Random "Can I Speak To Manager" Stories (18 items)

• (#1) Some Angry Customers Just Need A Stage To Complain On

  From Redditor /u/goldy_locks:

  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… She asked for the manager… but [the customer] wasn't satisfied with her answer [either].

  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."

  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 the woman start telling people about her experience right then and there. The woman quickly shut up and left. It was beautiful.
• (#2) An Irate Customer Hung Up On The Manager

  From Redditor /u/PoolStoreGuy:

  Pissed off customer asked for the store manager's card and when he will be in so he can complain about me for charging him a restocking fee per policy. I hand him the manager's card and tell him he will be able to speak with him the following day.

  I am the manager.

  He called, I answered, he hung up.
• (#3) Never Mess With A Manager In A Trucker Cap

  From Redditor /u/Merzoth:

  [I'm a] manager at an independent sports bar in Austin, TX. Nowadays when someone demands to speak to the manager, I simply walk into the kitchen, grab my black trucker cap with "MANAGER" printed in block white letters on the front, toss it on, and walk right back out with a, "Now where were we?"

  That usually ends the argument right then and there.
• (#4) An Unhappy Diner Complained To His Server's Dad

  From Redditor /u/ooo-ooo-oooyea:

  At Red Lobster, someone grabbed the "manager" and told him his shrimp was cold, [he] wanted a free beer, and he could get better fish by fishing. This "manager" was my dad, [who] was meeting us after work and apparently looked like an authority figure since he had a tie on.

  My dad replied, "That's cocktail shrimp, you moron."
• (#5) Yes, Bookstores Actually Want To Sell Customers Books

  From Redditor /u/Viktionary:

  I was a manager at a mall bookstore in Canada when Princess Diana died. Before the store opened the next morning, we had many phone calls to ask if we had any biographies of Princess Diana, so the few we had had were put on hold for various people for 48 hours. This left a space on the shelf where the books had been.

  I had a crazy lady come in and accuse us of moving the Princess Diana books into the back room so we could hold them there and jack up the prices. I was pretty much flabbergasted by that logic. Lady, I sell books, and if I had a book to sell to you, I'd sell it. I don't make money on mythical future transactions that may or may not occur. And no, you are not going into my backroom to have a look around yourself to make sure I am not lying. 

  It took over 20 minutes to get her out of my store, without a Princess Diana biography. Within a week we had hundreds of copies of every imaginable Princess Diana biography that existed at that time. 
• (#6) A Drunk Customer Didn’t Recognize The "Manager"

  From Redditor /u/Norman1515:

  I used to work in the box office for an MLB team. The actual manager was usually extremely busy and couldn't easily respond to issues at 15 different windows, so we frequently pretended to be each other's managers. It was the easiest way to get back up when an annoying customer would not accept one of our policies.

  One night, I was helping a very drunk customer who refused to accept a policy (I don't remember exactly what it was). He asked to speak to the manager, but [the manager] and everyone else around me were crazy busy. So, I turned my back on the customer, turned back around, pretended to be a different person, and backed myself up. He accepted this without issue and went on his way.
• (#7) This Customer Lacked Holiday Cheer

  From Redditor /u/Chinchill-allfather:

  I was working at a very large retailer around Christmas. I was helping this older lady who was wearing a giant button on her shirt that said, "It's MERRY CHRISTMAS not HAPPY HOLIDAYS" — so, obviously, I said happy holidays when all was said and done.

  She gets furious because it's... WAR ON CHRISTMAS, and she just tears my *ss apart. She asks for my manager, and I just grin like I've got the best hand in poker. I turn my head to call my manager.

  "Hey, Ahmad! She wants to talk to a manager!"
• (#8) Please Don't Try To Return Merchandise Six Years Later

  From Redditor /u/docholoday:

  I was the manager at an EB Games back in the day. This was probably about 2000-2001… We had an older lady come in one day and wanted to "return" a system she had bought for her son. She claimed he had gotten bad grades in school and was returning it as a punishment. She handed me this ridiculously old and beat up cardboard box. I opened it to find a dirty, dusty, Cheeto-fingerprint-covered PS1.

  I knew that the original PlayStation launched in 1994... so what I was looking at in the box was at least 6 years old. I paused, looked back at her, and for whatever reason asked if she had the receipt. She actually did. Sure enough, it had the date printed on it, and it was from some time in '94.

  I still hadn't said anything more, I was just looking at the mess in front of me when she spoke up and said something along the lines of, "and I'll just take the cash back, that will be fine." I laughed, which was probably my first mistake, and said, "I'm sorry, but I don't think I'll be able to return this, this is six years old, and clearly used."

  She tried to argue that she had bought it here at this store, and the manager at the time told her she could return it for "any" reason and went on this crazy diatribe about her kid being bad, etc., etc. It went on for a good 5-10 minutes. When she was done, I just flipped the receipt over and read her the EB return policy. "30 days from date of purchase for unopened merchandise…."

  She completely lost it. It escalated so quickly I contemplated calling mall security (ha!) and the police. She wasn't having it. Then I told her she could "sell" the system back to us (it was worth about $40 at the time), which would have given her something, but she wasn't biting on that one.

  She asked for the manager, demanded to see the manager, wouldn't rest until she told the manager how rude I had been (I was pretty much a saint for most of this) and was going to get me fired. I just pointed to my name tag, and in the most satisfied tone humanly possible said, "Lady, I AM the manager, and there's no way on God's green earth that I'm returning an opened, 6-year-old, clearly used, dirty PlayStation."

  She stormed out, never to be seen again. It was glorious.
• (#9) One Riled-Up Customer Stood By His Cheap Principles

  From Redditor /u/Emro08:

  I worked the customer service desk at a grocery store. One afternoon, a guy came storming over after getting checked out and threw a package of beef in front of me. He starts going off, yelling and cussing at me because he was supposed to get a $3.54 discount, but the register only took off $3.53.

  He was screaming at me that he wanted his penny back, and that it wasn't even about the penny, but it was the "principle of the thing." By the time he was through, he had yelled at me, my customer service manager, and our store manager on duty.

  As soon as I gave him that penny though, he shut right up and left.

  Principle of the thing, I guess.
• (#10) Once You Finish Eating Ice Cream, You Can't Return It

  From Redditor /u/SalemScout:

  I had a woman call to tell me that she spent too little on an ice cream cone. We had a special that was like two scoops in a waffle cone for five bucks, and for some reason she only got one scoop and said she didn't know about the special (despite there being signs all over the shop about it). She claimed that my worker didn't offer it to her (I didn't focus on upselling at our store, so this wasn't a big deal to me).

  I apologized to her, but I was also like, "What exactly do you want me to do about it? This happened yesterday, I'm assuming you ate the ice cream, so you can't return it."

  She wanted a refund anyway for the inconvenience. I asked if she had a receipt, she said she didn't. I said no-go without a receipt; she said she didn't get one at checkout. I explained to her that in my state we're not required by law to give a receipt for cash-purchased food service items, so if she didn't ask for one, tough t**ties.

  She kept pressing, saying she demanded to speak to the manager. I explained that I was the manager. She then asked if there was another manager she could speak to. I told her no, I was end of the line, top of the heap. No one else was going to tell her anything different.

  She huffed and told me she would be by to "discuss it in person." She never came in.
• (#11) Not Every Bookstore Is The Same

  From Redditor /u/Brandnamenerd:

  I worked at Barnes & Noble after Borders closed for good. The number of people demanding managers to return books they bought at a store that doesn't exist anymore was remarkable.
• (#12) Driving To A Furniture Store = Free Couch?

  From Redditor /u/krautbrah:

  A lady wanted a couch for free because she drove to our store in hopes of a certain couch that another store told her we had. So, she wanted another one for free because she wasted her time driving here. One of those "What are you gonna do for me?" people.
• (#13) It's Difficult To Change Credit Card Numbers, Even If They're Cursed

  From Redditor /u/smacks80:

  [I'm a manager] at a credit card processing company. Woman wanted her account number changed because it contained the numbers 666. The system simply does not allow you to change the number. The only way to circumvent it would have been to open a new account, which would have hit her credit again and raised underwriting flags. Spoke to her on the phone for two hours on the first day and at least an hour a day for the next two weeks. 
• (#14) Sexism Never Leads To Good Service

  From Redditor /u/jennamay22:

  This guy comes up to me and my coworker about a problem with his cell phone. Being familiar with the issue, I took the lead on helping him while my team member was listening.

  Every time I would ask the customer a question, he would look to my male coworker and answer it, while trying to only speak to my coworker. The guy wasn’t taking my advice on the solution and essentially trying to go around me to get he answers he wanted.

  Near the end of a brutal back and forth, I asked my coworker to go to the back room, as this [customer] was being completely sexist and I needed him to pay attention to me. He demanded I let him speak to the manager, as HE will be able to give him what he wants. (Emphasis on the "he").

  I replied with, “Listen, I’ve tried to be pleasant, I am the manager. Everyone here answers to me, so what I say goes. If you go around me and try to get a different answer from someone else, they will tell you to ask me. Nothing in this store happens without me knowing about it. I’ve given you the solution already, if you don’t like it you can leave.”

  The guy starts yelling about how I don’t dare speak to a man that way (blah blah blah), and I issued a ban from my store. He ended up getting banned from my OTHER store as well after going there thinking he could pull the same sh*t because I wasn’t there at that moment.
• (#15) "It's Called Water"

  From Redditor /u/caliblair:

  I worked at an independent chocolate shop that sold various flavors of truffles, brownies and drinks.. We had non dairy options, vegan options and nut free options. A woman demanded to speak to the manager because we did not have a dairy free, nut free, sugar free, vegan option. Luckily the owner literally just laughed and said "We do have one it's called water." I have never seen such entitled rage.
• (#16) A Parent Learns Not To Break The Seal

  From Redditor /u/anthonypullo:

  I was a shift lead at a GameStop and was the manager on duty with one other associate in the store. We were pretty busy, both the other employee and I were on registers ringing through our own respective lines. Poor guy I work with gets this soccer-mom haircut that I knew was gonna be trouble and she is trying to return a new game that had the seal broken on it. Against return policy, can't help you.

  So lady then gets really upset and demands to cancel all of her son's preorders. My guy obliges and is preparing to give her her refund in store-credit because her son had only paid for the preorders with trades. You can't mix match tenders, so my guy informed her so. That was just it, she was instantly screaming and calling my associate a liar. He literally turns the computer screen towards her and shows her the entries in trade credit but she isn't having it. "LET ME SPEAK TO YOUR MANAGER"

  Dude points to me, I wrap up with my customer and we trade registers so he can keep helping out. I ask her how I can help to which she screams her experience at me. I reiterate what my buddy informed her and that there isn't anyway we can get her cash back. She claims "WELL I'M GONNA CALL YOUR CORPORATE OFFICE AND TELL THEM THAT YOUR POLICY DOESN'T APPLY TO ME AND I'VE NEVER BEEN TREATED LIKE THIS BEFORE," to which I happily offer her the corporate number and advise her that telling a corporate customer service line that they believe they are exempt from policy is probably not the best strategy.

  Woman gets red in the face and starts looking around the store, and god forbid the poor man, the OLD manager walks in. He does not work there anymore, but the woman recognizes him from his time at the store. She begins accusing me of lying to her because she knows that HE is the real manager and that he can help her. Nope, dude just trying to shop, she ended up just leaving in a huff.
• (#17) The Cruelty Of Time Hits Impatient People Hardest

  From Redditor /u/notdazzer:

  [When] I worked in retail, a lady complained to my manager that she had been waiting over an hour for me to help her, but I kept refusing to.

  My manager looked at her watch and said "He's only been working for ten minutes." Which was true, I punched in ten minutes before that, someone asked me for help. I was helping them, then crazy lady came and asked me to help her. I said I would as soon as I was done with the first person.
• (#18) One Person Learns Self-Empowerment

  From Redditor /u/clucks86:

  I once worked for a pizza take away. And we always had a guy that had something to complain about. Food not being delivered on time, items missing when he never ordered them, there was always something. The phone came up with their number when customers rang and we all recognised this guys.

  So he had placed an order and it got sent out with the driver. Bang on time 10 minutes later the phone rings. Usually I would answer it and apologise, offer a freebie and be done with it. He would always ask for a manager but the manager was often busy making pizzas. But this one time when he asked my manager motioned for me to pass him the phone...

  "Whats up this time?"

  "This food is cold!"

  "Do you have a microwave?"

  "Yes...."

  "Well f***ing use it"

  He hung up after that and we lost a "valuable customer"

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