'He apologized to me and the lost his job': Tyrannical manager gets fired after heroic customers catch him publicly humiliating a 16-year-old retail employee

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Jesse Kessenheimer • Writer and Editor
Jan 1, 2025 7:00 AM EST

Not all customers are bad guys, in fact, in this next story, a pair of shoppers came to the rescue of an employee floundering on the sales floor because of a berating, tyrannical manager. 

If you've ever had the misfortune of working in retail, you know that it's no cakewalk. Under pressure from management to maintain unrealistic goals and constantly surrounded by the babbling buffoons of the shopping world, being a retail employee can feel like you're the only sane person ever to set foot in your place of employment. Because of this, the sales floor is equally boring and insanely stressful–just like any other mundane work environment with callous clientele. Despite being veiled in torturously boring workflow, retail workers learn the most about the real world when dealing with irate customers, but when faced with the final boss of lost patience, nobody is ever fully prepared.

So when u/Unlikely_Lead9174 clocked in for their average shift at Circuit City (remember that place?), they were baffled when a pair of customers came to their aid. Normally, when a customer has something to report about an interaction in the workplace, their employment future is doomed, but in this case, the good guys were cleverly hiding in plain sight as heroic shoppers.

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    Cheezburger Image 10448660480
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    This image is for illustration only, and the subjects are models; the image does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

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    Yell at me in front of customers, lose your job This was about 28 years ago, at age 16, I had my first job at Circuit City. Around
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    the holidays the prices for items would change and it was someone's assigned job to go around and place the new price tags. One day I was helping a couple who
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    were confused about a tag on a brand new speaker. Now, I don't remember exactly how it went but it was something like the tag read 1.99 and was supposed to be 199$.
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    Thinking back if this were me I would've bought all of them and called it a day lol but they weren't a scummy couple and wanted to know what the actual price was. It
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    was ringing in at 1.99$. So I went and got the manager. Alongside the couple in the aisle we all looked at the tags and he started screaming at me "Are you STUPID?!?" and had his
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    pointy finger in my face while yelling. The couple left the store without purchasing anything and my day went on being scolded by him. Even though it was
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    not my fault that it was mis labeled, he made me feel like it was. I should've noticed it, and must be so dumb. I took the abe because I feared being fired
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    from my first job and right before Christmas. My next shift was a few days later and I was immediately called into his office. I was having a panic attack. Here
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    we go I'm getting fired, I thought. Well it turns out that the couple was so disgusted by his behavior that they called the company and complained. I
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    sat in his office with a manager from another location while he apologized to me and then left. I later found out he lost his job. Petty revenge was from the couples complaint about him but I appreciated it nonetheless.
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    9lobaldude They short circuited the manager's job
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    send me a gift Second hand petty revenge. Glad people like that couple exist in this world!
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    Just Aioli 1233 When I worked retail and people would compliment me, I would thank them and ask them to let my manager know. Gratitude is nice, but getting the feedback up the chain makes things happen.
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    Deranged Kitsune Just goes to show that corporate only cares about the customer. If you had said something, probably nothing would have happened. A customer complains though? Oh, now they're really sorry and will terminate the manager immediately.
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    Master Flower 5343 Gonna disagree on this point. Frontline managers treating employees poorly is frowned upon by pretty much any company. Those managers aren't worth protecting when they display objectively bad judgement.
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    As you move up the chain, especially salaried reporting to salaried, your post becomes much more of the reality, as there's potentially far more money on the line.
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    grimey.gillz This happened to me too! When I was 16 my manager cussed me out in front of a clearly shocked customer. As soon as the manager left, my customer told me she would call corporate about his
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    behavior. He didn't get fired, but some higher-up definitely scared him because he never cursed at me or anyone else again :) it's always great when you get a kind customer!
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    Open-Preparation-268 In the mid 90's (ish), I was in a computer store at the mall. I can't remember what I was about to purchase, but was just walking up to the checkout. As I got there, I witnessed the store manager openly and loudly berating his
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    employee over what seemed to me to be some trivial BS thing. I looked the manager in the eye, didn't say a word and slapped my items on the counter. I walked out and across the hall to the competing computer store.
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    MysticalMummy. Wish we had more customers like this. Stand up for the employees, because they take customer complaints a LOT more seriously than employee complaints.
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boss worker justice employee fired manager job retail work coworkers customers working ceo customer employees supervisor complaint workplace company coworker business
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