Sometimes, when you’re eating at a restaurant or shopping in a department store, things go wrong. Maybe your dinner came out dressing on your salad instead of on the side. Or maybe Macy’s won’t honor your 10% off coupon from 2009. Most customers are understanding about it. They recognize that life doesn’t always go how you want it to, and even the hardest working server or retail worker can’t do anything about it.
Those are not the people we’re talking about today.
The other type of person believes they are entitled to a perfect experience wherever they go, because they’re the paying customer, damn it! We call these people “I want to talk to your manager” types.
Recently, a Redditor posted a thread asking people who grew up with “I want to talk to your manager” parents to share their most cringeworthy stories. They replied with stories of unnecessary escalations, appalling pettiness, and once in a while, well-deserved comeuppance.
Be nice to servers and retail workers! Otherwise you might end up on a list like this.
1. Now boarding: liars, fakers, and con artists.
“We travelled alot when we were younger and would skip lines at the airport since we were kids.
But now we were all in our early teens and my mom faked having a heart condition to skip the long line to get on the airplane.
Flight attendant would have none of it and told us to go back to the end of the line. I still remember the smiles and looks of everyone there.” – KKLante
2. Be careful what you scream for.
“The number of cashiers my father demanded the manager fire because they were too slow, rang us up wrong, etc, including one they actually did. I’ll never forget that girl taking her Home Depot apron off and walking away sobbing. To his credit (I guess?) my dad seemed surprised that it actually worked, must have felt at least some level of guilt and never did it again.” – FuzzyElf47
3. I…kind of love this one.
“My dad once asked the guy at the Verizon wireless store to give him his own Social Security number because he asked for my dads. My dad walked out afterwards with some strangers SS number on a post it. I was a silent bystander because I really wanted my first phone.” – pootermun
4. I banish thee from the Burger Kingdom!
“Ugh, my dad. He can be such a prick if you get his order wrong, it could be fast food or a nice sit down restaurant. He often yells at wait staff if they “undercook” his steak. It has to be well done or he claims to have lost his appetite.
One time we went to Burger King when I was younger and we sat down to eat. He took one bite of his burger, spit it out and immediately started bitching about it being under cooked. He cut in front of everyone in line to yell at the cashier, then he asked who was the cook. when the cook appeared, he launched his burger hitting the poor kid directly in the face with a lidless burger. He’s now banned for life from Burger King.” – cok3noic3
5. No manager? Then let me speak to the pilot.
“When I was a young child on a long distance flight my mother let me and my brother sleep on the floor. For safety reasons the flight attendants told my mother that we were not allowed to sleep on the floor. She started to argue with the flight attendants who then turned to the pilots. The pilots threatened to turn the plane around unless we get up from the floor but she continued to argue. The pilots announced they were about to turn around because of my mother, so all the passengers got pissed. Eventually she caved in when she had all passengers and flight crew on a Boeing 747 against her.” – ohhellnoxd
6. Steak sauce-gate.
“When I was 6 my mom took my brothers and I out to Golden Corral for dinner. She went up to the buffet, got a steak, and came back to the table. She’s an avid A1 steak sauce fan and cannot, i repeat, cannot eat steak without it.
She poured out the A1 onto her plate, tasted it, and was instantly horrified. She proceeded to pour out the Golden Corral Steak Sauce right next to the A1 and it matched perfectly.
Outraged, she called over a waitress and eventually the manager showing them her little experiment and how she exposed the Great Steak Sauce Fraud of 06.
My brothers and I were scarred for the rest of our lives. I still have nightmares about it.” – Streaks-
7. When Dad treats a grocery store like a library.
“My father consistently returns food to grocery stores when he is unsatisfied with the quality. The worst is when he returns the 2lb bricks of cheddar cheese because they went moldy ‘before they should have.'” – johnlonger
8. She fought the law, and the law won.
“I was 13 when this happened. My mom had made a reservation at a hotel for a trip, but when she got there the lady said there was some error with the reservation and that my mom’s payment didn’t go through, so the lady offered us a double bed room for a discount.
Rather than just taking the room, thanking the lady, and leaving, my mom decided the best course of action would be to scream, in the middle of a hotel lobby, “NOBODY IS GOING ANYWHERE TIL I GET MY FUCKING ROOM!” She then proceeded to pester the lady, who clearly couldn’t do anything about it, until eventually she called the police on my mom for public disturbance. Mortifying.” – elsoov
9. You got crabs.
“My MIL is truly a Karen. Going out to eat with her is always a nightmare. Her orders have 14 special requests, but she’s not at all kind about it, she is defensive from the get go like you’re an idiot who’s already screwed the order up. ‘Nooo dressing. Not on the side. Nothing. Completely dry. Do you understand? I will send it back!’
The one I will never forget though was dinner at Joe’s Crab shack. In case you’ve never been it’s one of those places that every so often plays a song that the entire staff is required to drop everything & do a little synchronized dance to. It’s quick, everyone gets a little kick out of it, it’s part of the fun. Now my MIL Karen knew this, it’s not like she’d never been here. But apparently she was not willing to wait 2 extra minutes for her dry salad, so she starts going off as soon as the dancing starts. She gets a manager, who clearly knows Karen well & offers a quick apology (for doing their job), a discount & her dry ass salad. But Karen’s not completely satisfied. She tells us that even though dinner for our party of 8 is on her, she’s not tipping the waitress 1 penny. She proceeds to bitch…..loudly…the rest of the meal & antagonize our waitress over petty shit.
I worked too many years in customer service & ya know, I’m a decent human being. I made sure to get my bill separate so I could tip for the entire table. I wrote a quick note on the receipt, something along the lines of ‘Way to stay positive even when the customer’s a jerk.’ I was a little afraid of the wrath of Karen, it was one of my first interactions with her too, but when the waitress came & hugged me, Karen & I locked eyes. She knew. I didn’t care. Don’t be a Karen.” – RixxiRose
10. If at first you don’t succeed, just shout ’til you get your way.
“Not me, but my sister in law. Her step dad and mom took the family out to eat at a Red Lobster. They get there and it is super busy. So the step dad walks up to the host and says “Yes, we have a reservation”.
The problem is, Red Lobster (or at least that one) doesnt take reservations. The host explains this and says it is going to be 20 min wait for seating. Her step dad FLIPPED out and started screaming that he had called 3 hours before hand and made a reservation. The host politely told him this was not possible as they do not take reservations (again).
He continues to scream at the guy, and says he wants to talk to a manager. So the manager comes out and she tells him the same thing. They dont take reservations, so its not possible that he had made one. He continues to cause a scene and people started leaving just to get away from this toxic guy. Finally, the manager says, “Fine, we will put you ahead of everyone else that has been patiently waiting their turn”. He says “Thank you”. They get seated.
Once they get to the table and the waitress walks away, he slyly winks and says to my brother and the rest of the family “THAT is how you get things done. I wasnt going to wait 20 min”.
My brother refused to eat or order for fear of getting food that had been spit on.” – sixstringhook
11. Well that escalated quickly.
“I was with my parents on vacation and the hotel put charges on the bill by accident. My mom marched to the front desk and demanded to see the manager. There was a long line, but she cut right in front of it. The manager wasn’t very helpful, probably because she was rude.
So my mom, went to all the other customers in line and told them that the hotel was a scam and they were ripping us off with fake charges. She made a scene. The hotel called the police and we were escorted off the premises by actual cops. I died inside.” – psychswot
12. Take a cue from Elsa and “let it go.”
“Not my parent but grandparent. When I was around 10 years old my grandmother went out and got us (her, my brother, and me) McDonald’s. We got home and we didn’t have napkins in the bags. No big deal, right? We have paper towels and napkins in the house, also me and my brother are pretty good with not making any messes while we eat.
Nope. Grandmother got us in the car, drove back to McDonald’s, demanded a manager, and screeched about how upset she was that we didn’t get any napkins. I wanted to just melt into the floor and disappear. It’s just napkins, Nanny.” – snopal
13. Someone needs a hobby.
“About once a month my dad gets drunk and calls various customer service centers demanding stuff. Once he finally gets off the phone (frequently 45+ minutes later) he spends the next few days telling us all about how he slew the customer service dragon and boy people sure don’t appreciate their customers nowadays blah blah blah. (No duh, dad, you’re being an asshole, no one appreciates that.)
If you’ve worked for DirecTV customer service any time since 1996, I apologize on behalf of my dad.” – lovelylayout
14. Dinner, with a side of damage control.
“I don’t like going to restaurants with her, she thinks that because she worked as a waitress for a year 35 years ago, it gives her the right to act like a complete asshole to them. She also thinks not tipping them will encourage them to ‘Get their act together.’ Jokes on you mom, I always find our server after seated, give them a $20.00 and apologize in advanced for your poor behavior.” – Lurkist
15. Once in a while, “I want to talk to your manager” people use their powers for good, not evil.
“It was at a TGI Fridays in Katy, TX. This waiter was amazing. He was working 8 tables that I could count and was managing all of them flawlessly. Drinks never got below 1/3rd full at any table, he was always attentive and prompt, friendly, just a textbook example of the perfect waiter. He impressed my dad so much that my dad asked if he could speak to a manager. Of course, the waiter immediately asks if anything is wrong, since that’s the only time someone asks. My dad tells him no, it’s to make sure that management knows what excellent service he’s providing. The waiter thanks us and says he’ll get a manager over as quickly as he can.
We wait for about 10 minutes before this middle-aged grease ball of a manager saunters over and starts asking my dad how the waiter screwed up. My dad is not the most patient of people, and we were kinda in a hurry to get home, so the 10 minute wait was rubbing him wrong. But when the manager immediately acted like the guy was a screw up, my dad lost it. He told the manager that the waiter had done everything perfectly, and that’s why he tipped the guy $15 on a $35 ticket. He also went on to say that the manager needed to be more respectful of his staff and gave the guy an ass chewing for presuming that the employee had screwed up. Before that moment, I thought that my sister and I were the only ones he would scream at when he was upset. It was somewhat embarrassing to see my dad yell at this guy, but he did it for a good reason.” – WaulsTexLegion
h/t: Someecards