Working a retail or fast food shift can be some of the most excruciating hours of your life. Most customers treat with you with respect but every once in a while a customer comes along that just ruins the entire shift. Almost always this customer is complaining and moaning about something minute, but not matter how inconsequential, the situation escalates to “Can I talk to your manager?” And this is the moment you’ve been waiting for…
Managers of Reddit were asked: “What is your favorite ‘I AM the manager’ story?” These are some of the best answers.
A full-grown man was throwing a fit that I wouldn’t mark down a Thor hammer at a Halloween store because it was missing that little brown piece of cloth that was tied on the end of it. We are talking the most minimal of issues. It was not the last one. I told him he could have a new one with the string on the end for full price, or this one without the string on the end for full price. Either way, the product’s integrity was intact and he was just being a jerk.
He demanded to see the manager and I walked into my office and turned around and came back out. “Hello, I’m the manager. What seems to be the problem here?” He was sooooo mad. Loved his face. He spiked the plastic Thor hammer on the ground, effectively shattering it and stomped out. I called the cops, gave the license number, he got sued by a major party store chain for a $12 hammer and lost. Note: Said hammer was for his INFANT son who couldn’t even hold the hammer.
CaliforniaMntnSnake
I used to be in the management team of the customer service department for a national retailer. One time I went into a store in my home town, not the area where I work, head office, so to be fair to the staff, why would they ever expect to have head office walk in?
Anyway I turned up a day before the release date for something I had my eyes on, and spent a while with a member of staff putting together a package of stuff, accessories etc as well as my main purchase. Came to about 250. He was incredibly rude the entire time, seemed confused that a woman would know so much about the products and seemed to be taken aback that I came in and knew exactly what I want. Was very disinterested and dismissive throughout.
Anyway, staff could get this particular product 1 day earlier than the public, which NEVER happened. In fact I think that product release was the only time it ever happened in the 2.5 years with the company. So when I had everything I wanted, I said “Cheers, so here’s my staff ID, can I get staff discount on the lot, and take it home now.”
Well, then it kicked off. He argued my staff ID was fake (?! Why would I go to the trouble of creating a plastic card with my name and photo on to get 5 off each thing?). He argued that I cannot take it home earlier, and said “Get in line with the rest of the customers tomorrow, love.”
And I can’t believe I had to do this, but I had to tell him to call customer services and explain that the manager of customer services was in his store, and that he was refusing staff discount and to take the stuff home earlier, even though it is in the communication sent to 300 stores across the country.
Long story short I got my stuff, never shopped there again, and when I got back to head office, sent a strong email to his area manager.
Abcam93
I worked at a restaurant where you filled in a ticket with all the ingredients you wanted on your pasta/pizza/salad. There were large boards above a counter explaining how to order correctly. Once customers filled out their ticket they could bring it to the register. During a weekend lunch rush with a line of at least 25 people, a woman comes up to the counter and tells our cashier what she wants. When the cashier told her that he needed a ticket she got annoyed about the “inconvenience,” all while the line builds up behind her. She demands to be given a ticket and begins filling it out right there.
Seeing this, I come up to the cashier and tell him to ring up the people behind her while she takes her sweet time making the important decision of which pasta sauce she wants. She finally finishes, pays, and sits with her gaggle of companions.
Later she comes up to me and tells me that my behavior of having the waiting customers pay before her was extremely rude. I respond by telling her we try to make sure every customer gets speedy service and her holding up the line because she didn’t read our large signs was also rude to all of the other customers. She tells me that she’d like to speak to the manager to complain about me. With a gleeful (and maybe slightly evil) grin I reply, “You already did. I’m the manager.” The look on her face when she realized she wasn’t going to feel vindicated about my “mistreatment” of her was lovely and even though this was years ago, it still brings me joy.
KedynsCrow
A couple years ago I had been given a great opportunity to open a new restaurant. I was in my mid 20’s and this was the first chance I had been given to completely run the show. It was our opening weekend, so I called up one of my old managers who’s also a good friend and asked if he would come help me for the first week, which he happily agreed to. So it’s Saturday night, every table is filled and the wait is over an hour, things were going better than I expected, although I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect.
Myself and my friend, who’s about twice my age were just walking the dining room, spending the majority of our evenings clearing plates and talking with customers. Everyone was cheerful and many commented on how happy they were to have a new restaurant in the area. Then came the first problem customer in our young history. When I cleared her plate and asked how everything was, she snapped about how they had been waiting five whole minutes for the server to pick up their credit card. I told her I could help her with that and reached for the card she put on the table. A look of complete disgust came over her face and she snatched the card back and put it in her purse. Ok? Cool?
A couple minutes later a server asked me if I picked up the card, I told them no, she put it in her purse and that she was ready to give it to her. That’s when it went off the rails. This woman insisted that I had taken her card, and was demanding I return it. I stopped back over and told her I watched her put it back in her purse, which she vehemently denied and started to be unreasonably loud. She began demanding I find her card now, or she was calling the police, and actually stood up and was stomping her foot like a child. This actually threw me off as I started to wonder if in the chaos of the night, I actually did take her card. So I look everywhere, no card. I go back and ask her again, to please look in her purse, she refuses.
My friend sees this happening and comes over to try and assist. It was at that point that she stood up, looked him straight in the eyes and said “Your filthy bus boy lost my credit card and you better find it now!!” Now it started to make sense, she was looking down on me, and that’s why she didn’t want me to touch her card because she assumed I was some sort of low life. He explained to her that I was actually the manager, her behavior was appalling, and asked her to look in her purse for the card. What a surprise, there it was! She put her head down, paid, and left without saying a word. Never saw her again.
KanePunchedAnOldMan
Manger at a call center. I’d get asked all the time if I could transfer to another manager. The answer was always, “As I am perfectly capable of handling your situation I am unable to transfer you to someone else at my level. You can however feel free to end this conversation, call back, go through the ranks and maybe get someone else who will provide the same information.” This normally lead to a rant on how privileged they are and how garbage this is which lead me to respond an empathizing statement along the lines of “If I did this to myself I’d be pretty angry too. Is there anything else I can address for you?”
I_look_just_like_you
We had this rude as hell old woman screaming and ranting she couldn’t use a coupon for something the coupon was not even for. We stood there arguing a good 5 minutes holding the line up. Her grown granddaughters were with her trying to call her down and embarrassed as hell. Usually… I would of just given in and let her use the damn thing but she was being so rude I was not about to help her.
She asked me to speak to my manager and I said I was the manager. She didn’t like that at all and said, “Well I’ll just go to the other location in town they will take my coupon.” I said “NOT IF YOU DON’T BUY WHAT IT IS FOR!”
She left. Few minutes later we run out of a product we need and I call the other location. They have some we can borrow so I head over to get it. I walk in the store and who do I see about to get in line for some food? The old coupon lady.
So I wash my hands… Glove on up and jump on the food line. The lady walks up to the counter and I smile huge and say “Hello! How can I help you?”
Her granddaughters both gasp and go “Oh god here we go” and the look on the grandmas face was priceless! She did not try the coupon again.
butchyeugene
Your favorite corporate coffee shop. A lot of the times I have a headset on to listen to the drive thru as well in case they need help taking an order or grabbing something, so I listen to all the customer interactions. Usually the customer will get upset about something, ask for a manager, and then when I have to go to the window to talk to the customer, I have my headset on with me, listen to what they said happened, and will tell them “Okay but that’s not what I heard on the headset, but if you want, I can also pull the recording as well.”
They leave.
hells_flower
21/22 years old, low rung manager of a movie theatre. Guy tearing tickets took a lunch break so I am tearing tickets. Lady comes in, like an hour before her show is supposed to start, the end of the film is still going on, and she is holding what I can only guess is an ice cream sundae made for 4 people. I tell her we aren’t letting in for that film yet, and she can’t bring in outside food into the theatre. She get’s into a tizzy and tells me that she always, I say ALWAYS! brings food into the theatre and no one has ever stopped her.
I’m an impetuous 21/22 year old making 20 cents over minimum wage, so I tell her “It’s been a rule since before world war 2, you should get out more.” She says “I want to talk to the manager.” I say “Sure thing, I’ll go up to the office and he will come down.” And then I walked up to the office, checked my hotmail (I’m old) and came down and told her I’m the manager and she can’t come in with the outside food.
Ended up giving her a refund for her ticket after she said “I know the owner of this theatre and he will fire you!” It would have been nice if I had been fired, I would have gotten unemployment.
a_monomaniac
I’m 25 and store manager at a textile store. One day there is a older couple; you can clearly see that these individuals live on the posh side of town. They are shopping for some new upholstery fabrics and like the one I helped them find but the color is not quite right. The lady asks me to just place a order for the color she would like. I reply that I cannot order items I don’t carry. She does not like my answer, measures me with a glance (I have a lot if tattoos and stretched lobes) and says she would like to speak with the manager or somebody that works there every day. (Like me working there is community service) I reply that I am the manager and if she can’t find anything she likes she can take her business elsewhere.
Neongouda
Back when I was lifeguarding, I had one of these happen. I’m a medic now, but from the ages of 15-19, I was a swim instructor/lifeguard/PADI rescue diver/master scuba diver. I was also an EMT at the time of this incident, in the process of getting hired on with a company that wasn’t volunteer. Anyway, I look older than I am, although I was 18 in this instance.
With my background in aquatics/safety/being an EMT, I was hired for the position of alternate aquatics director, which means I manage the aquatics department when my actual department head/other alternate aquatics director wasn’t there. (There were 3 of us, so we always rotated days/shifts, so one of us was always in charge. For any big issues that came up, I’d always call my director and get permission before doing anything drastic. But I handled my day-to-day stuff.) I had my own office, a staff of 50 people, and manage a shift of anywhere between 8-20 people, depending on how busy we were/parties/events, whatever.
At this pool, I managed an inside lap pool, an inside kiddie pool with 2 slides, an adults only recreational pool, an outdoor lap pool, and a big kiddie recreational pool with two 3-story water slides. As well as four hot tubs, two in the locker rooms, one inside that families could use, and one in the adult rec pool. We only staffed the inside kiddie pool/slides, the huge outdoor kiddie area, and 3 story slides. Usually 10-20 guards on staff a day. So in short, a lot of water and a lot of people. I should note that it is an “athletic club and spa”, where prices weren’t even listed on our website. I’ve worked for country clubs that presidents go to that weren’t half as entitled or pretentious.
It just so happens that I’m coming back from inside the complex after a quick meeting, (pool party safety and how many people were stationed where, etc) and it’s Texas, I’m hot as hell, so I take off my black shirt that I’m required to wear while indoors/meetings/anything not requiring me on the deck, and exposing my red “guard” top, whistle, nametag, and leaving my khaki shorts. It’s a “safety break”, 5 minute break we have at the top of every hour to give my guards a chance to refill water/rest out of the sun, everyone is required to get out of the pool for a period of time. One of my guards was waving at me near the 3 story slides, with an angry looking parent and a child. We have height restrictions, I bet you can see where this is going. Mother was not happy, my guard was flustered (sweet girl, she doesn’t deserve to be yelled at), and kid was confused.
Mother: “SHE WONT LET KEVIN GO DOWN THE WATER SLIDE! Other lifeguards have, but she won’t let him. I demand he be allowed to go down.”
Me: “Kim, does he meet the height requirement?” She squeaks no, but doesn’t look sure. “Well, let’s measure him together.”
Mom stomps over with me and little Kevin and terrified Kim, and sure enough, he doesn’t meet the standard height requirement. By two inches. “Kevin, stand up straight!” Kevin stood on his tiptoes and barely reached the mark. “See! He can go!”
Me: “Absolutely not. He’s on his tiptoes. He needs another two inches of height to go on this slide, but you’re more than welcome to go on our indoor ones for now. Unfortunately, he is no longer allowed to go on these. My guard is correct.”
Mom: [pterodactyl screechings of entitlement] “I don’t need another little girl to tell me any of this! I want to talk to your manager!”
Me: “Ma’am, I am the manager. If you’d like to take this matter into my office, I’ll gladly sit and listen to your concerns, but that isn’t going to change the fact that I am going to tell every one of my guards to not let him on these slides anymore. I’m sorry.”
Mom: “I WANT TO TALK TO YOUR BOSS!” “Okay, would you like the general manager or the vice president?” No answer, just screeching. I put my black shirt back on, went into my office (luckily it was outside with floor to ceiling views of the deck), called security and the GM, and showed him little Kevin’s height. He agreed with me, and mom was still losing it. Grasping at straws. “BUT THE OTHER GUARD DID IT!” I kept repeating my safety lecture to her, on repeat, until she realized that that’s all I was going to say. She finally sat down for a bit and left us alone, and the guards rotated out a few times, and then we had shift change. I made sure to tell the oncoming guards about our situation.
Sure enough, mom brings Kevin up again, and throws a fit at the top of the slide. I go up there myself, escort them down, tell her to gather her things. “WHY?” I go into my office, tell security and the GM that she is harassing my guards, and creating an unstable safety environment, and have her forcibly removed from the property. Literally kicking and screaming. We were packed that day too, easily 70+ people outside. She got an example made out of her, and I didn’t have any serious issues after that day. She tried to call the cops when they tossed her out, they came in and talked to me, saw security footage and had my guards vouch for everything that went down, they laughed and left, after threatening to arrest her. Most of the people that came to the pool were regulars, so they remembered. Was a glorious day.
EMS_Princess
Got a phone call from one of my salespeople. Guy wanted an item for the same price as another store. Except the other store didn’t have them in stock on their website or in store (I checked). Plus, we don’t have a price match guarantee. So I denied the price match.
Got another phone call about twenty minutes later from the same salesperson, sounding frazzled, for the same price match. I tell him to hold on, and decide to take a walk.
So I show up and the guy is still there, and three of my guys are standing around with that “I just got yelled at for twenty minutes” look I’ve had on my own face far too often. I walk over and ask the customer what was the matter. I then make a big show of scanning the item and checking the other store’s website and checking our internal POS system before sadly declaring that, “Gee, I sure would like to price match the item but, unfortunately, I cannot. Sorry. How would you like to pay today, sir?”
Guy freaks out, yelling about how ridiculous it all is and how we’re violating our price match guarantee and how he’s going to email corporate.
“Unfortunately, sir, we do not have a price match guarantee. And I’m afraid we are unable to match that price in this particular instance. Now, would you like to pay for this item now, sir?”
“I SAW A PRICE MATCH GUARANTEE ON YOUR WEBSITE I’M GONNA EMAIL CORPORATE!”
“Sir, I’m afraid we have no price guarantee on our website. You may be confusing us with another company, sir. If you’d like to think about your purchase, we can always give you a price quote.”
“YOU DO HAVE A PRICE GUARANTEE I SAW IT ON YOUR WEBSITE YOU’RE BEING VERY UNREASONABLE!”
“Sir, perhaps you’d like to think about your purchase and complete this transaction at a different time?”
“THIS IS RIDICULOUS!”
And he took out his phone, snapped a picture of my face and a picture of my name tag, and stalked out. Over a $12 price difference. So I told the salesperson he could take an unlogged break, and I went back to my office.
I looked up the guy’s account, and then googled his name. A VP at some tech company in California. I put a note in his account, good luck getting a return authorization now.
I informed the Director of Sales as soon as possible, because CYA. He giggled when I got to the picture taking part of the story.
Louis_Farizee
I manage a medical clinic. Our usual receptionist was out that day so I said I would cover front desk, which is no big deal. We were looking at getting some building work done and I’d arranged quotes from a couple of builders and was trying to arrange an appointment with one more.
A guy rang the intercom and told me he had an appointment with us. Thinking he was a patient, I buzzed him in and tried to find him in the diary but couldn’t see him anywhere. He comes in and says, “Hi, I have a meeting here at 3pm.”
Me: “Hi, let me try to find you in the diary. What’s your name please?”
Guy: “It’s Guy”
Me: “Hmm, I can’t see anything in the diary – are you a patient or is this a business meeting?” I assumed he may have been a surgeon or doctor through to meet one of our clinicians.
Guy: “It’s a business meeting, your boss asked me to give her a quote for some building work.”
Me: “Oh! I’m sorry, Clinic Boss is out of the office at the moment as she has another meeting – she didn’t let me know you were coming. I can reschedule for you if you’d like? Sorry about this.”
Guy: [sighs irritably] “No, I have already scheduled this meeting with her and spoken with her. Are you sure you’re reading that diary properly? She’s specifically asked me to come, I don’t think she’ll be impressed with YOU when she finds out she won’t let me through.”
Me: “As I’ve said, Clinic Boss is out of the office -“
Guy: “No, my meeting is with the MANAGER”
Me: “Ah. [sticks hand over the desk to shake] Nice to meet you – I’m the clinic boss and we’ve never spoken to each other or arranged a meeting. Perhaps you haven’t read your diary properly?
We never did have that meeting.
Isleepwheniwant
Back in my 20s, I owned a custom frame shop. I frequently referred to myself as the manager, because my primary clientele was middle-aged women, and although they had no problem accepting a college-aged guy as the manager, they seemed to have trouble accepting that someone the same age as their children could own a business.
Customers would bring in art, and I’d build custom-designed picture frames for them. It normally took about two weeks, and then we’d call them to come get their newly-framed art. We’d charge 50% on order, with the other 50% due at pickup.
Called a customer several times to let her know that her frame was ready, always got voicemail, left messages. Three months later, she comes storming in, pissed as hell, shouting at my employee, “When is it going to be done?!”
Employee: “Oh, hey, it’s been done for two and a half months!”
Her: “Nobody ever called me!”
(I interject at this time, because I can tell she’s angry, and things aren’t going to go well)
Me: “I called you. The notes say that I called you seven times during the last two and a half months, and I left messages.”
Her: “Who the hell are you?”
Me: “I’m the manager, and like I said, I’m the one who called.
Her: “Are you sure you were calling the right number?”
(I read it off, and now she’s furious) “You’ve been calling the wrong number, you idiot!”
Me: “Mam, it’s in your handwriting.”
Her: “Let me see that!” (Snatches the form out of my hand) “I didn’t write that!”
Me: “We ask the customers to write their own phone number, so that there’s no confusion, and we don’t have any women working here right now, so I’m certain it’s your handwriting.”
Her: “I don’t have to put up with these accusations; let me speak to your manager!”
Me: “As I said before, I am the manager.”
Her: “What kind of business would have someone like you as a manager? Let me speak to the owner!”
Me: “I am the owner.”
Her: “Yeah, right! I’ve been coming here for years, and I’ve never seen you before.”
Me: “I opened this shop four years ago, I only have employees for the holidays, and I’ve never seen you before. And after you settle your account, I never want to see you again.”
Alrik
Back I the early 2000s, I worked as an assistant manager of a popular video game retailer. On a slow day, I had a guy come in and tell me he wanted to buy 2 PS2s, 2 copies of all the popular games, controllers, etc. Personal experience told me that something was fishy. I gathered up all he wanted and proceeded to ring it up. He whips out a credit card and tells me that this will be tax exempt. His credit card was for the local airport authority and says “Tax Exempt #” on it with no number.
So I ask the guy for a copy of his Tax Exempt certificate. He says that he doesn’t bed one and anything charged to the card is tax exempt. I proceeded to tell him how tax exemption works and the fines that my company would face of I didn’t follow the law. There was some back and forth and in the end I refused to processes it as tax exempt. He refused to make the purchase unless it was tax exempt. He says, “You just lost a big sale, buddy.” I was already on my way back to the stock room, so I replied back, “Well, I’ll just go the back and cry, then.” He got pissed and asked for the manager. “I AM the manager.” “Well then, who’s you boss? I want his number.” I proceeded to grab a business card and write down his name and office number on the back.
After the guy left, I realised I might have given him the wrong number. I ended up calling the district manager anyway and explained the situation anyway. He agreed I was right for refusing the transaction. I then called the airport authority and spoke to HR that explained that the person was just fired that morning and said that he didn’t have the card on him. They were pretty sure the card hadn’t been de-authorized yet and thanked me for notifying them.
BizzyM
A late thirties to early forties, smelly guy was hanging out at the store being rude to customers and my employees. Things really escalated when he started harassing a 13 to 15 year old girl, who was one of our regular customers.
I walked up to him with our store Polaroid (this was back when they still sold them), told him to smile, took his picture and said: “This picture is going up where every employee can see it, if you ever come back into this store, 911 will be called and you will be removed for trespassing, your behavior is not welcome in this store.”
He said, “You can’t do that to me, I demand to see the manager.”
I pointed to my manager, who was on the phone with the police, “He’s the manager, I’m the owner, and unless you want to be arrested, I’d leave now.”
He waited around to be arrested. Turns out he had a record as a pedophile and shouldn’t have been in the store in the first place. His face wasn’t the only Polaroid on our “wall of shame.”
Galaxy_Ranger_Bob
I used to work for a particularly large ISP doing tech support. One day the guy working next to me was dealing with a particularly rude business customer. The business customers were usually treated like kings but this guy was having a particularly hard time even getting a word in. Eventually he put up his hand to motion the supervisor come talk to the customer.
Right then the owner of the company happened to be walking by with another one of the execs. I’ve met the guy a few times at the company social events and he is a really down to earth employee friendly boss. He asked what the issue was with his customer and after it was explained he took the headset and picked up the line.
After listening for about 4-5 minutes he said very flatly “That’s never going to happen, especially not when you have an attitude like a 13 year old girl.” Again listening for a minutes before he said “I don’t have a manager. I own this company and I don’t have to listen to this from a jerk like you and neither do my employees. I’m terminating your account with us.”
He hung up and I watched him disable this guys account and add a note to the file. “Customer is a jerk. Do not reinstate account – Boss”. Then he just handed back the headset and carried on about his day.
inappropriate_jerk
Automotive industry here. Quick lube style place. Franchise where owner only owns two locations. I’m the service center manager of one location, and area manager over both.
Customer rolls up and asks for an oil change. She drives her van in, hops out, and walks around the side of the building.
Once we finished the service she walks back around and gets in the van. She starts to pull the van out and starts yelling about her window, saying we broke it and that it wouldn’t roll up now.
I immediately pulled up the camera footage clearly showing the window was down when she pulled in, and she didn’t want to hear it. She promptly asked for the manager. I explained that I was the manager. She demanded to speak to my “regional manager”. I explained that I was the only person she’d speak to, as the owner is fairly absent and doesn’t handle petty store level complaints.
She called the corporate 1-800 number on the back of our invoices. Because we’re a franchise, that complaint gets typed out and sent right back to my email inbox with a phone number to contact the customer.
She wasn’t pleased to hear my voice calling her to shut her down again.
Photographitti
I work in a co-operative so there aren’t any managers. We’re all co-directors, from the drivers, to the warehouse pickers to the customer service workers (me).
It’s always very satisfying when you get an angry customer who demands to speak to the boss, and you can smugly tell them you’re a director of the business and they can speak to you.
lazylazycat
Worked as a supervisor in a optical retail store. We got issued name badges with our first name and job title written on them, and as I was only recently promoted I put on my badge saying “optical assistant”, with my supervisor badge in my pocket. This isn’t a massive issue as normally when dealing with customers if you tell them you’re a manager they respect that. Normally.
Enter customer C that doesn’t adhere to this rule. They had a problem that I was very easily able to offer a solution to, but was absolutely adamant they wanted to speak to a manager.
C: “Can you please get me your manager?”
Me: “Actually I am a manager, how can I help?”
C: “No, get me your manager. You know, the person in charge?”
Me: “Ma’am I am a supervisor and I’m more than able to help you with any complaints. Unfortunately the only other manager in is taking care of yesterday’s banking and is unable to leave.”
C: “That’s not good enough for me! Go get the manager!”
So at that point I realised I didn’t have the correct badge on, so I turned around, switched them over and turned back to the customer:
Me: “Hi, I’m the manager. How can I help?”
She stormed out and put in a complaint against me. So worth it.
scottishwanderer
I’m a 21 year old girl and I’m a senior staff member/junior manager at a tree nursery. Unfortunately for me I look like I’m about 15, and this seriously ruins my credibility with old people who think that just because they’ve been around the sun 60 times, they know more about gardening than me.
Anyway, one time I was speaking to an older woman about an issue she was having with a new plum tree. She did not like my advice on how to fix the issue and continued to insist that “something” was wrong with the tree we had sold her. Since she didn’t like what I was telling her, I radioed for one of my co-workers to come speak with her. The co-worker I called is an older man who is junior to me at the store, but very knowledgeable and polite and I assumed she would listen to him. I stepped away to go back to what I’d been doing before while my co-worker listened to the lady describe her issue so that he could tell her the exact same thing that I had told her.
He told her the same thing that I had recommended and the lady became upset and demanded she speak to the “best tree expert” we had on shift. Well, that was me, and when my co-worker radioed me and I came back over the look on the lady’s face was priceless. She gathered up her leaf samples in a huff and said she would go somewhere else before stalking off.
frozennie
I was the GM of a beautiful new big name hotel at 23-24. My AGM was a white woman in her 50s, me being mixed. Many occasions occurred where I was speaking with a guest over an issue and they demand to speak to a manager only for me to say I AM THE MANAGER! -No, the “real” manager please. The look on their faces when my co-worker told them I was in fact her boss with a huge smile. Luckily my AGM was a wonderful woman and we got a kick out of this!
WombNuggetMaster
When I was in high school I worked at a candle store in the mall. For the most part, everything was returnable for store credit unless it was a sale item or holiday specific stuff.
I had a woman giving me the hardest time about not being able to return something that had obviously been used for an event and she no longer needed. She asked for the manager, who was there but wasn’t satisfied with her answer.
She went on to ask that we contact someone else about it and it just happened that we had a visitor from head office at the store that day. Still not happy with getting the same response from all of us, she went on that general disgruntled customer rant of “this place is terrible and I’m going to tell everyone how terrible it is and no one is going to shop here.” And in the best move I’ve ever seen, the woman from head office dragged a ladder out into the middle of the mall walkway and insisted that the woman start telling people about her experience right then and there. The woman quickly shut up and left. It was beautiful.
goldy_locks
I had a lady come up to me and ask to speak to a manager. She obviously just wanted to post something/ solicit at our store ( we are a nationwide chain). I said ” I am one of the managers on duty, how can I help you?” She looks at me, tells me I’m too young and asks for another manager. I am a 33 year old lady, the only thing that makes me look young is the fact that I wear neon highlight yellow glasses and a big cheesy smile all day. I said, “Honey, I’m way older than you think, and no you can’t leave those pamphlets here because we can’t post anything that’s not corporate approved.”
She stares at me, I tell her I’m 33, she gets embarrassed and walks out.
StumpyWombat13
Bartending one night, these two girls come in, treat me like garbage, run me ragged and don’t tip. Afterwards, they come up to me, each with resumes in tow and ask for the manager on duty.
I had the biggest and brightest smile when I told them it was me, and held my hand out for the resumes. They paled and went downstairs (lounge upstairs, dining room downstairs) and I figured they would leave. I got paged to the front hostess stand, by the hostess, and there were the girls. They thought that I was lying to them!
It was beautiful.
keight07
Manager for a soaps, lotions, and candles store here. My favorite one is when we caught a serial shoplifter. I saw a woman being sketchy and walking around all shifty eyes. I tried approaching her and she bolted but I saw some of our sprays in her bag. So I called security to give them a heads up as well as a detailed description of her clothing and bag which was a huge shopping bag from a store not from our mall. Typically we don’t prosecute under $500.
Two hours later security calls and asks me to come back to the mall office to identify items. I had double coverage at that point so I walked back. The woman was sneering at me but all of the stuff she had shoplifted from our store as well as others was on the table in front of her. I filled out a report and didn’t think anything of it.
The next day she showed up at our store screaming that she wanted me fired because I filled out a false report and made security track her. My associate said “I’ll just call the manager.” I stepped out from the back, smiled when I saw who it was and said “I’m the manager how may I help you.”
She was furious but silently left. I then tipped off mall security she was back and she was banned from the mall.
Catalystic_mind
I worked in a Burger King. At 20 I was the oldest person on my shift. A customer came to me to complain and demanded to speak to the manager.
I went and got our shift manager Ross. Only 19 but he was experienced, smart and worked as an on call firefighter at the same time. As fast food managers go, he was a really good one. He was handling the customers complaint really well, was polite, but was refusing to give the customer their whole meal for free just because a single topping was wrong on one burger. Eventually the man snapped and shouted “I’m fed up speaking to children I am getting no where! There must be another manager in this place I want to speak to a fucking adult”
Ross paused for a moment then said politely “I can get the duty manager if you want, but he’s my little brother…”
The customer said “this is outrageous” and walked out.
StevenTheMagician
Some of this material has been edited for clarity.