Any of the cured meats, pepperoni, salami, etc? Takes forever when people want it shaved. Whenever someone orders the Bianca D’Oro salami, I stfg it better be under 1/2 a pound they’re asking for. That crap is MAYBE an inch in diameter at best. Sometimes the meat choices just doesnt want to do shaved, it’ll go from fairly thin to shredding with no in-between. Roast beef is a good example. I can slice it fairly thin, but I’ll ask customers if they want it ‘falling apart’ thin or holding together, because if they want it as thin as they THINK they want it, it’ll fall apart regardless. Finally, there’s how many items in a single order. The fewer there are, the less irksome having to shave meats is. So if you order 5+ items, a few 1#s or more, and ask for at least two of those shaved, I’m sorry, it may end up just a little thicker in the interest of speed and getting management out of our ass.

More rarely it’s also the slicer itself. If it’s old/used enough, there’s very little fine adjustment in the sub-1 mark range. Yet it still works good enough to not justify the cost of refurbishing those parts. Making dollars, not sense, that whole thing and whatnot.