Curious about people’s experience with this, Redditor Em367 asked:
“Children of “I want to talk to your manager” parents, what has been your most embarrassing experience?”
Too Much Effort
"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
"She drove all the way back over napkins...."
"I don't even consider driving back if I get someone else's order entirely. I'd rather just be done with going out, and eat. I do not understand the amount of energy she is willing to dedicate to such pettiness."
– throwaway-person
I Need A New Sausage Roll
"One time my Grandad got a sausage roll at a football match during half time, when he got back to his seat he found it was overdone, the pastry was quite burned. The man was irate. He didn't take it back straight away as the second half was about to start, but he spent much of the second half angrily lamenting his savoury snack letdown. So he takes it home, calls the customer service number on the back (I assume he had a few choice words for the poor soul on the other end but I wasn't present for this), and keeps the remainder of the sausage roll in the freezer for the next couple of weeks."
"Skip ahead to the next match day, my Grandad tells me we're heading out early so he can have his sausage roll replaced. The customer service line told him to go to Kiosk 3 at the front of the ground next to the ticket office. When we arrive, however, the shutters are down at the food place. The old man looks around growling and turning red in the face, stamps right over to window number 3 of the ticket office and slams his frozen burned sausage roll down like a flaky gauntlet. At this point I'm trying to convince him the ticket office was a completely different department to the catering concession but my Grandad was having none of it. The lady working the ticket window continually attempted in vein to convince him the same, they sell match tickets not hot snacks, but this just got him angrier and angrier. Across comes a colleague behind the glass, now there's just two people to rage at. Then a head steward comes to attempt to diffuse the situation and my Grandad begins to wave the burnt sausage roll in this man's face, I was actually surprised he didn't whack him with it. At this point I'm mortified by the whole affair, wishing I'd have stayed back at the house until nearer kick off."
"Eventually, after an hour or so, the shutters come up on the food concession. Fella at the counter goes 'You must be Mr. Alaginge' and calmly resolves the situation, dispatching a freshly baked sausage roll with the steady hands of a surgeon. My Grandad is completely satisfied with the result of his hour of insolent rage. As we're walking away he turns to me and says 'that's how you get these things sorted.'"
– alaginge
"EVERYTIME after they get what they want they just look at you smugly and say “and that’s how it’s done” lol. Like they’re so proud and just taught you some amazing life skill"
– Mussatto
No Room For You
"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 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."
– Deleted User
And Don't Come Back!
"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
That Poor Driver
"My mom asked me to call her a taxi via an app."
"She ended up calling me multiple times complaining about how the driver didn’t use the route she thought was best (she never owned a car and doesn’t know how to drive), even though the guy just used the best possible route the navigator suggested."
"She ended up getting out halfway and using subway. The driver proceeded to call me in tears, completely shocked, unsure of what he did so wrong, and apologizing. I felt like total sh*t."
"I never called her a cab again."
– BigDaddy0790
Relationship Ended Before It Began
"I worked at Best Buy. I stopped in with my mom one day because she wanted to buy me the Star Wars DVD box set for my birthday."
"I had a huge, HUGE crush on the girl that was working the customer service counter. Well, the DVD set rang up $10 more than it was priced, and my mom deliberately didn't say anything until after the transaction so she could claim the effing $5 Michigan Scan Law bounty."
"My crush didn't know how to process it and the manager was busy, so my mom tore into her about how it was her job and how she should understand how to do things."
"At my job."
"To a girl I liked."
"My life was misery for a while afterward."
– medullah
Drive-Thru Disaster
"When I was a manager at McDonalds I had a guy do this."
"We had a freak rush on chicken nuggets, like 5 20 pieces in a row. The customer pulls to the window. The cashier let him know it was going to be another 3 minutes for his nuggets and did he want to wait or get something else. He demands to speak with the manager. He says that he has been waiting 5 minutes already and he isn’t going to pay or move until his food is ready. I said that I needed him to pay and pull forward in order to clear the drive thru. He refused and said they’ll have to wait."
"I went to the back window, put a drawer in and we started cashing and giving the food out there."
"20 minutes later, fuming customer at the front window begins pounding on the window."
"I open it and he screams at me to know where his food was. I told him he wasn’t getting any food, he was blocking my drive thru and impeding my business and he needed to leave or I would be calling the police."
"It looked like he would explode with anger, but he just screeched out of there."
"It was the most satisfying interaction with an entitled customer I had while working at McDonald’s."
"Years later, I do slightly regret this. I worry I needlessly angered someone to the point where he could have taken it out on someone else (ie. kids or wife)."
– demonwolf106
Not About To Eat Here
"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 wasn't going to wait 20 min.""
"My brother refused to eat or order for fear of getting food that had been spit on."
– sixstringhook
An Ocean View
"Oh man, two months ago I went to Hawaii with my wife. We had requested a room with a king bed. At the checkout kiosk next to us, while we were giving our attendant our info, this lady started going nuts. She had requested (not reserved) an ocean view room with a queen bed and double bed. The woman was with her daughter. I should probably note that it was for a work conference (a big conference and we were there for it too, but didn’t know her. And the company putting on the conference had handled all of the reservations.)"
"Anyway, they tell her that they didn’t see the request for a two-bed room and she started losing her mind. She was raising her voice and saying that this was a very special trip for her and her daughter (it’s an Oceanside 5 star resort in Maui...it’s a special trip for 99% of the people there). And that she’s not leaving until they find a way to get her an ocean view room with two beds like she had requested. But she was just being a total b*tch."
"The manager pulled out a map of the resort and showed her where they had some 2-bed rooms available in the interior of the hotel, but nothing that would fit what she wanted. It went on for a few minutes before she finally accepted that room. Toward the end of this tirade, we were called up to check in at the next desk over. We give our names and confirmation pages."
"And the clerk tells us thank you for waiting, we do have a garden view king room available in the east wing ( we had just seen that the conference activities were in the west wing and it would save a lot of hassle if we could have a room on that side of the resort) so we asked if there was by chance anything open closer to the conference rooms. She looked for a bit and told us that it’s not a king room, but for no extra charge she could move is to an ocean view room that had two queen beds. We looked at each other and then at the still irate woman a few feet away and had to suppress a smile. We took it and just moved the beds together to make one giant bed."
"Great times. Highly recommend the Hyatt Regency in Maui."
– Deleted User
Free Food...But No Free Food
"I grew up in a smaller town right on the cusps of its big growth boom. We knew our town had finally made it when we got an Olive Garden. We used to eat there 2-3 times a month. My mom and I would always split an entree and my dad would get his own. We knew the rule if you’re splitting and entree and you get more than one of the family-style bowls of salad than you’ll get charged an extra $4 for the extra person. Which is fair, 2 entrees come with 2 unlimited salads. Welllll one day my dad decides he wanted more salad. Only he wants the additional salad, but the waitress said if she refills the bowl, that we will be charged the extra $4. Wellll low and behold my parents threw the biggest tantrum because only HE wanted the additional salad."
They demanded to speak to a manager and the manager explained the rule (which we knew) but offered to comp the extra salad just to get my parents to stop yelling....and they did. When our bill came the manager comped my dads entree and the additional salad fee. Well my mom got up. Interrupted the manager while he was talking to other guests and threw the check in his face and asked “what’s this?!?!” She was furious that he comped my dad's meal. He ate the meal therefore we would like to pay for it. She wouldn’t stop raising her voice until she was allowed to pay for the meal (but not the salad). The manager was confused but obliged...when they brought the change the manager slipped a few free appetizer coupons. My mom ripped them up and threw them on the ground as she left. Safe to say I didn’t eat out with them for at least a month and I still refuse to go to Olive Garden with them."
– hidcid
Stubborn Is As Stubborn Does
"Scene: Any fast food drive-thru"
"Worker: Ma'am, can you please drive forward a little bit while your food finishes up?"
"Mom: No. *folds arms*"
– milliondollas
Was It Worth It?
"Grocery store had this sign up that said if an item rang up higher than an advertised price it was free. It was the 80s and stores did stupid sh*t like this that I never see in stores today."
"Mom was buying a box of Little Debbie cakes and they rang up for $2.85 instead of the advertised $2.50. So now mom wants her free cakes. Cashier doesn't know what to do, summons a manager. Manager tells her to ring up the sale otherwise and he'll be right back."
"Comes back and hands my mother 35 cents cheerfully and says "There you go!" My mother points out the sign behind him and he says "Oh, the last manager put that up, it doesn't make any sense. I'm the new manager and I just haven't had the sign removed yet" (it was a printed plastic sign that was screwed into the wall)."
"Mom insists they honor their sign, he says nah. Now, up to this point, I as an adult looking back am totally on board with mom's actions."
"Mom gathers her things, decides against taking the Little Debbies on principle, and we get in the car. Mom wordlessly drives downtown to the main store of this 3-5 store chain, knowing the office is next door. We walk into this perfectly 80's wood paneled office where my mother asks the secretary to speak to the owner of the store and is permitted to do so since this is a family owned business and their "corporate office" is smaller than the row of cubicles my staff occupy at work."
"Here my mother unleashes a tirade about how she has lost faith in his brand and how his word is meaningless since they will not honor the sign etc. This guy stands up, profusely apologizes, validates her anger and then pulls out his wallet and hands her a $5 bill along with a promise that he will speak to the manager and the sign will either be honored or removed."
"We get home and find that the ice cream we bought melted in the trunk because summer and ruined the cereal and the bread."
– TheFire_Eagle
The second-hand embarrassment has never been so bad!
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