We asked members of the BuzzFeed Community who work in customer service to share the most absurd reasons why customers have asked to speak to their managers. Here are the infuriating results:
1.“I once worked in retail, and a customer asked me to call a manager but didn’t give a reason. He didn’t seem upset, and I followed his request, unsure what would happen. Turns out he wandered into the women’s department and found a red shirt made in Vietnam. He wanted to file a corporate complaint. As a war veteran, he found the color and country it was made in personally offensive.”
—r473dfab9c
2.“I was assistant manager at a local coffee shop. It was 6 a.m. on a cold morning, and a woman pulled my manager aside to inform her that my tight pants were distracting and upsetting her and her husband. I was wearing thick black leggings with a long sweater that went down past my butt and a large apron. They asked if I could be taken off shift or asked to go home and change. With my boss’s permission, I took off my sweater and made sure my butt was facing them at all times.”
—glitterybubble50
3.“I used to work as a waiter. One time, a customer asked to speak to my manager because she didn’t like the lighting of the restaurant. She said it didn’t match her aesthetic and wanted it changed so she could take photos to post on Facebook. I have honestly never been so annoyed. She made a huge scene, saying I was being disrespectful because I wouldn’t change the lighting for her!”
—that1girlthatmightnotbehuman
4.“I worked at Michaels one summer in my youth. An older lady once wanted to return yarn already knitted INTO A SCARF. We do not have people unknitting items in the back. Of course, she had to embarrass herself by speaking to the manager and making a second jaw drop.”
—jennyh4ec3bc6e4
5.“Something prevalent in retail is called ‘ticket switching.’ Someone will take a tag off a cheaper item and put it on a more expensive item, hoping they can get away with a huge deal. Once, I was called to the registers for a customer arguing about a price. A $9 clearance sticker was on a $100 pair of shoes. The clearance tag was all mangled and torn and CLEARLY pulled from another item and placed on the box. She argued repeatedly, said she would call the Better Business Bureau, and swore I had to honor that price. I calmly explained that if we make a mistake, we honor the price, but we obviously did not do this. I explained that l would make sure we reviewed our camera footage of the area where she found the shoes to make sure a ‘dishonest customer’ didn’t change the price. At the mention of a camera, she quickly ended her argument and left.”
—nicoles4c61edf61
6.“I had a woman demand to see the manager because her tuna sandwich was ‘too fishy.'”
—prncesskristyn
7.“I work for an energy company. A customer wanted my manager because I wouldn’t give them a free sample of electricity. Another customer wanted to complain because they didn’t like the smell of the gas! I was more concerned they could smell gas rather than what the smell was like. Quick fact: They add the foul smell to gas so you notice it!”
—emocactus57
8.“One of my jobs required taking passport pictures. A ridiculously high percentage of those customers would come in fresh from the gym — with sweaty hair and no makeup — and then screech about how ‘horrible’ their photo preview looked. Some would ask for the manager (I was the manager) and then demand to talk to the business owner. I was even asked to ‘fix’ pictures in Photoshop.”
—losfrangeles
9.“My boyfriend once had a woman throw a pair of sandals at him because he wouldn’t give her a full refund for said sandals that were at least 15 years old and had been worn heavily.”
—anonymous093
10.“A customer requested my manager because I wouldn’t check out her items from a different store in the mall. She thought she could just walk around the whole mall and then pay at any store.”
—canunotmywaywardson
11.“I worked at a restaurant, and two men didn’t want me to take their cash because ‘I would give them the wrong change because women are bad with money.’ They then asked to talk to a male manager. They left me less than a dollar tip and wrote on a napkin, ‘You could have been nicer.'”
—abbeyparty
12.“An old couple kept insisting their fries were too cold. They made me come over with a manager and insisted I use a meat thermometer to take their temperature to prove they were cold.”
—colleend9
13.“I worked at Tiffany & Co. A customer once threw a *fit* because I wouldn’t refund her for a $900 bracelet she allegedly bought, dropped, and broke. She didn’t have the item or the receipt, nor was there any record of her purchase in our system. She asked to speak to the manager, who also refused the refund.”
—alicebraz
14.“I was working at a fast food restaurant that sells chicken nuggets. A customer wanted to speak to a manager because the nuggets were too brown. Not overcooked, not dry, but BROWN. She asked us if we could make them less brown, and we had to tell her that we couldn’t undercook the nuggets for her (you know, for health reasons).”
—katie80
15.“I worked at Panera in high school and once, a lady requested Chick-fil-A sauce on her sandwich. I thought she was messing with me. I laughed a little, then jokingly reminded her we were at Panera, not Chick-fil-A. She called me a rude witch and demanded to speak to my manager, who essentially laughed at her and walked away.”
—ladyengineer1227
16.“I worked at Walgreens, where we sold reloadable debit cards. A woman bought one and wanted to return it because she couldn’t figure out how to activate it. I calmly told her it was store policy (we had signs and stickers everywhere) that gift cards were nonrefundable. I offered to help her activate the card, like I had for many others. Twenty minutes later, a police officer came in because she had called to say Walgreens was ‘stealing her money.’ I explained the situation, the cop talked to her, and then I used the phone to set up her card. I’ve seen some wild things, but that was the wildest.”
—leahpineaultb
17.“I was the manager at a grocery store that sold overstocked items from other stores at a discount. A customer wanted to speak to me because none of the lids on the juice bottles were the size he wanted. He was furious about the ‘lack of diversity in our juice lid sizes’ and demanded I order juices with lids that were the specific size he wanted. Unfortunately for him, the dimensions of juice lids are not listed anywhere, so I apologized and told him I couldn’t do that. He later reported my ‘terrible customer service’ to the store owner, who just laughed at him.”
—s_uffel
18.“I work at a natural foods grocery store, and an older customer asked to speak to my manager because we sell ice cream with ‘too much sugar in it’ and, as a health food store, a product with sugar should not be on our shelves.”
—fi0na12
19.“A man bought and opened some headphones and then wanted to return them, even though they weren’t faulty. I refused because they were open/used, and that’s our store policy. The man demanded to see my manager because I refused to send the headphones off for DNA testing to prove he’d never worn them.”
—noimpillagingeverybody
20.“A woman asked to speak to my manager because her pesto sauce, which she ordered and ate entirely, had basil in it, and I hadn’t told her that it did. She didn’t ask.”
—melongmire888
21.“I worked at a Chick-fil-A, and we once had a man come in and ask for a Big Mac (something from McDonald’s). After I informed him that we didn’t sell that, he stormed to the manager and tried to force him to make a Big Mac.”
—laughingpunk13
22.“I worked at a convenience store as one of my first jobs. A man had his $1.25 eaten by the air machine, which, while on the property, was not owned or run by the store (and had a label saying so). He freaked out and demanded a refund, which I was not allowed to give him. He insisted on speaking to my manager, but I was alone in the store, so I offered to call him. Instead, he insisted I give him my manager’s personal phone number. When I refused, he tried to come behind the counter toward me, all while screaming at me. I was clutching the phone, about to call 911, when someone else entered the store, and he stomped out. It was terrifying. All for $1.25!”
—kmathisen1234
23.“I work in a retail store, and a customer asked if we had a copy machine because he wanted to make a copy of his tax paperwork before he mailed it. I said, ‘Sorry, we don’t have that, but I think the Office Depot next door has copy machines available.’ He said, ‘You don’t have a copy machine in your office?’ He wasn’t asking if we offered copying/printing services. He just wanted to actually use our office equipment in the back. He said he was in our store to pick up an order and threatened to just leave and not buy it…like somehow spending $25 entitles customers to our company office supplies. Why not go to Macy’s and see if they’ll give you a stamped envelope since you bought a shirt there? So weird.”
—kngreyh
24.“I worked at a fast food place, and a guy came in requesting fresh, unsalted fries. It was 100% doable; we just had to get new fries going, which took about five minutes. After he had been waiting a few minutes, he asked where his food was. I informed him that his fresh fries were cooking and would take a few more minutes. He yelled at me for not giving him ‘fast’ food and requested the manager.”
—mnoonan1017
25.“I work at a convenience store with a kitchen. A woman paid for gas and a pizza she wanted us to cook. We took the pizza to the kitchen, and she went to pump her gas. Three minutes later (we checked), she sent her kid in for the pizza, but it wasn’t done yet. The woman stormed back in and demanded to talk to the manager because the pizza wasn’t done. It had been less than five minutes.”
—fluffyogre92
26.“When I was in fast food, a customer told me we should be shut down because we didn’t serve breakfast past 11 a.m. (unless they were waiting in line when it hit that time). It was 1 p.m.”
—motheroflostthings
27.And: “I worked at a clothing store, and once, a woman came in requesting to buy the cash register. Not clothes, the cash register. Obviously, I informed her we don’t sell things like that, so she STORMED into the manager’s office and screeched like a hawk at him. Then, after being asked to leave, she attempted to rip the register out of the plastic surface, wires and all.”
—tedpreston234
What’s the most ridiculous reason someone has ever asked to speak to your manager? Tell us in the comments or share anonymously using this form.