We’ve all been there: you’re at a public restaurant or the grocery store, and some crank decides to make a scene about some aspect of the service that they’re unhappy with. It’s always uncomfortable for everyone on the scene, but it’s even worse when you happen to the child of that person.
These AskReddit users share their sad stories of being the children of those people.
1. NO
“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*”
2. Loved a deal
“My dad just loved to argue, and he loved a deal.
We were shopping in a department store, and I found a pair of pants I was mildly interested in. The pants were tagged at (let’s say) $40, and the sign on the rack was “All pants $25”.
I was mildly interested, I asked the salesclerk if they had them in my size, the clerk said “those aren’t supposed to be on that rack”.
My dad lost his shit and insisted on getting the pants for $25, and started asking for a courtesy discount on top of that. Escalated to the floor manager and the store manager.
Meanwhile, I didn’t want the pants. They were ok pants I guess, nothing awesome, I just didn’t care very much about them. I was more than happy to move on. I told my dad I didn’t want the pants, by then he didn’t care about what I wanted, he wanted the pants at the better price.
Eventually after like an hour of arguing the store manager said “we’re not giving you the pants at that price. Take them or leave them at $40″. So we left them. Which suited me just fine, because I didn’t want the pants.”
3. Banned for life
“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.”
4. Mortifying
“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 FUCKING 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.”
5. No, Nanny!
“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….”
6. “I died inside”
“I was with my parents on vacation and the hotel put charges on the bill by accident. My mom marched to the front desk and demanded to see the manager. There was a long line, but she cut right in front of it. The manager wasn’t very helpful, probably because she was rude.
So my mom, went to all the other customers in line and told them that the hotel was a scam and they were ripping us off with fake charges. She made a scene. The hotel called the police and we were escorted off the premises by actual cops. I died inside.”
7. Oh my…
“When I was a young child on a long distance flight my mother let me and my brother sleep on the floor. For safety reasons the flight attendants told my mother that we were not allowed to sleep on the floor. She started to argue with the flight attendants who then turned to the pilots.
The pilots threatened to turn the plane around unless we get up from the floor but she continued to argue. The pilots anounced they were about to turn around because of my mother, so all the passangers got pissed. Eventually she caved in when she had all passengers and flight crew on a boeing 747 against her…”
8. Maybe she had a point…?
“My Mum demanded to see a café’s hygiene certificate when she saw an employee go from cutting cake in the kitchen to handling money at the till, even though the real problem is going the other way.”
9. Walk away in shame
“My mother is A nightmare with customer service… even with the fact that I her daughter works in customer service and deals with people like her on the daily
So many incidents stick out in my mind but one that really embarrassed me was we were at Walmart
The stocker was struggling and dropped their price scanner thing on the ground. I was going to go help her gather her things she was struggling with when my mom came out like a bat out of hell and yelled “YOU KNOW YOU SHOULD PICK THAT UP PEOPLE COULD TRIP” and then she darted off with the cart
I was so embarrassed I just walked away in shame, and when I pointed it out to my mom the girl dropped it on accident she said “WELL SHE SHOULD BE MORE CAREFUL”
K….”
10. Thanks a lot, Mom
“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.”
11. Never again
“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 shit.
I never called her a cab again.”
12. Honor the sign!
“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 shit 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.”
13. Silent bystander
“My dad once asked the guy at the verizon wireless store to give him his own Social Secuirity number because he asked for my dads. My dad walked out afterwards with some strangers SS number on a post it. I was a silent bystander because I really wanted my first phone.”
14. Get it sorted
“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 fucking 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.’ “
15. No more Olive Garden
“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. The 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 dads 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.”
The post 15 Children Share Their Parents’ Most Embarrassing “I Want to Talk to Your Manager” Experiences appeared first on UberFacts.
