Working in a customer service environment can be a trying experience at times.
However, sometimes it affords workers the glorious opportunity to clap back at an entitled customer. This is true for managers especially.
A thread on r/AskReddit asked, "Managers past or present, what is your favorite 'I AM the manager' story?".
The answers are awesome. Be prepared for many, many Karens.
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.
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 [expletive] from an [expletive] like you and neither do my employees. I'm terminating your account with us."
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 walk way 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.
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."
I was the GM of a beautiful new Big Name hotel at 23-24. My AGM was a white woman in her 50's, me being mixed. Many occasions occured 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 kick ass woman and we got a kick out of this!
[My brother] was bartender at a sports bar and some underage kid was trying to get served beer. My brother wouldn't serve him and got a "my dad knows the owner, if you don't serve me I'll get you fired!", to which my brother's response was to turn to the owner who was sitting there having a beer and ask "do you know this [kid's] dad?"
Owner: "Who is your dad?"
Kid: "<inserts dad's name>"
Owner: "Yeah, I know him. He's [expletives deleted] Get the [expletive] out of my bar"
Guy comes in and is furious because his Mac won’t work. Looks like liquid damage. Swears up and down it’s because we sold him a faulty machine a few weeks back. He wants a full refund and is screaming in my face about it. Finally, he says “I want to speak to your manager, cause ain’t no woman know [expletive] about computers.” I smile a little, tell him no problem, step in the back and grab my manager.
And out walks a tiny little Hispanic girl, heavily pregnant, big smile on her face (cause she’s been watching the cameras). He spluttered out something about asking his kids about spilling stuff on his computer and is never seen again.
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'm a 20 year old female and I'm a manager at a hotel. I work first shift so I hear all the complaints. It's my favorite when people are just complaining left and right just finding something to get a discount off their bill and if I don't give them a big enough discount they get even more mad. They always demand to speak to my manager. I inform them I am the manager. Some reason they never believe me but one time someone asked me if I was lying and I said "nope my name's up on the wall"
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!
26 year old female here. I manage a restaurant. I love the look on people's faces when they're angry and yelling and demand the manager and I say, "I am the manager." Haha, the look of shock, especially one time when I had a 6 foot something man screaming asking for the manager and when I told him he was looking at her he instantly calmed down and was like "oh........"
I was the customer care manager in charge of sales support for a medium sized software company. We had 3 tiers of support and then I was the last escalation point. If the VP above me, or anyone else above him got any sales complaints they would simply forward them to me.
When I had time, I would help the Tier 3 team and answer a few emails, when doing that I would use a generic email signature without a title, if anyone replied demanding to speak to the manager then I would reply the same thing but I would add my formal email signature that had my title. Since it was email I never got to see the customer's reaction, but I always enjoyed it.
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 dont carry. She does not like my answer, measures me with a glance and says she would like to speak with the manager or somebody that works there every day. I reply that I am the manager and if she can't find anything she likes she can take her business elsewhere.
I was out back having a smoke, this guy comes up I don't know and we shot the [breeze] for a bit, he says he's here for an interview then started trashing not only the company but me, saying stuff he had heard about me (or the manager, not me specifically). I was shocked but didn't say anything and went inside. Ten minutes later my admin walks him into my office. He did not get a job that day. If you're interviewing for a job, don't assume the heavily tattooed guy in jeans and boots out back is a shop hand. Some of us work our [butts] off to get a desk gig.
My manager was called because some disgruntled customer was screaming at another employee, and when she walked over he started screaming at her. He wouldn't leave the store and kept heckling her, so her response to this was to make a loud roaring sound at him and walk away. That shut him up.
Where I work, I'm responsible for my colleagues' and all customers' safety. I'm not technically a manager, but I'm the highest authority below managerial level (and, because the managers just sit in an office rather than doing the work, they tend to defer to my decisions).
This is great, because if I say that someone is doing something unsafe (like being [a jerk] to my colleagues) then I can kick 'em out, no refund. They can ask to speak to as many managers as they like, and all they'll get is "cool story bro, now leave".
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.
I wasn't the manager, but I work at a small art house movie theatre and a couple years ago my manager, a black woman a couple years older than me, were the only ones behind the counter. Typical as we're not super busy. An old guy came in and made conversation with my boss. She had her arm in a sling from an accident and this guy looked at me and told me I should let her go home early. I said "what?" And he was like "she's injured let her go home" So I looked at my boss then back at him "you know she's MY boss right?" He did not appreciate the response. Literally thought I was jerking him around. We got a lot of people who didn't believe she was in charge.
McDs on a night shift, had a regular crew member and a trainee shift manager on tills (who was a bit older than me, but also I guess I look younger than I am). I spotted a clearly unhappy customer heading back with his food, so I intercepted him with a "Hi there, can I help?". He said he'd like to speak to the manager, and I told him I was the manager and he said "You're no the manager, he's the manager", pointing to the trainee. I kind of shrugged and let him stagger off to speak to the trainee manager. Who immediately sent him back to me. Despite that, I still don't think he fully believed I was the guy in charge, but he was fairly drunk.
I was an intern in a startup company, and the support department was myself and another intern. People frequently call support, then demand the manager. Our manager was never available, so we would just pass the phone back and forth, and pretend to be each other's manager. If someone called, asked for the manager, then asked to be escalated again, we would either put on a different voice and swap it back, or take it to someone else in another department, write a script for them, and have them take the call.
