My boss insulted me in front of a customer, to my face

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

The scene: A shop, with a chair sitting in the doorway leading to the stairwell. The chair bears a sign that says something about the upstairs being closed due to painting and other renovation.

A customer (Mr. B) enters, I greet him, he looks around for a while, and a short while later he walks over towards the doorway, indicating something about how he has a bag to give to our assistant manager, who is upstairs somewhere. I intercept, telling him that it’s closed.

The back-story here is that a few months ago there was an incident in which Mr. B attempted to stash some purchased items in the back of the shop, in the consignment room, where they are not supposed to go. I told him no, but it took a bit of convincing. I was genuinely afraid of getting chewed out by my managers for breaking the rules.

So, back to the present:

Mr. B.: “I’ve been coming here for 40 years, I’ve donated tens of thousands to the Society, I know the way.”

Me: “But it’s closed right now.”

If I had a little more time, I would have said something about how I could maybe haul it up there, or go get the assistant manager and bring her down, all in light of the previous incident. Instead, my manager has noticed, and walks over.

Manager: “Hello Mr. B, how are you?”

They shake hands.

Mr. B: “Tell [him/her] that I can…” I don’t remember exactly what he said, but I remember clearly what my manager said next.

Manager: “We try to tell [her/him], but s/he doesn’t listen.”

I walked off; thankfully there were other customers to help.

This really, really pissed me off. I got in trouble for trying to do as I was told, as usual.

2

That’s TERRIBLE, I would complain to the internet if I were you.

3

I suppose you could go to the manager and say “what the hell man?, you told me not to let people back there and then you yell and me for trying to keep a customer from going back there?”

Honestly, I’m willing to bet the reply is “He’s a really good customer so we let him go back there if he wants to”, but you have to stand your ground and say “that’s fine, just tell me, you don’t have to make me look like a jackass in front of him, you could have just said ‘it’s all right John, he’s fine’”. To go the extra mile, apoligize to him next time you see him, tell him you didn’t know he was allowed back there, no one told you. If he’s a long time customer, you’ll look like a super loyal employee defending customer property (and apparently his too), he might respect that.

I mean, I think just about every business has a handful of ‘really good’ customers that are allowed to go in the backroom for one reason or another, but new employees are still going to stop them at the door because that’s what they’re told to do.

Now, keep in mind, all I/we have to work with is what you told us. If you’ve been told 3 times that he’s allowed to do whatever he was trying to do, that’s different.

4

I’ve been there for about two years, and I think that what they told me last time was not that I should let him do whatever he wants, and in any case, this was a different request entirely. I was going to ask about it, and see what I could do, but at that immediate moment I wanted to do my job.

5

Maybe next time he shows up you can go to your manager and say “Hey, that guy just walked in, last time you said _____, the time before that you said _______, I don’t want to get yelled at again so you go take care of him or tell me what you want me to do.”

6

I was in a grocery store recently and I cringed-watched a boss chew out his employee for something quite minor. I could kind of tell that it was a “last straw” kind of situation, and that the boss was sick of this particular employee.

But still, it was incredibly rude and unprofessional. I wanted to say something to the guy, since second-hand embarrassment is the last thing I want to experience when I go to the grocery store. But regretfully I didn’t.

7

Yeah, I have a feeling that the manager is going to talk to me about it on Monday.

8

As someone who’s done every single job at my store, I’ve been on both sides of the management. Right now, I’ve essentially hit a glass ceiling. I’m as high I can possible get without having the business signed over to me. BUT, I was a ‘lowly employee’ for a very long time. I like to think that I’m a bit of an advocate for them to the big boss. Anyways, there’s been plenty of times when big boss just has a short fuse for one reason or another and starts reaming an employee out in the store (in front of customers. I try, when I can, to at least drag them off into the back room. Normally just a quick “I don’t know what’s going on, but you can’t do this in the store” is enough to get the owner to snap out of it.

As for what you can do, I’d say a simple email (not twitter/facebook, keep it private) and just say that you saw an employee getting yelled at in the store. Maybe mention that you don’t know what it was about or if it was deserved (honestly, often times it’s very much deserved, I could tell you countless stories) and add that “that kind of thing needs to take place in the backroom where the customers don’t have to here it, it’s embarrassing for everyone involved.” If you really want to ‘rub it in’ pick store that’s a but higher end and say ‘you’d never see something like that happen at Metro’s on 5th ave’.

That’s good, it means if you want to say something you’re not beating a dead horse because they’re the ones that brought it up instead coming back three days later to say ‘aaaand another thing…’.

9

I share your frustration.
Last time someone referred to me as [her/him] I knocked his ass out cold.

10

If you think you can find another job in a reasonable time, you have many more avenues of response open to you. F’rinstance:

Customer B comes into store again. You tell him, loudly, that after his disgraceful uncivilized behavior last time, he is now banned from the store. Be sure to tell him what an shit-kicking pigfucker he is. Bonus points if the Boss is present, and extra points for every other customer who is present.

Tell him he can take his miserable business, or donations, or whatever to that other Society across town, where the despicable likes of him are more welcome.

Tell your boss substantially the same thing.

Be sure to come back here and tell the whole Internet about it!

11

Heh. As an experiment, I’m trying to keep gender-related things ambiguous here on the SDMB.

12

…But you doesn’t have to call Emtar Mr. KronJonDerSohn.

13

“Lemmy” seems like a pretty obviously masculine name, though.

14

Lemmy is a little yellow (hence the name) plastic seal I got from a dentist’s office as a kid.

15

Heh - Reminds me of the time when I was new to the store.

At the time we had “accounts” - people could prepay and then put things onto the account when they came in.

A particular account was overdrawn - I, of course, refused payment and politely asked the account holder to make a payment.

The manager heard, sent me to the back room where she threw a clipboard at me (yes, threw a clipboard across the office at me)

16

You both refused payment and demanded payment? No wonder she threw a clipboard at you.