I have done this exactly once in my lifetime, two years ago. Maybe in another few decades, I’ll do it again, if I live long enough.
And yes, even if your name is Karen but you had a good reason to ask to speak to the manager, you can also reply
Yes. I went to a Burger King and ordered a burger. I sat there waiting for 15 minutes while the tray sat on the counter with my receipt with order number, fries, a cup, but no burger. Finally, I asked the blonde lady taking orders where is the burger so I can go to my seat.
Her response: “you ate it.” I was confused. I told her no burger was filled for the order and the tray had been there the whole time.
“No, you ate it.” Now, I wasn’t fat or even chubby, so it wasn’t some kind of fat phobic thing. I am a different skin color than her, though. I was confused what her problem with me was, but she kept insisting I ate the burger and wanted a free one. I was dressed business casual, with a white shirt and dark pants, so I doubt it was my clothing that made her think I wanted free food. I even showed her some cash and told her that if I wanted another burger I can buy one.
I finally asked to speak to the manager. He listened to my complaint. Made me fresh food and told her to shut up and get out of the way, pointing to the door while she protested out loud the whole time, throwing a fit.
I seriously don’t know what was wrong with her or why she was so insistent that I wanted free food. It was weird.
Yeah the one time I asked to speak to the manager the first person I spoke to at their call centre (who was really trying her best to be helpful) did exactly that. It was her manager that was obstructive and dismissive, and that when I asked to speak to their manager in turn - who was even worse
The only one I remember for sure is nice. My kid was about 8yo and decided they wanted to go shopping for our Christmas gifts by themselves. So we went to Target and my husband and I gave them some cash and instructions about not spending it all to allow for taxes. We parked ourselves at the front of the store so we saw them checking out and we could see there was some kind of issue, but it got resolved. After we got home, our kid explained that they did indeed spend every bit of the money we gave them, forgetting about taxes, but the cashier “found” a coupon so they didn’t have to put anything back.
Later that evening, I called the Target and asked to speak a manager. I explained what happened and I said I was sorry that I didn’t know the name of the cashier but I described them and their checkout lane, and wanted to send them my praise and thanks. It would’ve been so easy to just make a kid put something back or get their parents, but this lady was very kind and patient, and it really made my kid’s day. (My kid was very proud of themselves for buying their parents’ gifts all by themselves for the first time.) The manager was so relieved and said she was very grateful to get this kind of call because at that time of year they don’t always hear a lot of positive feedback.
Isn’t this a double edged sword? Depending on the manager or company, an employee can get fired for skirting the rules to accommodate that case, even it it was out of kindness. The customer ends up ratting out the employee for going against the company rules/policy. I guess you were lucky enough the manager was kind.
I rented a car and by the time I got to my destination about 45 minutes away, I realized it was infested with ants. Ants all over the place. I called Budget to complain, they put me on hold. I was on hold for the 1h15m drive back (due to rush hour traffic) to their building. She answered the phone right as I walked into the building. I couldn’t help myself and I just started shouting.
“You put me on hold for nearly 90 minutes. It took less time drive all the way back here from 2 cities over than for you to answer the God damn phone. There are fucking ANTS IN MY CAR! Look at my fucking clothes! ANTS. Get me your supervisor right fucking now”
Everyone in the line in front of me were either shocked or laughing as I cut right past them. She turned as pale as can be before a big white dude in a tie ran out of his see-through office to check on us.
“Sir I need you to calm down, what’s the issue?”
“I’m covered in ants! From one of your cars! They’re on my fucking face!”
Anyway I got a massive vehicle upgrade and 10 free rentals valid for 5 years. This was ten years ago. I had never rented a car and I just couldn’t believe both the comedy of it all and how much I was raging about it.
Drove back another 90 minutes in rush hour traffic to pick up my partner and our baggage and hit the road. I made her drive.
One time an order got messed up but the cashier couldn’t fix it so the manager came and fixed it. The other two times it was because an employee was great and I wanted to let their boss know.
One time it didn’t work out so well was when I was trying to cancel my T-mobile home Internet: Their support is a dumpster fire and I had to threaten a chargeback before they actually cancelled my service. Except they lied about it and didn’t cancel my service, they told me I had to go into the store and the store told me they couldn’t do anything for me. Fucking garbage.
