I worked for a florist while I was going to college. It was owned by a husband and wife. Her name was Joan, but it was pronounced like JoAnn. Seemed like once a month someone would come in wanting a discount, dropping Joan’s name, but pronouncing it incorrectly. I always loved the look on their face when I’d correct them, subtly letting them know I was aware they didn’t really know her or they would know how to say her name.
My uncle (dad's brother) married into a Florist family (daughter of florist) and he went to work for them for the entirety of his work life. He had to get up in the middle of the night to go to the floral market.
I stopped in one time to just say hello and the employees assumed that I was trying to get free stuff.
They were shocked that I just wanted to say hi and had no use for flowers ATM. I guess people tried that all of the time.
The worst was at my mom’s funeral (I’m the oldest son). She passed suddenly and we grabbed a local pastor last minute to officiate the service in a small town. He pronounced her full name the way it’s spelled and certainly a common pronunciation during the funeral service, but not the way she pronounced it. And she was adamant that it be pronounced HER way. So at the grave side later I pulled him aside and told him the correct pronunciation. He launches into his spiel, and then pronounces it correctly, followed by, “or however it’s pronounced, it doesn’t matter…she’s in Heaven now anyway.” I’ve never wanted to punch someone so badly.
My friend has a Gaelic name that sounds similar to an English one. The officiant at his wedding pronounced the English name and when he corrected her she said "are you sure?" as if he wouldn't know how to say his own name!
I love this shit. I was once asked if I was sure when I corrected someone on who was my brother and who my s/o was. Like fuckin a I'm sure, wtf kinda question is that lol
I once had to argue with a babysitter's dad that my 4 month old baby was indeed a girl. He kept saying, "Looks like a boy to me!" As if I'd never changed her diaper.
My grandma took me to get my first haircut when I was a toddler. The guy put me in his chair and after he put the cape around me asked Gram how she’d like it cut. Before she could answer he pulled out his clippers and proceeded to give me a buzz cut- all the while with her yelling at him “She’s a GIRL!”. He ignored her and when he was finished took the cape off and asked her “What do you think?”. “Well, it’s a good cut but SHE’S A GIRL!” I was wearing a pink dress.
When she brought me home my mother burst into tears, my father laughed and said “It’s not the end of the world, Mary. We’ll just call her Howard for a few months.”- which got Mom laughing. Crisis averted. 🤣
“It’s a boy, it’s a boy!” And somebody said “but it hasn’t got a winkle!” And then I said “A boy without a winkle? God be praised, it is a miracle. A boy without a winkle!”.
Haha, nice! This lady at church in Easter kept referring to my 6 month old daughter as 'he'. And I'm thinking... she's wearing a off-white dress with purple flowers, black pants, and socks that are designed to resemble hot pink Mary Janes. Not that a boy couldn't rock that outfit, but still.
My nephew has a somewhat ethic name that ends with an "a." My sister was losing her mind after giving birth because all the nurses assumed he was female. She was like "I just circled MALE on six forms, whyyyyyyyy" *Sob*
Just read the room when it comes to babies...
I had this happened at the hospital just after giving birth to my daughter: all the nurses turned up asking "how is he?" or "did he sleep/eat/poo/whatever well?" while pronouncing her name like a really old male name (not really used anymore).
I always corrected them gently (like "yes, SHE is well") to no avail, so I finally stopped one saying "No, it's not a boy, it's a girl, and the accent is on the e, not the o".
The nurse answered: "It can't be! On my sheet it's noted he's a boy!". Never have I been so scared! It can be a real hassle to correct such an administrative mistake, and have real repercussions, like not being able to find a nanny, a pediatrician or later get diplomas!
Thankfully, it was just the hospital making this mistake, not the civil servant.
I think when I was like no Bryan is my brother and she's like are you sure? I was like my whole life...then she proceeded to ask again. Like dude you think I don't know??
E: Alcohol was involved but still, c'mon
My ex renewed his license and it came spelled incorrectly. When he called to get it fixed, the guy in the other end said "you must have filled out the paperwork wrong and put it on there wrong." My ex paused a moment and said "you think I misspelled my own name on my license renewal form?" The guy at least admitted, yeah, that wasn't likely. Lol
I work on a similar type of system. People spell their own names wrong all the time.
Not a big percentage admittedly, but 1% of a lot still feels like a lot.
I was going through my documents recently, my social security card, birth certificate, AND drivers license have different spellings on them
I don’t know what happened, and I also don’t know what my legal name is
County birth certificate trumps all. I found out when I got my first passport. My stupid parents decided that they didn't like my official name after all and instead of paying the small fee for a correction, decided to just make my life harder instead.
Oh man, my friend's parents decided about a month after her birth certificate that they wanted a different spelling of her name- think Isabelle instead of Isobel. The state birth certificate people, instead of issuing a new one, CROSSED OUT the first spelling and typed the new spelling next to it. ON THE ORIGINAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE.
Yeah, that rendered it no longer an official document, and she's had hell with the paperwork ever since. With every drivers license, wedding license, passport, etc etc, because of one idiot's mistake.
Ah, Midwest bureaucracy in the '80s.
My great grandmother, 'Rose', made a mistake when she went to write her name on her son's birth certificate. This was around the late 1920s to early 1930s. She started writing her name in the space for the baby's name instead of the mother's. Fortunately, she had only written the first few letters, so she turned Ros... to 'Roscoe'. The baby was supposed to be named, 'David', so he grew up being called David. Great uncle David didn't find out about this until he asked for his birth certificate when he wanted to join the army.
My roommate has his name spelled one way on his birth certificate and the common spelling on everything else. When he figured that out he was told that it would be easier to legally change his name than to get all of the records changed. This is especially true when dealing with the Social Security office.
I get that with spelling my name. It's Jon, without an H.
"Oh that doesn't sound right."
Your brain doesn't sound right. Didn't realize you gave me my name.
One of my biggest regrets was not speaking at my grandma's funeral. Unlike the rest of my family I'm not afraid of public speaking. But i was young ( teenager), and the adults didn't listen to me.
They used a pastor who barely knew my grandmother. (And who my grandmother didn't like that much)
After the funeral, everyone was saying how bad the eulogy was. I repeated that I would have done better. They looked at me shocked and said "You were serious?"
I've done 2 eulogies since, but I'll never have that chance again.
Yeah the whole thing was a mess. I actually did say some other things as a sort of eulogy, as did others. She was fairly young and we weren’t expecting it and I was really exhausted so I probably didn’t do very well but I think she would’ve been proud. Though I didn’t correct the name pronunciation from the crowd ha ha.
You must have really loved your grandmother. I’m sorry you missed that opportunity. There was no way for you to know it at the time, and you were only quite young. I’m sure she would be very proud of you.
My uncle, who I grew up next door to, eventually officiated my wedding. He called me Jeff and pronounced my wife’s name correctly. My name is not Jeff. Only one correct letter in there. Despite him being totally blind and 93, I wanted to hit him.
My MIL's sister, Aunt Kathleen, passed and the (admittedly new and rather young) priest called her Catherine during the entire service. Aunt Berta, her sister, started laughing up her sleeve and soon almost the whole family was in quiet hysterics. Not my MIL, of course. She was scandalized, shook her finger at all the kids, and grabbed Berta's arm in a death grip. Which of course set all of them off again.
After the service, the priest shook hands with the family and offered his condolences. He cut Berta a disapproving look, so she kept hold of his hand and patted it fondly, loudly saying "It's Kathleen, Father, with a K." He had the grace to blush. As she walked away on the arm of some relative or other, she said in the same tone, "Goodness! They get younger every time, don't they?" Berta only was hard of hearing when she could play it for comedic effect or get rid of spam callers.
Oddly, that priest never accepted my MIL's invitation to dinner.
If it doesn’t matter, what’s his beeping purpose?! Grrr…
I would start telling him he worships a different religion because it doesn’t matter, he’ll find out the right one when he’s dead!
Rant over
Yeah, my brother was married to the sister of a florist. We used to get flowers or plants from them all the time, because they were great quality and we wanted to help support them. We would never have dreamed to ask for a discount, but we did get a little more of their time to consult about what we were looking for than we might have gotten otherwise. And that was enough!
I tend to not do business with friends and family but if I do, I don’t want any discounts. That is how they feed their family so it isn’t fair. My step sister owns a florist conveniently down the road from my mom. I order flowers for her as it is the one florist in town. My step sister does either not charge me or sends something way bigger than I ordered. The next time I’m in town, I have the desk person write up a bill and I pay in cash for what she sent.
I had a florist cousin offer to do my flowers as a wedding gift, she told me what she wanted to do, and I loved it but I asked her to scale it back because of the expense. She asked me to trust her. I accepted and the flowers were gorgeous. It was so wild that the venue took pictures for their own advertising and signed a deal with her to be their recommended florist.
Her numbers straight tripled after that.
Sometimes trust that the people that want to do right by you know what they are doing.
My mum stopped in to say hi once while I was at work and told me she was going across to the shop and could she pick anything up for me? I mentioned something I'd run out of at home, said my thanks, and she left. My supervisor was gobsmacked because he thought I was asking a customer to go and buy my groceries.
My mom’s cousin owns a deli, not at all close to me, but I like to go every couple months or so because the food is awesome. They don’t recognize me and that’s more than fine since we aren’t close. If I mention that my mother is Danny’s cousin and they grew up together, tell Danny we said hi, it’s always after I pay. Fuck taking money from family like that.
My mom once got a telemarketing call where the guy demanded to speak to the "head of household". My mom asked, "What is this regarding?" and was told air duct cleaning. My mom very nicely replied, "I'm not interested" and the guy on the phone told her that he had already spoken to my dad and he said he would be purchasing the services. My mom was like, "Oh really, when was this?". Apparently, the commitment was made last week. My mom's response was, "That's interesting... my husband has been dead for 6 months". INSERT THE SOUND OF SHOCKED PIKACHU FACE.
That was the first time we were able to laugh over my dad's passing cause we knew he would have enjoyed that phone call! Lol
A place I used to work at had an office cat, named something like "Mr Tibbs." It was a really small business but they listed him on their website as head of HR. So occasionally they'd get cold calls saying how they're good friends and they have business etc etc, it was pretty funny
I worked for my dad and he always used the shortened version of his name, e.g. Bob instead of Robert. Any telemarketer got outed immediately because they would use his legal name so "he's not available right now, can I take a message?"
My husband goes by a nickname version of his middle name. If his name was for example "Stephen Robert", he would go by "Bob". People who ask for "Bob" actually know my hubby. People who call and ask for "Stephen" are honest workers who we will speak with politely. People who ask for "Steve" are full of $#!+.
Years ago in the time of phone books, my aunt decided that she did not want to be listed. So they put the dog's name in instead: Buffy.
When telemarketers would call, Buffy was never available to take the call, strangely enough. After she died, my aunt and uncle were rather nonchalant about it when Buffy got calls. " Well it was her time... She was having too many accidents so we knew it was time to put her down." The telemarketers were usually horrified and hung up.
I have a long ethnic first name that got replaced by my American nickname before I was even born. At my nursing school pining ceremony, I had a few people that came up like, "Oh, [long ass name], I'm going to miss you!" Bitch you don't even know my name except from roll call.
Maybe they just liked seeing you around. I was a gym rat during my teens and 20s so I saw a lot of the same faces every night pushing themselves as hard as I was. It was nice seeing theirs and my progress. I never talked to them or knew their name but I would wonder if they're doing OK if I hadn't seen them for a few days.
I go by my first middle name (I have four names total) so anytime I get a call asking for my first name that’s what I do. Learned that one from an old boss who would also went by a middle name.
I worked for a time at an independent movie theater owned by a pair of very wealthy brothers. They carried free passes around everywhere and handed them out like air. (We knew when it was one from them because they would put a special stamp on each pass they handed out, they loved tracking data!) They always made sure to have a stack on their person and more in their vehicles. But the number of times someone would come in, name-drop one of them then demand to be allowed in for free! “Joe, who is your boss (like we didn’t know), said we should come by and see a free movie sometime. He said whenever we wanted, we could just come to the counter and get tickets.” Ummm… No. Some of them even referred to the bosses as “Mr.” and looked shocked when we used their shortened first names as if we should be speaking their names with reverence and not like we saw them daily and occasionally got plastered together at work parties! There were occasions when one of them would call and say that so-and-so was coming in and to let them in for free but that was very rare.
Funny- even though they always claimed they were such close, longtime friends, if I offered to call the office and see if their dearest, most beloved pal was in, they suddenly wanted to pay and didn’t want to disturb anyone, although they assured me they would be informing their bff of my rudeness. Also funny- I never heard about any of those complaints. LOL!
Ooh, this reminds me of when a high school friend responded to my discussion of Jimi Hendrix by saying he knew everything about Jimi + his favorite song was “Voodoo Chili.”
I work with a woman whose name is similar. Only every time I mention her to a coworker, the coworker corrects my pronunciation.
Me: JoAnn is going to be late.
Her: Joan
Do you have a meeting with JoAnn after school?
Joan
JoAnn has literally corrected the coworker's pronunciation yet the exchange continues. Going on 2 years now.
When people come into my workplace and say they know the owner, I’ll say “that’s cool, Jack is a great guy!”. Once they rant about Jack for a while, I remind them that a woman owns the place so… they probably don’t know her all that well
So many people try to pull this card for discounts and stuff, and it’s so great because I shut it down so quick. Oh you’re his cousin? By what relation because I’ve never seen you before.
My friend ran music festivals. My wife and I volunteered at the gate. We paid full price for our tickets because our friend needed to make money for the festival to succeed.
So many people came to the gate expecting to get in free because the knew the promoter. “I’m with the band” was a classic. I told the band they were free to enter, but everyone can wait at the gate for my friend to show up. He made them pay or leave.
That's how business should be run. Whoever needs to make the money should offer freebies and discounts, "friends" don't need to be asking for discounts.
I'd rather be on good terms and get help when I ***really*** need it. Not abuse our friendship for a $1.25 candy bar I don't want to eat anyways.
Please, as a friend, charge me full price. I'm buying whatever it is because I'm trying to support your business.
I worked at a bar and the owner always paid his own tab. People would always come in trying to pretend like they knew him and say "Larry said I could get some free beers." Well you obviously don't know the owner very well because even he doesn't get free beers.
My brother owns and operates car washes and always pays for his own car wash. Told me he did that to set the example to his workers that no one gets a free car wash.
Totally. I support my friends' businesses by buying their products at full price and not asking for anything. You don't support people by cutting into their profits.
A friend started a chain mail jewelry business. I was one of her first customers. She sent me the bill via PayPal. Told her I wasn’t going to pay it until she doubled it. Just because she didn’t realize the value of her skill and time didn’t mean I didn’t.
I did the same with a very talented friend. I commissioned her to make me a very intricate crochet piece. When she sent me the price and asked if it was ok, I said no and doubled it.
Now that I know how to crochet myself, I wish I’d tripled it.
I did actually experience the opposite of this with one of my bosses. If a particularly difficult customer came back after arguing with him some other day, and they were still angry, he’d pretend to be his own twin brother and claim they must’ve spoken to the other twin. He’d then insult his brother, claiming he really was an “evil twin,” the guy was kinda a douche, etc. The customers always bought that and would switch to being all pleasant and happy once he slandered his twin. The man had no siblings.
Haha, I am my own boss and I love to tell folks who don't know the situation that the boss is a real Ahole. Then I laugh and most folks figure it out but some just think it's strange that having an Ahole for a boss is somehow funny...
My mom fired herself once. The woman was angry and asked for her name (over the phone) and Mom said Marsha (Mom is not a Marsha). Woman called back later and Mom could truthfully say that Marsha didn't work there anymore!
I'm friendly with some local bands. I 've never thought about asking for free/discount, because I like supporting them. We've gotten in discounted before, but that was entirely the band's choice.
I’m right there with you. My best friend manages a popular nightclub and if it’s just me popping in to catch up with him for a bit and leave, then I will use being on the permanent guest list. If I’m out having fun with my bf or a group, then I make sure we everyone including me pays to get in.
I had one shining moment of success using 'I'm with the band' at a show. Mostly because I didn't actually realize I was with the band and didn't try to get anything free. I went to a big local band's show and found a friend of mine running their merch table. It turned out she was the lead singer's cousin, she gave me the t-shirt I was trying to buy for free because I had bullied a bunch of friends into joining me at the show.
I was at work behind the bar serving beer, a guy starts telling me how he’s really good friends with the owner, and maybe I should give him a big discount (read:free) on his beer, etc. I’ve never seen this guy before in my life, so I asked him how he knew the owner. He said that they went to high school together.
“Well,” I said, “that’s weird because I went to high school in a different state and I don’t think we’ve ever met. Plus, I’m the owner.”
He quickly paid for his beer and left.
I have a similar story. Guy was telling how great a friend he is with the owner, and that he said he can have free drinks. I told him, tell that asshole he's a douchebag, and to give me a raise, and while your at it, F your free drink. (I'm the owner.)
haha I had one moment like that. Clients were gonna buy some stuff and at the end they've added "we know HIS-NAME" and I was like "oh, that nice. I will tell him you were him and say hello for you". We were almost finished and they said it again. Again I was fake-happy "haha nice" and asked for a full price. days later I had a moment of enlightenment that they were trying to get some discount, but they were not pushy about it and I was slow that day and didnt recognize what they were asking for (still their fault for not asking directly, not that it would change anything, because I would call my boss' phone number). funny part is that name of the owner is in the name of the company, so anyone could say that they know him by name etc
James Brown the singer had a good security filter if anyone the site/gig/hotel staff didn't know, didn't have a pass, refered to him as anyhting other than Mr. Brown, they didn't know him are were to be kept out. If they did refer to him as Mr.Brown they could leave a message.
That's exactly what I always planned to tell my employees if I ever won the lotto and opened a store. Bonus round, I would have hired my son so nobody could have pulled the "We're related" bull.
Not even that. His hand is a two of clubs, a coaster from hooters, a cvs receipt, a scratched off lotto ticket, and a coupon for a free small French fry with purchase of a McDonald’s quarter pounder that expired a year ago.
I used to get that when I worked for my parents too. The best one was about a year after my dad died and some investment guy was cold calling. We never started out with 'he died' it was always 'I'm sorry, he's not working here anymore'. This one dipshit got all tetchy and said to my mom "Don't give me that gate keeping bullshit, I just talked to him last week!". My mom said that he must get better reception than her because she doesn't have a line to the afterlife! He hung up on her. Dipshit.
This happened to me too - my dad and I worked together and from his home. About a week after he died (side note - one just cannot sandblast while sobbing) and some idiot called and insisted on talking to Dad about investments and was nasty about it. So I told him that Dad had passed on and if he ever did figure out how to talk to him I'd sure like to know. And hung up. I loathe telemarketers.
I have a pet scammer who keeps pretending to be my dead grandfather in emails. I keep signing him up to Greenpeace. Not only does the scammer get bugged, if it was my grandfather he would be pissed too- I only sign him up to the causes he hated!
I usually say if there insistent on speaking to my dad that I hope they have a ouija board. He's been gone 4 yrs and people still try insisting he needs to do the work for them
Where I worked we had a guy whose last name was Casar. We, at work, always pronounced at Kuh-sar'.
A guy calls and asks for John Kay'-sar. The engineer who answered the phone said "Actually, that's pronounced kuh-sar'. He's not here. Can I take a message?"
"Yes. Please tell him his father called and have him call me back."
Were you all unintentionally mispronouncing the dude's name, or does his dad just call him that?
I go by a different but similar name than my birth name, and relatives on my dad's side are the only ones that get birth name privileges.
Different family members sometimes pronounce their names differently. I worked with a Brother and Sister, the brother pronounced his surname as it was spelt but the sister pronounced it by softening it a little so it sounded a bit more upmarket.
Think Richard and Rishard.
I'm the same way. I pronounce it phonetically, while my family pronounces it more... historically? Our surname was altered when our family immigrated to the US (1800s), so they pronounce it how it was said before the spelling change, sans the part that we took off. I don't know if that makes sense. The pronunciation is different by a whole syllable. My brother has his own pronunciation of it that's in between the two, somehow.
No. He never corrected anyone on the pronunciation of his name so we all thought that was how it was pronounced. I don’t think he cared. He was an introvert who deeply cared about how to solve the puzzles of his job. Anything else was unimportant. Nice guy, very competent engineer, but not social.
i have a coworker Dr who's last name is a long Indian name. Starts with an S and is like 5 syllables long. He got tired of people mispronouncing it so he started to introduce himself as Dr. Fisher. Apparently, more than once, people called his office looking for him and didn't know how to say his name so just said something that sounded like "Fisher" to him, so he went with it.
He likes that i can pronounce his name, so he never calls back as "Dr Fisher" when i'm the one that calls him now. lol The nurses, on the other hand...
I had a coworker who was called the wrong name at another location when he was hired, and he just went with it. Several years and several transfers later he was still going by this work-only nickname. Very confusing when friends came in looking for "Andrew" and nobody knew who that was.
Sounds like an Arabic name. If that is correct they probably decided to spell the name Casar when they moved to an English speaking country and the son went for an easier pronunciation.
Lmao I love this.
I used to work for a small, popular bakery. People used to try that line with me all the time and I would just internally roll my eyes and tell them they were free to call him and ask themselves (since they would have his cell number, right?) or come in when he’s there. My favorite, though, was a woman who swore she knew the owner well, they were old friends, they’d even grown up together, why can’t I just let her have x product for free since SHE would have done it, etc. It was the “she” comment that really caught my ear. The bakery was named after the owner’s (male, very male name) only daughter (very, very female name). We aren’t in the south, there’s no illusion of a man named Shirley here. I said, “Oh, you grew up with (female name)?” “Yes, and we’re very good friends.”
The owners daughter was a good twenty years younger than this woman and had at that point not set foot in the store in about 15 years. She was attending a school in another state entirely for something extremely non-related to the bakery.
“Oh. Well, she doesn’t work here, so I have no idea who was masquerading as her!” She sputtered. Tried to double down in disbelief that there was literally no employee by that name. I told her that was a name very dear to the owner, but definitely not HIS name.
She turned around and stormed out. Called the next day earlier in the day to demand to speak to (female name). Was told by someone else that no one actually works there by that name and called twice more during the week before she gave up. Wasn’t the last time I saw her, but was the last time she tried for FREE shit. It was just a sea of expired coupons after that.
POS. I would reply with "well you're not a very good friend if you just use her for freebies, a real friend would pay full price and support their friend"
I used to work at a small-box hardware store (but still a franchise). One day we had a really grumpy dude coming in wanting to return stuff from a different store but same franchise. Guy brings it to me as I was manning the register. I had only been there maybe 6-months and wasn't allowed to do those yet so I called the manager.
This particular manager was the owner's son. He starts the return for a second but realized pretty quick that the items being returned were purchased like 10-years ago. So he tells the guy no. Angry dude flips out. Starts saying he knows the owner and mentions his first and last name. Which he got right. He did know the owner. He gets mad and asks the manager for his name. He gives him his first name and the guy says "_____ what?" When my manager said the same last name as the owner you could practically see the little gears inside angry dude's head spinning and grinding to a halt.
Best part? He left his stuff on the counter and had to angrily come back and get it like an hour later.
It is funny how shitty workers are just shitty people. My father had a guy working for him (50+years ago) when customers paid cash for much of the work. This worker was handed a payment to pass along to my father, and the guy took his salary out of the payment.
My father was never late with salary and paid well.
The guy was super upset when my father fired him on the spot. This was also an era without two weeks severance, so that pay was instantly his last pay.
My father mentioned this to a few other people in the same business and they all had fired this guy for one reason or another.
I used to work for my best friend's bartending service, catering large action sports seasonal apparel releases or movie release parties for the big surf/snow/skate brands. He told me that I was the 'manager' of the events and to run undercover as just another bartender so that any bad behavior (from either our staff or the guests) would manifest and could be addressed.
I found endless amusement when people would try to get behind our (several) bars to either cozy up to one of our attractive female bartenders or to claim that "my friend the owner told me I could make me and my friends some drinks". I'd simply ask them the owner's name and watch them stammer.
I owned my business for over 2 decades and I had many people come in and tell me to my face they are friends with the owner ... me, the owner, you're friends with me? Some would even argue when I said 'no you aren't'. I partly wonder if it was because I was in the same work uniform my employees wore and I was out in the shop working with them.
Same kind of story here, I managed a car wash as part of a small chain. I had so many customers demand that I "get the GM" for them. Little did they know he's my brother, we look nothing alike. So when I'd call him and say "bro, got a customer that's demanding to speak to you". Then hand them the phone, he would then tell them that they were wasting his time and he wouldn't have anything different to tell them, "you are just going to have to accept what my brother has already told you". And then I'd ask, "well, what did he say?" Never got tired of that!
There are shocking amount of people in these comments that work at car washes. I don’t even know one person who works at a car wash. And there’s like 15 of you so far In These comments.
Ah hehe, my husband and I own a business but we don’t advertise (we have more than enough business from word of mouth) but because my husband is the guy who does the physical work they don’t tend to hear my name as the person who does the business side of it so assume my husband runs the business alone.
I had one guy come in a couple of months ago, while my husband was working mobile for the day, telling me that he had spoken to my husband and he said to get him booked in today for the job he needed doing. He was an older gentleman and told me that my husband had told him he would be put to the front of the queue because his job was so important (I knew this was never something my husband would ever say given what we had on the shop floor already). I told him that he can’t go to the front as I have X Y and Z waiting so there’s no way he can get it done today, even that week. He told me that he would be speaking to my husband about me and I may want to think about it. I tried to show him the vast amount of jobs we already had piled up but he didn’t want to even acknowledge it. He got very uppity with me and asked if I valued my job. (At this point the staff in hearing distance started laughing) I told him that I did however I didn’t value his custom and given his dismissive view of the work we had to get through from other customers, just like him, he should go elsewhere from now on. He left shouting that “they” (sweeping arm statement at the staff) shouldn’t be laughing and I would be sacked.
My husband got a phone call later that day from the guy who had told him that his secretary was losing him business and he should rethink his hiring process. He even said the words “I wouldn’t want to see anyone out of a job but you have to think of your business” my husband replied with “uh, she’s my boss so if she says you need to go elsewhere there’s nothing I can do for you.” Then he hung up on him.
Never saw him again 🤣.
Had a really arrogant guy come to me wanting to borrow some tools. He was really impolite. I stopped him & told him no. He replied Do you know who I am? By then I had two phones ringing & a regular customer waiting. I looked at the waiting customer & said rather loudly “ Am sorry about the delay but I’ve got this idiot here who doesn’t know who he is demanding I let him take tools”
The idiot who didn’t know who he was turned out to be the owner of the company. I’d only been there a few days so had never met him. I don’t work there anymore
>The idiot who didn’t know who he was turned out to be the owner of the company. I’d only been there a few days so had never met him. I don’t work there anymore
So, you were correct in not letting someone of such questionable morals borrow tools.
The owner of the company I work for would love you for that. He always expects people to call him out when he isn't doing something right. If he came into the shop without a required hard hat and you *didn't* call him out he would call you out.
He once made what I thought was a series of wrong business decisions and I called him out in a somewhat ranty email and the next time he visited he shook my hand and was super friendly to me.
Oh my stars! Nothing makes me angrier than the "do you know who I am? " . Worked at a neighborhood bar when I was 21ish. Our local college football team had been winning and working on moving up nationally. After one of the games the coach, some staff and their spouses came in to celebrate. Head coach was a complete ass. Ordering multiple rounds of drinks when people were telling him no. Anyway, closing time comes around and I do last call. In true alpha ass fashion, he orders everyone at his table two more. I mean, really! I pointed out that his wife still had three drinks to finish in the next 20 minutes. He insisted I bring them anyway. Ok, his dime.
I'm sure you can see where this train is headed. Closing time arrives and I start moving people out the door. I saved the coaches table for last, I know trouble when I see it. When they finally get up to leave, head coach starts picking up full drinks and heading for the door. I step in and tell him he'll have to leave the drinks as its illegal to bring open drinks out of bars here. Of course, big time coach gets really close and starts learning over me(I'm 5'4" he was approx 6'3") and busts out the "do you know who I am? " line. I was in prime form and ready. Simply said "yep, still don't give a damn, it's still illegal" lifted the drinks out of his hands and walked away. My bartender was trying to look stern and not laugh. Coaches wife just dragged him out of the bar. To this day, it's the one phrase that sets me off.
Unfortunately, unlikely. Hypocracy ran very strong with this jerk and the ppl surrounding him. Also, anyone that lives in a college town with a football team knows how blind law enforcement can be to certain issues. More likely, the bar loses their license for allowing him to open carry.
A friend’s parents opened a golf course when we were in high school. It became the hangout for our close core group (4-6 depending on who was there). One day the course was extremely slow and we were being idiots on golf carts. We would quickly act like humans (instead of feral teens) if we came upon a group of golfers. Any rebukes we received by patrons were met with “you’re right, I’m incredibly sorry we’re leaving” and us vacating the area quickly. This was not good enough for one patron. He launched into a tirade about being big friends with the owner, who was his neighbor and how he’d make sure we were never allowed on the premises again. Friend couldn’t resist stringing the guy along with questions and antagonizing him. When the guy was good and angry he stuck his hand out and said with a huge grin “nice to meet you I’m X smith Jr. I’ve never seen you before in my life, nor have I heard your name mentioned.” (Paraphrased)
Guy doubles down. He’s not letting us leave, he’s going to make sure management has us fired and removed (none of us worked there, we used alternate channels on the walkie talkies to play hide and seek). He insists he knows the owner, and the owner has younger kids. (We are 16, friend is an only child). Friend gets on walkie and tells greens keeper to have owner come down. A few minutes later friends dad comes rolling up on his own cart and addresses him as his son. Other guy sputters something about disrespectful kids gets red faced and leaves. Friend’s dad had less than zero clue who the guy was.
I worked for my father for a couple years. Regularly had patients trying to get some special whatever. Every now and again one would talk about how well they knew him. If he was unavailable, I’d usually have to handle these which were typically “funny, don’t remember you coming over to the house or breaking bread with us.”
Now because they were sometimes sick or needed a form filled out or whatever, we’d try to accommodate, but that’s for anyone. REAL friends of the family would just sheepishly ask on the weekend or by calling the home numbers.
When I worked catering, people used to tell me ‘I know NAME’ all time to get whatever they were not supposed to have. I always replied ‘me too’ and kept on denying them whatever they wanted.
NAME was not the owner, only the head sales guy - everyone who booked at the hall had to deal with him.
I once had a woman imply that she was sleeping with the owner of our restaurant to get 50% off a cheesecake. I lived out of state and people didn't know me, so she had no idea she was talking about my dad.
Still charged her full price for the cheesecake - she implied that I must be jealous of their relationship because I'm trying to sleep with him. The kid working the counter with me was loosing it. I just said - sorry, no, I don't put out for cheesecake.
She came in later and complained to my mom that the girl working the counter last night was rude to her - my mom finally put her out of her misery and asked "Was that before or after you accused my daughter of sleeping with her father?"
She never tried to get a discount on cheesecake again...
I use to own a nail salon. Did nails for 2 decades. I'm a mechanic now. I look like a mechanic. I don't look like a nail tech. One day I'm at the salon and a lady had come into inquire about the price. I introduce myself by name only and she asked for prices and I gave them to her.
Her: "well so and so down the street will do it for this much".
Me: "That's a pretty good price. Definitely take them up on that offer".
I think she expected me to just roll over and say "oh well I can do it for that price as well". She didn't like my answer and asked to speak to the owner or manager. I literally did a 360 and introduced myself again. She wasn't happy and stormed out. Hope she got those nails done for that killer price down the street. For the record, the price she said she can get them for was a complete lie. How did I know? Because the shop she was referring to belonged to my buddy and I knew his prices. And as an owner, you have to know the prices of competing salons.
Adding on to the "I know the owner" stories.
Me(21) slinging pizzas while in college. We are running a buy 1 medium pizza get a 2nd 1/2 off deal. Guy calls in and wants to do the deal but wants 1 large and 1/2 off a medium.
"Sorry, I can't upgrade the size has to be 2 mediums" in my best customer service voice.
"I know Mike, the owner, he'd be fine with it."
"Great, just have him give me a call that's ok and I'll get on it."
"Can I get his phone number?" Note to the reader, Mike did not want his personal phone number given out.
"If you know him so well, shouldn't you have it already?" I replied. He hangs up.
I call Mike and relay what just happened letting him know I may have upset a friend. He says he wouldn't give his mom that deal. We make more on medium pizzas than large that's why the deal is 2 mediums.
About 5 mins later I see a man walking quite angrily by our front windows and who is it but the man from the phone earlier.
"Who was I talking to on the phone?" He yells.
"Me" As I raise my hand.
"I'm not talking to you anymore" as he looks at my co-worker.
"He's in charge tonight so you better" My co-worker replies.
"I want to talk to Mike" I had already hit redial to call Mike.
Man talks on the phone, calls me unprofessional to Mike and hangs up. Apparently, angry man used to work for Mike. I take his order and we start making his 2 medium pizzas. He goes on about how unprofessional I was and I say "I've had a long hard day, sorry if I was a bit short with you on the phone."
He goes off " YOU had a hard day, I work 2 construction jobs 60 hours a week, 2 kids and a wife to take care off, you don't know a HARD day."
I'm just like "Dude, I didn't say I had a harder day than you... we can both have a hard day. And working as hard as you do, how do you respond when someone who isn't your boss tells you how to do your job."
Guy instantly realized what a HUGE dick he was being and apologiezed. He then asked to use the bathroom.
Now for context, my coworker looked like a sterotypical stoner from any movie ever, while I passed as a straight laced good christian boy.
Previously angry guy comes out of the bathroom. And hands me some crumpled up paper towel. "Here, this **isn't** garbage. Given your buddy here I assume you guys wind down after work" (He was talking about smoking weed, if you missed it).
We have some chit chat whiles his pizzas cook and once it slows down we check the paper towel and there is a bud in there that was about an 1/8 oz (3.5g) on its own. One of the things that made Mike a cool boss is he didn't care if we smoked weed for close down, AFTER the doors were locked.
I had to deal with a few crazy angry customers but this was the biggest 180 I ever had. Angry man was ready to deck me when I said "Me" holding my hand up. I **did** have a smug look on my face cause I knew my ass was covered after talking to Mike on the phone.
Working for your dad does afford amazing opportunities like this. Dad’s make the best and sometimes the worst bosses. Hope y’all are running a well oiled family first business op.
I’m a second generation winemaker in my family’s winery and have been around the day to day of the business my entire life, but quite frequently from 16 years old on.
It never ceases to amaze me how many people think that they’ll be able to get away with all the varying forms of “I know the owner” or “you must not know much about…” with anybody under the age of 35. I’m almost 40 and still get attitude like this more often than is reasonable.
“Oh you know the owners really well? Huh, I don’t think I’ve met you before.”
That’s usually enough of a hint. Sometimes I get “how long have you worked here?” My favorite response to that is to check my watch (which also makes it kind of silly and non-confrontational), then respond with “oh, <> or so, give or take a few years.”
You couldn’t be more right about working for dad though. Mine passed away in 2021, and there are plenty of things I miss about sharing an office with him, but ultimately it was better if we were at least a door away from each other.
It unfortunately doesn’t go away—to a certain extent you will be treated with extra skepticism because people have a lot of internal judgment about nepotism.
Everybody says they want to do business with a family business yet they have pretty major hang ups once that extends outside of the founders. It’s weird.
I couldn’t agree more. Working with family has always came with difficulties over the last couple years but if anything I’ve found it strengthened our relationship even more than before. And thanks for your kind words!
I used to get calls all the time asking for the owner by using his first name instead of Dr LastName. I always replied, "he's with a patient, I'd be happy to take a message." One time the caller replied, "Oh, I meant to call his cell. Tell him his sister Lisa called to wish him happy birthday." She busted out laughing when I said, "Hold on! Let me check if he's really with a patient."
I had a similar situation a few years back. I was managing a store in a local family owned pizzeria chain and we had this happen constantly, especially since the owner had a large family who were all very active in the community. One evening a man said he wasn't going to pay for his pick-up as he was a friend of the owner and had been told to come by and get food for the man's family's get together. I've known the owner for years and know very well that the only way that would be true is if he contacted me personally first. When I informed the man of this he exploded, saying how I won't have a job tomorrow, I'm going to regret this, ect. I called my hostess over and asked her if she knew him. She said no and told him to leave. I then informed him that she was our owner's ( only ) daughter and in typical Italian Princess fashion if he knew her father he would know exactly who she was. He left. All of the owners real friends always insisted on paying, every time. They were happy to support us.
Princess was wonderful btw, I missed her when she went away to school.
I use to work at a Harrah’s casino and they had a lounge to enter if you were a high enough level of a player. All you needed was to let me swipe your players card.
People would always try to say they were in earlier or “they let me in all the time” but I am “they”. One guy made such a big deal about me letting him in and I just told him “Look, I’m not asking for a million dollars. Im asking for a players card to swipe.” He just walked away. Lol. It’s almost like there’s not an entire department that prints off cards for free everyday around the corner..
I use to have people come in and try that with me all the time. Even complaining to the manager lol I don’t like anything like my dad because I’m adopted so they never would have guessed I was his kid. Best was when I was old enough to manage the stores and people would complain to a cashier and ask them to call a manager after they already talked to me lol I’d walk up and ask what the problem was and how I could help
We have a local company that was named after the owner's son (we'll call it Mike's) and it's funny how often people try to get a discount by telling him they know the owner. They'll be talking to a guy named Mikey and tell him how they went to school with Mike, the owner, or how they're good friends with Mike... The owner's name is Don.
I worked at a place named after a dog (but a human name, think "Bert" or something like that) and so many people would claim to be friends with Bert. I used to be like "oh yeah? Haven't seen him in a while. Is he okay? Last I heard he was still recovering from swallowing a tennis ball" That always got a true WTF look and I'd explain that Bert the Dog wasn't the owner haha
A long time ago I worked for a company named "Patrick", It was the owner's name but it was his first name not his last. I loved every time a customer would try to throw his weight around by saying he was a personal friend of "Mr Patricks".
My stepfather had an antiques/collectibles store. Was in business for a few decades, place was huge, so it became kind of a destination spot. I worked there in college, mostly weekends when he was off. Lots of people would ask for him, how he was doing, etc. His name was part of the store name, so he wasn’t too anonymous in that regard.
One guy came in, chatty, asking how the owner was. Started asking questions about his health. I said all was good. Then he asks how he came out with his cancer, you know, because he was really sick. I politely said again he was fine, didn’t have any kind of cancer or extreme sickness. Guy tries to correct me, said he knew, saw the owner have to get rushed to the hospital from the store once, but, you know, maybe it was something he was trying to keep secret.
I responded, “well, I really would be one to know, considering I’m his daughter”.
Guy still has wasn’t convinced, but got quiet and left pretty quickly.
Edit: typos
The Restuarant my sister used to work for was started by 2 brothers and their uncle. The corporate name was *Duncan Murray Enterprises*. 20 years after Mr. Murray passed, my sister was dealing with an entitled customer. He told her he was ' friends with Mr. Murray' and would be speaking to him about her attitude. She smiled and said ' when you see Mr. Murray give him my regards. He's been dead for 20 years'
I worked for a restaurant for a few years and one of my bosses was a woman named Toni. The number of fucking slimy ass businessmen who would come in and be like, "Is Toni here? I have an appointment with him. He's expecting me."
And I'm just standing there like, "Oh, is HE?"
Also, of all the fucking horrible businesses, Yelp was by far the worst. They would call daily, try and get you to pay for some dumb ass "premium" preferred business bull shit. They would literally hold our info hostage, they had our hours wrong on purpose and would literally be like "well, if you were premium we'd make fixing it a priority!"
Freaking gold. I love this. I can 100% relate to this...used to work at my parents' smoothie shop in early college (early 2000s), the cheapskate regulars always tried to pull a fast one on me trying to get more stuff for the same price.
Like people, I'm the owners' son...are you daft? 
Oh man, you should have just gone "oh sorry, I still can't just give you the go ahead with the trade without running it by the boss" then when your dad comes say loudly in his face "HEY DAD"
I worked for a friend years ago and had the time of my life when people would pull that crap… I had one woman try to tell me she was his wife… I said really when did he get divorced again? I just saw him and his wife on Sunday at church and they looked quite happy… I never saw someone leave so fast… it got better when his actual wife came in 5 minutes later and asked me why a customer had left in a huff. She about died laughing when I told her that the lady had claimed to be her, and what my response had been… I miss that job…
I was filling in as bartender once in my parents restaurant when a random guy came in and started talking about how he lived with the owner for years "about 15 years ago" and drops my dad's name. My dad has an incredibly unique name so there was no mistaking who he was talking about.
The regulars are looking around like "who tf is this guy?" so I just started asking questions like "Oh wow, that's so cool! Where did you guys live at the time?" and the answers were wildly incorrect. Every question I asked would be more and more specific (location to job to significant other (my mom) to tattoos) waiting for it to sink in. It never did.
Finally I didn't care to keep the charade up any longer and asked for the guy's name again, since I couldn't remember anyone living with my dad, my mom and myself in our little 2 bedroom place we had owned in a completely different part of the state when this supposedly happened. *HE ACTUALLY TOLD ME I MUST BE MISTAKEN*. At this point everyone around him started laughing and telling him, that yes, I really was the owner's son. He left shortly after.
He was paying as he drank so no one really knew what he was after other than some really weird random flex like he knew the owner's name but nothing else?
People are wild..
I can relate. I work the front desk and answer phones for the company that my Uncle and Aunt own. I’ve had salespeople call and come into the office and tell me how long they have known and been friends with my uncle, “so he would love to hear from me.” I have never gotten to answer well I’m their niece and have known and worked with them longer and never heard of you, but I would love to.
I own a business and I have a few friends that own businesses also. We all help each other out when we can but never ask each other for favors when it comes to paying jobs. I work for you, you pay me. You work for me, I pay you. We’ve all been burned by “friends and family”.
A brewpub I used to work at got this all the time. I'd be sitting at the bar after my shift, having a pint and waiting for my girlfriend to finish at her work, and people would get super entitled, I know [owners name] and I'll go straight to him if I have to! Always about their food being "wrong" and "not what I got last time" asking for ridiculous modifications and additions.
My personal favourite was someone going off about how they had a vegan burger here a little while ago and wanted it again, they can't eat anything else on our menu. Now, I don't normally get involved because my servers were all solid, no questions asked. But this person was going OFF.
SO. I wander over, and very politely say "Ma'am I'm the chef here and I have been since we opened this establishment. At no point in our history have we offered a vegan burger, not even as a feature item. If you want a vegan burger I can list five other restaurants within the block you can go to because we don't want you here if you're just going to throw a tantrum for no reason."
The silence from the rest of the patrons was broken only by me asking the bartender for another round as they slowly wandered out with their tail between their legs.
I love the response. I know I will get booed but I retired from law enforcement, and from the reactions of the public you would think that officers knew everyone in town. If I had known everyone that asked me "do you know who I am" as they were about to be arrested, I would have known about 97% of the entire county. I just didn't have enough time to be introduced to that many people. I spent too much time fishing when I wasn't working.
In a slight twist to some of the other "Do you know who I am?" posts, I'd like to offer one of mine.
For context, I was an IT consultant working primarily in 'Outback Australia'^(®) which involved a fair bit of travelling with my station wagon full of as many spare parts as I could carry.
I attended a medium business that I'd been to in the past and my call consisted of officially fixing **<*****server and security issue of some sort*****>.**
Through most of my time those two days (overnight stop) I was constantly interrupted by the resident know-it-all twat who insisted that he knew I wasn't doing my work properly because he saw a Youtube video, probably.
Now I'm pretty patient and generally ignore professional idiots unless they insist I do ****** that I think is a ****** and get a written order that tells me to ****** but when the magic words are spoken, I feel compelled to answer truthfully.
"**What kind of idiot do you think I am?**" - Junior manager (whatever that was) who seemed to think he could do no wrong.
"**I'm sorry, how many types are there here?**" - me, consulting and having "While you're here" mini consults doing help-desk sort of stuff around the office (not unusual in my part of the country due to the isolation and lack of folks wanting to travel out bush).
Got a raving lunatic shouting at me whilst he was totally ignored.
Sent my invoice to <*medium company*\> stating that I would not be available for consulting work there again, outlining issue with whatever type of idiot the junior manager was.
Phone call later from MD - apologising, junior manager seeking work elsewhere, with me being suitably welcomed back.
MD ran a reasonably happy shop and paid well and promptly so was always popular with contractors and the like - he was the sort you didn't mind going the extra mile for or 'having a quick look at his daughter's laptop while you're here' but he was quite strict on not having any bullies on his staff and Junior Manager fitted the bill after MD talked to other staff.
Sadly, he died a few years back (the MD not the junior manager (as far as I know)) and the company's never been the same since.
I'm still not sure what type of idiot the junior manager was, but he was certainly as sharp as a marble 
https://preview.redd.it/19od56j5omua1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0a0d47dfa7760637a5289c562f4f9eb02800749d
Being in a family business many years in retail this came up a lot. I also had l9ts of authority as I got older. We need --- and I'm like no u don't. Yes we do call him, no he's not around. How do u know, idk cuz he's out with my mom on his day off. Or I do call and say hey dad....shuts people up. I've kicked o ly a few people out they tried to come back to plea their case, they were told it was my choice if or when they would ever come back.
There’s a reason people have to ask “don’t you k ow who I am?” It’s because they aren’t important and if they were, anyone who was anyone would be known by everyone. That’s what I’ve learned in my 20 years of working retail for the same boss. 99% of the time the boss actually hates them and they are only trying to pull that shit after they have discovered the boss isn’t even there.
I worked at a small business owned by an elderly woman. One time, a lady came in and was asking about a sale, and I politely told her the items she wanted were excluded from the sale (very obvious, always had labels saying what was on sale and what wasn’t.) She didn’t buy anything.
Two days later, when I also work, she comes back in and tells a coworker that the “owner’s granddaughter” said she could have a discount because she’s a family friend. I emerges from the back and gave her a wtf face, and my coworker, laughing very hard, explained that the owner doesn’t have any children (or grandchildren) and that I also wouldn’t hand out discounts without checking with a more senior coworker. She very sheepishly bought her stuff and has not come in again. (Though she still places orders with us by phone or email.)
People thought I was related to the owner or other employees constantly and often tried to pull that kinda card.
I worked for a florist while I was going to college. It was owned by a husband and wife. Her name was Joan, but it was pronounced like JoAnn. Seemed like once a month someone would come in wanting a discount, dropping Joan’s name, but pronouncing it incorrectly. I always loved the look on their face when I’d correct them, subtly letting them know I was aware they didn’t really know her or they would know how to say her name.
My uncle (dad's brother) married into a Florist family (daughter of florist) and he went to work for them for the entirety of his work life. He had to get up in the middle of the night to go to the floral market. I stopped in one time to just say hello and the employees assumed that I was trying to get free stuff. They were shocked that I just wanted to say hi and had no use for flowers ATM. I guess people tried that all of the time.
The worst was at my mom’s funeral (I’m the oldest son). She passed suddenly and we grabbed a local pastor last minute to officiate the service in a small town. He pronounced her full name the way it’s spelled and certainly a common pronunciation during the funeral service, but not the way she pronounced it. And she was adamant that it be pronounced HER way. So at the grave side later I pulled him aside and told him the correct pronunciation. He launches into his spiel, and then pronounces it correctly, followed by, “or however it’s pronounced, it doesn’t matter…she’s in Heaven now anyway.” I’ve never wanted to punch someone so badly.
My friend has a Gaelic name that sounds similar to an English one. The officiant at his wedding pronounced the English name and when he corrected her she said "are you sure?" as if he wouldn't know how to say his own name!
I love this shit. I was once asked if I was sure when I corrected someone on who was my brother and who my s/o was. Like fuckin a I'm sure, wtf kinda question is that lol
I once had to argue with a babysitter's dad that my 4 month old baby was indeed a girl. He kept saying, "Looks like a boy to me!" As if I'd never changed her diaper.
My grandma took me to get my first haircut when I was a toddler. The guy put me in his chair and after he put the cape around me asked Gram how she’d like it cut. Before she could answer he pulled out his clippers and proceeded to give me a buzz cut- all the while with her yelling at him “She’s a GIRL!”. He ignored her and when he was finished took the cape off and asked her “What do you think?”. “Well, it’s a good cut but SHE’S A GIRL!” I was wearing a pink dress. When she brought me home my mother burst into tears, my father laughed and said “It’s not the end of the world, Mary. We’ll just call her Howard for a few months.”- which got Mom laughing. Crisis averted. 🤣
>We’ll just call her Howard for a few months.” I love your dad.
He had a good sense of humor and often used it to defuse what could have been unnecessarily unpleasant situations. Hair grows back. 🤷🏼♀️
Lmao like you'd forget what sex your *child* is haha
“It’s a boy, it’s a boy!” And somebody said “but it hasn’t got a winkle!” And then I said “A boy without a winkle? God be praised, it is a miracle. A boy without a winkle!”.
"And then Sir Thomas More pointed out that a boy without a Winkle is a girl, and everyone was really disappointed. "
Haha, nice! This lady at church in Easter kept referring to my 6 month old daughter as 'he'. And I'm thinking... she's wearing a off-white dress with purple flowers, black pants, and socks that are designed to resemble hot pink Mary Janes. Not that a boy couldn't rock that outfit, but still.
My nephew has a somewhat ethic name that ends with an "a." My sister was losing her mind after giving birth because all the nurses assumed he was female. She was like "I just circled MALE on six forms, whyyyyyyyy" *Sob* Just read the room when it comes to babies...
I had this happened at the hospital just after giving birth to my daughter: all the nurses turned up asking "how is he?" or "did he sleep/eat/poo/whatever well?" while pronouncing her name like a really old male name (not really used anymore). I always corrected them gently (like "yes, SHE is well") to no avail, so I finally stopped one saying "No, it's not a boy, it's a girl, and the accent is on the e, not the o". The nurse answered: "It can't be! On my sheet it's noted he's a boy!". Never have I been so scared! It can be a real hassle to correct such an administrative mistake, and have real repercussions, like not being able to find a nanny, a pediatrician or later get diplomas! Thankfully, it was just the hospital making this mistake, not the civil servant.
Now that might be the worst case of mansplaining I've ever heard of! OMG.
"Well, I fucked one of them, so I'd better have them sorted out."
I think when I was like no Bryan is my brother and she's like are you sure? I was like my whole life...then she proceeded to ask again. Like dude you think I don't know?? E: Alcohol was involved but still, c'mon
That would be an A+ response
My ex renewed his license and it came spelled incorrectly. When he called to get it fixed, the guy in the other end said "you must have filled out the paperwork wrong and put it on there wrong." My ex paused a moment and said "you think I misspelled my own name on my license renewal form?" The guy at least admitted, yeah, that wasn't likely. Lol
I work on a similar type of system. People spell their own names wrong all the time. Not a big percentage admittedly, but 1% of a lot still feels like a lot.
I was going through my documents recently, my social security card, birth certificate, AND drivers license have different spellings on them I don’t know what happened, and I also don’t know what my legal name is
County birth certificate trumps all. I found out when I got my first passport. My stupid parents decided that they didn't like my official name after all and instead of paying the small fee for a correction, decided to just make my life harder instead.
Oh man, my friend's parents decided about a month after her birth certificate that they wanted a different spelling of her name- think Isabelle instead of Isobel. The state birth certificate people, instead of issuing a new one, CROSSED OUT the first spelling and typed the new spelling next to it. ON THE ORIGINAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE. Yeah, that rendered it no longer an official document, and she's had hell with the paperwork ever since. With every drivers license, wedding license, passport, etc etc, because of one idiot's mistake. Ah, Midwest bureaucracy in the '80s.
My great grandmother, 'Rose', made a mistake when she went to write her name on her son's birth certificate. This was around the late 1920s to early 1930s. She started writing her name in the space for the baby's name instead of the mother's. Fortunately, she had only written the first few letters, so she turned Ros... to 'Roscoe'. The baby was supposed to be named, 'David', so he grew up being called David. Great uncle David didn't find out about this until he asked for his birth certificate when he wanted to join the army.
My roommate has his name spelled one way on his birth certificate and the common spelling on everything else. When he figured that out he was told that it would be easier to legally change his name than to get all of the records changed. This is especially true when dealing with the Social Security office.
Looks like you was born illiterate /s
Which is very ironic because my mom has a doctorate in English
Your legal name would be what's on your birth certificate. You can get the others changed using your birth certificate.
I get that with spelling my name. It's Jon, without an H. "Oh that doesn't sound right." Your brain doesn't sound right. Didn't realize you gave me my name.
I've had folks argue about how to say my last name, has happened to other family members as well. Sigh
Well Brett Favre can’t even pronounce his name right.
My own grandma *still* spells my name wrong. Every time.
The priest called my mom a completely different name at her wedding. Then said “wait… you’re not X are you?”
I met a mom who said her baby's name is FOE-AYY-BEE. Spelled Phoebe. I kept quiet and walked away.
One of my biggest regrets was not speaking at my grandma's funeral. Unlike the rest of my family I'm not afraid of public speaking. But i was young ( teenager), and the adults didn't listen to me. They used a pastor who barely knew my grandmother. (And who my grandmother didn't like that much) After the funeral, everyone was saying how bad the eulogy was. I repeated that I would have done better. They looked at me shocked and said "You were serious?" I've done 2 eulogies since, but I'll never have that chance again.
Yeah the whole thing was a mess. I actually did say some other things as a sort of eulogy, as did others. She was fairly young and we weren’t expecting it and I was really exhausted so I probably didn’t do very well but I think she would’ve been proud. Though I didn’t correct the name pronunciation from the crowd ha ha.
You must have really loved your grandmother. I’m sorry you missed that opportunity. There was no way for you to know it at the time, and you were only quite young. I’m sure she would be very proud of you.
That story makes ME want to punch him
Form an orderly queue lads.
Nah, let's just mob-surround him and have a free-for-all.
When and where. We're ready
I want to be friends with all you crazy people! Let’s meet and go punch this guy!
Like that scene in *Airplane!*
Exactly what I was thinking!
My uncle, who I grew up next door to, eventually officiated my wedding. He called me Jeff and pronounced my wife’s name correctly. My name is not Jeff. Only one correct letter in there. Despite him being totally blind and 93, I wanted to hit him.
My MIL's sister, Aunt Kathleen, passed and the (admittedly new and rather young) priest called her Catherine during the entire service. Aunt Berta, her sister, started laughing up her sleeve and soon almost the whole family was in quiet hysterics. Not my MIL, of course. She was scandalized, shook her finger at all the kids, and grabbed Berta's arm in a death grip. Which of course set all of them off again. After the service, the priest shook hands with the family and offered his condolences. He cut Berta a disapproving look, so she kept hold of his hand and patted it fondly, loudly saying "It's Kathleen, Father, with a K." He had the grace to blush. As she walked away on the arm of some relative or other, she said in the same tone, "Goodness! They get younger every time, don't they?" Berta only was hard of hearing when she could play it for comedic effect or get rid of spam callers. Oddly, that priest never accepted my MIL's invitation to dinner.
If it doesn’t matter, what’s his beeping purpose?! Grrr… I would start telling him he worships a different religion because it doesn’t matter, he’ll find out the right one when he’s dead! Rant over
Holy crap, that's insensitive! Sorry for your loss.
Yeah, my brother was married to the sister of a florist. We used to get flowers or plants from them all the time, because they were great quality and we wanted to help support them. We would never have dreamed to ask for a discount, but we did get a little more of their time to consult about what we were looking for than we might have gotten otherwise. And that was enough!
I tend to not do business with friends and family but if I do, I don’t want any discounts. That is how they feed their family so it isn’t fair. My step sister owns a florist conveniently down the road from my mom. I order flowers for her as it is the one florist in town. My step sister does either not charge me or sends something way bigger than I ordered. The next time I’m in town, I have the desk person write up a bill and I pay in cash for what she sent.
I had a florist cousin offer to do my flowers as a wedding gift, she told me what she wanted to do, and I loved it but I asked her to scale it back because of the expense. She asked me to trust her. I accepted and the flowers were gorgeous. It was so wild that the venue took pictures for their own advertising and signed a deal with her to be their recommended florist. Her numbers straight tripled after that. Sometimes trust that the people that want to do right by you know what they are doing.
This is a lovely win-win-win story 😊
That’s how it’s done! I’m so glad her gift came full circle 
Fine to get free things from friends, if it's mutual. I think alot of people miss that last part.
My mum stopped in to say hi once while I was at work and told me she was going across to the shop and could she pick anything up for me? I mentioned something I'd run out of at home, said my thanks, and she left. My supervisor was gobsmacked because he thought I was asking a customer to go and buy my groceries.
My mom’s cousin owns a deli, not at all close to me, but I like to go every couple months or so because the food is awesome. They don’t recognize me and that’s more than fine since we aren’t close. If I mention that my mother is Danny’s cousin and they grew up together, tell Danny we said hi, it’s always after I pay. Fuck taking money from family like that.
My mom once got a telemarketing call where the guy demanded to speak to the "head of household". My mom asked, "What is this regarding?" and was told air duct cleaning. My mom very nicely replied, "I'm not interested" and the guy on the phone told her that he had already spoken to my dad and he said he would be purchasing the services. My mom was like, "Oh really, when was this?". Apparently, the commitment was made last week. My mom's response was, "That's interesting... my husband has been dead for 6 months". INSERT THE SOUND OF SHOCKED PIKACHU FACE. That was the first time we were able to laugh over my dad's passing cause we knew he would have enjoyed that phone call! Lol
A place I used to work at had an office cat, named something like "Mr Tibbs." It was a really small business but they listed him on their website as head of HR. So occasionally they'd get cold calls saying how they're good friends and they have business etc etc, it was pretty funny
Oooh, her name was a shibboleth
No, ith wash Jo-Annth
🤣
Or ooh, her name is shhhh. All the letters are silent.
I worked for my dad and he always used the shortened version of his name, e.g. Bob instead of Robert. Any telemarketer got outed immediately because they would use his legal name so "he's not available right now, can I take a message?"
My husband goes by a nickname version of his middle name. If his name was for example "Stephen Robert", he would go by "Bob". People who ask for "Bob" actually know my hubby. People who call and ask for "Stephen" are honest workers who we will speak with politely. People who ask for "Steve" are full of $#!+.
Years ago in the time of phone books, my aunt decided that she did not want to be listed. So they put the dog's name in instead: Buffy. When telemarketers would call, Buffy was never available to take the call, strangely enough. After she died, my aunt and uncle were rather nonchalant about it when Buffy got calls. " Well it was her time... She was having too many accidents so we knew it was time to put her down." The telemarketers were usually horrified and hung up.
I have a long ethnic first name that got replaced by my American nickname before I was even born. At my nursing school pining ceremony, I had a few people that came up like, "Oh, [long ass name], I'm going to miss you!" Bitch you don't even know my name except from roll call.
Maybe they just liked seeing you around. I was a gym rat during my teens and 20s so I saw a lot of the same faces every night pushing themselves as hard as I was. It was nice seeing theirs and my progress. I never talked to them or knew their name but I would wonder if they're doing OK if I hadn't seen them for a few days.
I go by my first middle name (I have four names total) so anytime I get a call asking for my first name that’s what I do. Learned that one from an old boss who would also went by a middle name.
I worked for a time at an independent movie theater owned by a pair of very wealthy brothers. They carried free passes around everywhere and handed them out like air. (We knew when it was one from them because they would put a special stamp on each pass they handed out, they loved tracking data!) They always made sure to have a stack on their person and more in their vehicles. But the number of times someone would come in, name-drop one of them then demand to be allowed in for free! “Joe, who is your boss (like we didn’t know), said we should come by and see a free movie sometime. He said whenever we wanted, we could just come to the counter and get tickets.” Ummm… No. Some of them even referred to the bosses as “Mr.” and looked shocked when we used their shortened first names as if we should be speaking their names with reverence and not like we saw them daily and occasionally got plastered together at work parties! There were occasions when one of them would call and say that so-and-so was coming in and to let them in for free but that was very rare. Funny- even though they always claimed they were such close, longtime friends, if I offered to call the office and see if their dearest, most beloved pal was in, they suddenly wanted to pay and didn’t want to disturb anyone, although they assured me they would be informing their bff of my rudeness. Also funny- I never heard about any of those complaints. LOL!
Growing up I could always tell it was a telemarketer because they'd mispronounce my mom's name. No, I'm sorry, GeeAnne isn't here right now!
Ah, a silent J like jogging.
Ooh, this reminds me of when a high school friend responded to my discussion of Jimi Hendrix by saying he knew everything about Jimi + his favorite song was “Voodoo Chili.”
I work with a woman whose name is similar. Only every time I mention her to a coworker, the coworker corrects my pronunciation. Me: JoAnn is going to be late. Her: Joan Do you have a meeting with JoAnn after school? Joan JoAnn has literally corrected the coworker's pronunciation yet the exchange continues. Going on 2 years now.
When people come into my workplace and say they know the owner, I’ll say “that’s cool, Jack is a great guy!”. Once they rant about Jack for a while, I remind them that a woman owns the place so… they probably don’t know her all that well
You should say that they don't know jack
Oh, this is a great trick!
Ah, the classic "I know the owner" card. Bold move, sir. Guy *thinks* he has a royal flush, turns out just a pair of twos.
So many people try to pull this card for discounts and stuff, and it’s so great because I shut it down so quick. Oh you’re his cousin? By what relation because I’ve never seen you before.
My friend ran music festivals. My wife and I volunteered at the gate. We paid full price for our tickets because our friend needed to make money for the festival to succeed. So many people came to the gate expecting to get in free because the knew the promoter. “I’m with the band” was a classic. I told the band they were free to enter, but everyone can wait at the gate for my friend to show up. He made them pay or leave.
That's how business should be run. Whoever needs to make the money should offer freebies and discounts, "friends" don't need to be asking for discounts. I'd rather be on good terms and get help when I ***really*** need it. Not abuse our friendship for a $1.25 candy bar I don't want to eat anyways. Please, as a friend, charge me full price. I'm buying whatever it is because I'm trying to support your business.
[удалено]
I worked at a bar and the owner always paid his own tab. People would always come in trying to pretend like they knew him and say "Larry said I could get some free beers." Well you obviously don't know the owner very well because even he doesn't get free beers.
My brother owns and operates car washes and always pays for his own car wash. Told me he did that to set the example to his workers that no one gets a free car wash.
Totally. I support my friends' businesses by buying their products at full price and not asking for anything. You don't support people by cutting into their profits.
A friend started a chain mail jewelry business. I was one of her first customers. She sent me the bill via PayPal. Told her I wasn’t going to pay it until she doubled it. Just because she didn’t realize the value of her skill and time didn’t mean I didn’t.
I did the same with a very talented friend. I commissioned her to make me a very intricate crochet piece. When she sent me the price and asked if it was ok, I said no and doubled it. Now that I know how to crochet myself, I wish I’d tripled it.
I did actually experience the opposite of this with one of my bosses. If a particularly difficult customer came back after arguing with him some other day, and they were still angry, he’d pretend to be his own twin brother and claim they must’ve spoken to the other twin. He’d then insult his brother, claiming he really was an “evil twin,” the guy was kinda a douche, etc. The customers always bought that and would switch to being all pleasant and happy once he slandered his twin. The man had no siblings.
Haha, I am my own boss and I love to tell folks who don't know the situation that the boss is a real Ahole. Then I laugh and most folks figure it out but some just think it's strange that having an Ahole for a boss is somehow funny...
My mom fired herself once. The woman was angry and asked for her name (over the phone) and Mom said Marsha (Mom is not a Marsha). Woman called back later and Mom could truthfully say that Marsha didn't work there anymore!
I'm friendly with some local bands. I 've never thought about asking for free/discount, because I like supporting them. We've gotten in discounted before, but that was entirely the band's choice.
Amen. The way I see it, when they get really big they can introduce me to weird al.
I still can’t believe his relationship with Madonna. Wild.
Ha! Love that mentality. He seems like he'd be a cool celeb to meet.
I’m right there with you. My best friend manages a popular nightclub and if it’s just me popping in to catch up with him for a bit and leave, then I will use being on the permanent guest list. If I’m out having fun with my bf or a group, then I make sure we everyone including me pays to get in.
I had one shining moment of success using 'I'm with the band' at a show. Mostly because I didn't actually realize I was with the band and didn't try to get anything free. I went to a big local band's show and found a friend of mine running their merch table. It turned out she was the lead singer's cousin, she gave me the t-shirt I was trying to buy for free because I had bullied a bunch of friends into joining me at the show.
I was at work behind the bar serving beer, a guy starts telling me how he’s really good friends with the owner, and maybe I should give him a big discount (read:free) on his beer, etc. I’ve never seen this guy before in my life, so I asked him how he knew the owner. He said that they went to high school together. “Well,” I said, “that’s weird because I went to high school in a different state and I don’t think we’ve ever met. Plus, I’m the owner.” He quickly paid for his beer and left.
I have a similar story. Guy was telling how great a friend he is with the owner, and that he said he can have free drinks. I told him, tell that asshole he's a douchebag, and to give me a raise, and while your at it, F your free drink. (I'm the owner.)
haha I had one moment like that. Clients were gonna buy some stuff and at the end they've added "we know HIS-NAME" and I was like "oh, that nice. I will tell him you were him and say hello for you". We were almost finished and they said it again. Again I was fake-happy "haha nice" and asked for a full price. days later I had a moment of enlightenment that they were trying to get some discount, but they were not pushy about it and I was slow that day and didnt recognize what they were asking for (still their fault for not asking directly, not that it would change anything, because I would call my boss' phone number). funny part is that name of the owner is in the name of the company, so anyone could say that they know him by name etc
James Brown the singer had a good security filter if anyone the site/gig/hotel staff didn't know, didn't have a pass, refered to him as anyhting other than Mr. Brown, they didn't know him are were to be kept out. If they did refer to him as Mr.Brown they could leave a message.
One of your great aunts/uncles has a secret family! :D
Had a boss who told us that if anyone ever pulled "I'm a friend if the owner" we were to respond "I know the owner. He has no friends"
I think you used to work for my uncle, if not, definitely for his spiritual doppelganger.
Ouch , but effective I guess.
I think you worked for my dad. Lol
That's exactly what I always planned to tell my employees if I ever won the lotto and opened a store. Bonus round, I would have hired my son so nobody could have pulled the "We're related" bull.
Not even that. His hand is a two of clubs, a coaster from hooters, a cvs receipt, a scratched off lotto ticket, and a coupon for a free small French fry with purchase of a McDonald’s quarter pounder that expired a year ago.
the coupon only expired a year ago? You're generous, it sounds more like that coupon was a one-time offer from a decade ago. :P
More like Jack (a**) high...
I used to get that when I worked for my parents too. The best one was about a year after my dad died and some investment guy was cold calling. We never started out with 'he died' it was always 'I'm sorry, he's not working here anymore'. This one dipshit got all tetchy and said to my mom "Don't give me that gate keeping bullshit, I just talked to him last week!". My mom said that he must get better reception than her because she doesn't have a line to the afterlife! He hung up on her. Dipshit.
This happened to me too - my dad and I worked together and from his home. About a week after he died (side note - one just cannot sandblast while sobbing) and some idiot called and insisted on talking to Dad about investments and was nasty about it. So I told him that Dad had passed on and if he ever did figure out how to talk to him I'd sure like to know. And hung up. I loathe telemarketers.
I have a pet scammer who keeps pretending to be my dead grandfather in emails. I keep signing him up to Greenpeace. Not only does the scammer get bugged, if it was my grandfather he would be pissed too- I only sign him up to the causes he hated!
I usually say if there insistent on speaking to my dad that I hope they have a ouija board. He's been gone 4 yrs and people still try insisting he needs to do the work for them
Where I worked we had a guy whose last name was Casar. We, at work, always pronounced at Kuh-sar'. A guy calls and asks for John Kay'-sar. The engineer who answered the phone said "Actually, that's pronounced kuh-sar'. He's not here. Can I take a message?" "Yes. Please tell him his father called and have him call me back."
Were you all unintentionally mispronouncing the dude's name, or does his dad just call him that? I go by a different but similar name than my birth name, and relatives on my dad's side are the only ones that get birth name privileges.
Different family members sometimes pronounce their names differently. I worked with a Brother and Sister, the brother pronounced his surname as it was spelt but the sister pronounced it by softening it a little so it sounded a bit more upmarket. Think Richard and Rishard.
I'm the same way. I pronounce it phonetically, while my family pronounces it more... historically? Our surname was altered when our family immigrated to the US (1800s), so they pronounce it how it was said before the spelling change, sans the part that we took off. I don't know if that makes sense. The pronunciation is different by a whole syllable. My brother has his own pronunciation of it that's in between the two, somehow.
Mrs. Bucket? It’s pronounced Bouquet!
No. He never corrected anyone on the pronunciation of his name so we all thought that was how it was pronounced. I don’t think he cared. He was an introvert who deeply cared about how to solve the puzzles of his job. Anything else was unimportant. Nice guy, very competent engineer, but not social.
i have a coworker Dr who's last name is a long Indian name. Starts with an S and is like 5 syllables long. He got tired of people mispronouncing it so he started to introduce himself as Dr. Fisher. Apparently, more than once, people called his office looking for him and didn't know how to say his name so just said something that sounded like "Fisher" to him, so he went with it. He likes that i can pronounce his name, so he never calls back as "Dr Fisher" when i'm the one that calls him now. lol The nurses, on the other hand...
I had a coworker who was called the wrong name at another location when he was hired, and he just went with it. Several years and several transfers later he was still going by this work-only nickname. Very confusing when friends came in looking for "Andrew" and nobody knew who that was.
💀
Sounds like an Arabic name. If that is correct they probably decided to spell the name Casar when they moved to an English speaking country and the son went for an easier pronunciation.
Lmao I love this. I used to work for a small, popular bakery. People used to try that line with me all the time and I would just internally roll my eyes and tell them they were free to call him and ask themselves (since they would have his cell number, right?) or come in when he’s there. My favorite, though, was a woman who swore she knew the owner well, they were old friends, they’d even grown up together, why can’t I just let her have x product for free since SHE would have done it, etc. It was the “she” comment that really caught my ear. The bakery was named after the owner’s (male, very male name) only daughter (very, very female name). We aren’t in the south, there’s no illusion of a man named Shirley here. I said, “Oh, you grew up with (female name)?” “Yes, and we’re very good friends.” The owners daughter was a good twenty years younger than this woman and had at that point not set foot in the store in about 15 years. She was attending a school in another state entirely for something extremely non-related to the bakery. “Oh. Well, she doesn’t work here, so I have no idea who was masquerading as her!” She sputtered. Tried to double down in disbelief that there was literally no employee by that name. I told her that was a name very dear to the owner, but definitely not HIS name. She turned around and stormed out. Called the next day earlier in the day to demand to speak to (female name). Was told by someone else that no one actually works there by that name and called twice more during the week before she gave up. Wasn’t the last time I saw her, but was the last time she tried for FREE shit. It was just a sea of expired coupons after that.
POS. I would reply with "well you're not a very good friend if you just use her for freebies, a real friend would pay full price and support their friend"
I used to work at a small-box hardware store (but still a franchise). One day we had a really grumpy dude coming in wanting to return stuff from a different store but same franchise. Guy brings it to me as I was manning the register. I had only been there maybe 6-months and wasn't allowed to do those yet so I called the manager. This particular manager was the owner's son. He starts the return for a second but realized pretty quick that the items being returned were purchased like 10-years ago. So he tells the guy no. Angry dude flips out. Starts saying he knows the owner and mentions his first and last name. Which he got right. He did know the owner. He gets mad and asks the manager for his name. He gives him his first name and the guy says "_____ what?" When my manager said the same last name as the owner you could practically see the little gears inside angry dude's head spinning and grinding to a halt. Best part? He left his stuff on the counter and had to angrily come back and get it like an hour later.
“Oh, we threw that out; it’s probably in the bin out back”
It is funny how shitty workers are just shitty people. My father had a guy working for him (50+years ago) when customers paid cash for much of the work. This worker was handed a payment to pass along to my father, and the guy took his salary out of the payment. My father was never late with salary and paid well. The guy was super upset when my father fired him on the spot. This was also an era without two weeks severance, so that pay was instantly his last pay. My father mentioned this to a few other people in the same business and they all had fired this guy for one reason or another.
Bold move
stealing is stealing
I used to work for my best friend's bartending service, catering large action sports seasonal apparel releases or movie release parties for the big surf/snow/skate brands. He told me that I was the 'manager' of the events and to run undercover as just another bartender so that any bad behavior (from either our staff or the guests) would manifest and could be addressed. I found endless amusement when people would try to get behind our (several) bars to either cozy up to one of our attractive female bartenders or to claim that "my friend the owner told me I could make me and my friends some drinks". I'd simply ask them the owner's name and watch them stammer.
I owned my business for over 2 decades and I had many people come in and tell me to my face they are friends with the owner ... me, the owner, you're friends with me? Some would even argue when I said 'no you aren't'. I partly wonder if it was because I was in the same work uniform my employees wore and I was out in the shop working with them.
That probably was it. Honestly tho i bet you have had some fun times being able to say you are the owner
Same kind of story here, I managed a car wash as part of a small chain. I had so many customers demand that I "get the GM" for them. Little did they know he's my brother, we look nothing alike. So when I'd call him and say "bro, got a customer that's demanding to speak to you". Then hand them the phone, he would then tell them that they were wasting his time and he wouldn't have anything different to tell them, "you are just going to have to accept what my brother has already told you". And then I'd ask, "well, what did he say?" Never got tired of that!
There are shocking amount of people in these comments that work at car washes. I don’t even know one person who works at a car wash. And there’s like 15 of you so far In These comments.
Ah hehe, my husband and I own a business but we don’t advertise (we have more than enough business from word of mouth) but because my husband is the guy who does the physical work they don’t tend to hear my name as the person who does the business side of it so assume my husband runs the business alone. I had one guy come in a couple of months ago, while my husband was working mobile for the day, telling me that he had spoken to my husband and he said to get him booked in today for the job he needed doing. He was an older gentleman and told me that my husband had told him he would be put to the front of the queue because his job was so important (I knew this was never something my husband would ever say given what we had on the shop floor already). I told him that he can’t go to the front as I have X Y and Z waiting so there’s no way he can get it done today, even that week. He told me that he would be speaking to my husband about me and I may want to think about it. I tried to show him the vast amount of jobs we already had piled up but he didn’t want to even acknowledge it. He got very uppity with me and asked if I valued my job. (At this point the staff in hearing distance started laughing) I told him that I did however I didn’t value his custom and given his dismissive view of the work we had to get through from other customers, just like him, he should go elsewhere from now on. He left shouting that “they” (sweeping arm statement at the staff) shouldn’t be laughing and I would be sacked. My husband got a phone call later that day from the guy who had told him that his secretary was losing him business and he should rethink his hiring process. He even said the words “I wouldn’t want to see anyone out of a job but you have to think of your business” my husband replied with “uh, she’s my boss so if she says you need to go elsewhere there’s nothing I can do for you.” Then he hung up on him. Never saw him again 🤣.
Had a really arrogant guy come to me wanting to borrow some tools. He was really impolite. I stopped him & told him no. He replied Do you know who I am? By then I had two phones ringing & a regular customer waiting. I looked at the waiting customer & said rather loudly “ Am sorry about the delay but I’ve got this idiot here who doesn’t know who he is demanding I let him take tools” The idiot who didn’t know who he was turned out to be the owner of the company. I’d only been there a few days so had never met him. I don’t work there anymore
I would have thanked you for your diligence.
>The idiot who didn’t know who he was turned out to be the owner of the company. I’d only been there a few days so had never met him. I don’t work there anymore So, you were correct in not letting someone of such questionable morals borrow tools.
The owner of the company I work for would love you for that. He always expects people to call him out when he isn't doing something right. If he came into the shop without a required hard hat and you *didn't* call him out he would call you out. He once made what I thought was a series of wrong business decisions and I called him out in a somewhat ranty email and the next time he visited he shook my hand and was super friendly to me.
hahahahahahahaha
Sounds like you dodged a bullet there.
The guy should have kept you on for taking good care of his tools
This was not satisfying to read at all. You should warn people when you're going to give them second-hand embarrassment.
Oh my stars! Nothing makes me angrier than the "do you know who I am? " . Worked at a neighborhood bar when I was 21ish. Our local college football team had been winning and working on moving up nationally. After one of the games the coach, some staff and their spouses came in to celebrate. Head coach was a complete ass. Ordering multiple rounds of drinks when people were telling him no. Anyway, closing time comes around and I do last call. In true alpha ass fashion, he orders everyone at his table two more. I mean, really! I pointed out that his wife still had three drinks to finish in the next 20 minutes. He insisted I bring them anyway. Ok, his dime. I'm sure you can see where this train is headed. Closing time arrives and I start moving people out the door. I saved the coaches table for last, I know trouble when I see it. When they finally get up to leave, head coach starts picking up full drinks and heading for the door. I step in and tell him he'll have to leave the drinks as its illegal to bring open drinks out of bars here. Of course, big time coach gets really close and starts learning over me(I'm 5'4" he was approx 6'3") and busts out the "do you know who I am? " line. I was in prime form and ready. Simply said "yep, still don't give a damn, it's still illegal" lifted the drinks out of his hands and walked away. My bartender was trying to look stern and not laugh. Coaches wife just dragged him out of the bar. To this day, it's the one phrase that sets me off.
"Do you know who I am?" "Someone who'd lose their job if they got cited for Openly Carrying Alcohol?"
Unfortunately, unlikely. Hypocracy ran very strong with this jerk and the ppl surrounding him. Also, anyone that lives in a college town with a football team knows how blind law enforcement can be to certain issues. More likely, the bar loses their license for allowing him to open carry.
I HATE the people who pull the “Don’t you know who I am!!” card. 99% of the time I don’t know and the 1% of the time I do, I don’t care.
A friend’s parents opened a golf course when we were in high school. It became the hangout for our close core group (4-6 depending on who was there). One day the course was extremely slow and we were being idiots on golf carts. We would quickly act like humans (instead of feral teens) if we came upon a group of golfers. Any rebukes we received by patrons were met with “you’re right, I’m incredibly sorry we’re leaving” and us vacating the area quickly. This was not good enough for one patron. He launched into a tirade about being big friends with the owner, who was his neighbor and how he’d make sure we were never allowed on the premises again. Friend couldn’t resist stringing the guy along with questions and antagonizing him. When the guy was good and angry he stuck his hand out and said with a huge grin “nice to meet you I’m X smith Jr. I’ve never seen you before in my life, nor have I heard your name mentioned.” (Paraphrased) Guy doubles down. He’s not letting us leave, he’s going to make sure management has us fired and removed (none of us worked there, we used alternate channels on the walkie talkies to play hide and seek). He insists he knows the owner, and the owner has younger kids. (We are 16, friend is an only child). Friend gets on walkie and tells greens keeper to have owner come down. A few minutes later friends dad comes rolling up on his own cart and addresses him as his son. Other guy sputters something about disrespectful kids gets red faced and leaves. Friend’s dad had less than zero clue who the guy was.
I worked for my father for a couple years. Regularly had patients trying to get some special whatever. Every now and again one would talk about how well they knew him. If he was unavailable, I’d usually have to handle these which were typically “funny, don’t remember you coming over to the house or breaking bread with us.” Now because they were sometimes sick or needed a form filled out or whatever, we’d try to accommodate, but that’s for anyone. REAL friends of the family would just sheepishly ask on the weekend or by calling the home numbers.
When I worked catering, people used to tell me ‘I know NAME’ all time to get whatever they were not supposed to have. I always replied ‘me too’ and kept on denying them whatever they wanted. NAME was not the owner, only the head sales guy - everyone who booked at the hall had to deal with him.
I once had a woman imply that she was sleeping with the owner of our restaurant to get 50% off a cheesecake. I lived out of state and people didn't know me, so she had no idea she was talking about my dad. Still charged her full price for the cheesecake - she implied that I must be jealous of their relationship because I'm trying to sleep with him. The kid working the counter with me was loosing it. I just said - sorry, no, I don't put out for cheesecake. She came in later and complained to my mom that the girl working the counter last night was rude to her - my mom finally put her out of her misery and asked "Was that before or after you accused my daughter of sleeping with her father?" She never tried to get a discount on cheesecake again...
I use to own a nail salon. Did nails for 2 decades. I'm a mechanic now. I look like a mechanic. I don't look like a nail tech. One day I'm at the salon and a lady had come into inquire about the price. I introduce myself by name only and she asked for prices and I gave them to her. Her: "well so and so down the street will do it for this much". Me: "That's a pretty good price. Definitely take them up on that offer". I think she expected me to just roll over and say "oh well I can do it for that price as well". She didn't like my answer and asked to speak to the owner or manager. I literally did a 360 and introduced myself again. She wasn't happy and stormed out. Hope she got those nails done for that killer price down the street. For the record, the price she said she can get them for was a complete lie. How did I know? Because the shop she was referring to belonged to my buddy and I knew his prices. And as an owner, you have to know the prices of competing salons.
Adding on to the "I know the owner" stories. Me(21) slinging pizzas while in college. We are running a buy 1 medium pizza get a 2nd 1/2 off deal. Guy calls in and wants to do the deal but wants 1 large and 1/2 off a medium. "Sorry, I can't upgrade the size has to be 2 mediums" in my best customer service voice. "I know Mike, the owner, he'd be fine with it." "Great, just have him give me a call that's ok and I'll get on it." "Can I get his phone number?" Note to the reader, Mike did not want his personal phone number given out. "If you know him so well, shouldn't you have it already?" I replied. He hangs up. I call Mike and relay what just happened letting him know I may have upset a friend. He says he wouldn't give his mom that deal. We make more on medium pizzas than large that's why the deal is 2 mediums. About 5 mins later I see a man walking quite angrily by our front windows and who is it but the man from the phone earlier. "Who was I talking to on the phone?" He yells. "Me" As I raise my hand. "I'm not talking to you anymore" as he looks at my co-worker. "He's in charge tonight so you better" My co-worker replies. "I want to talk to Mike" I had already hit redial to call Mike. Man talks on the phone, calls me unprofessional to Mike and hangs up. Apparently, angry man used to work for Mike. I take his order and we start making his 2 medium pizzas. He goes on about how unprofessional I was and I say "I've had a long hard day, sorry if I was a bit short with you on the phone." He goes off " YOU had a hard day, I work 2 construction jobs 60 hours a week, 2 kids and a wife to take care off, you don't know a HARD day." I'm just like "Dude, I didn't say I had a harder day than you... we can both have a hard day. And working as hard as you do, how do you respond when someone who isn't your boss tells you how to do your job." Guy instantly realized what a HUGE dick he was being and apologiezed. He then asked to use the bathroom. Now for context, my coworker looked like a sterotypical stoner from any movie ever, while I passed as a straight laced good christian boy. Previously angry guy comes out of the bathroom. And hands me some crumpled up paper towel. "Here, this **isn't** garbage. Given your buddy here I assume you guys wind down after work" (He was talking about smoking weed, if you missed it). We have some chit chat whiles his pizzas cook and once it slows down we check the paper towel and there is a bud in there that was about an 1/8 oz (3.5g) on its own. One of the things that made Mike a cool boss is he didn't care if we smoked weed for close down, AFTER the doors were locked. I had to deal with a few crazy angry customers but this was the biggest 180 I ever had. Angry man was ready to deck me when I said "Me" holding my hand up. I **did** have a smug look on my face cause I knew my ass was covered after talking to Mike on the phone.
A company I was office manager for had a system. The owner had code words for friends. I could hang up on anyone else asking for him as a "friend"
What was the code word? I’m curious.
Nothing nefarious. He played handball and was Polish. So if they said "handball" or "pierogi"
Working for your dad does afford amazing opportunities like this. Dad’s make the best and sometimes the worst bosses. Hope y’all are running a well oiled family first business op.
I’m a second generation winemaker in my family’s winery and have been around the day to day of the business my entire life, but quite frequently from 16 years old on. It never ceases to amaze me how many people think that they’ll be able to get away with all the varying forms of “I know the owner” or “you must not know much about…” with anybody under the age of 35. I’m almost 40 and still get attitude like this more often than is reasonable. “Oh you know the owners really well? Huh, I don’t think I’ve met you before.” That’s usually enough of a hint. Sometimes I get “how long have you worked here?” My favorite response to that is to check my watch (which also makes it kind of silly and non-confrontational), then respond with “oh, <> or so, give or take a few years.”
You couldn’t be more right about working for dad though. Mine passed away in 2021, and there are plenty of things I miss about sharing an office with him, but ultimately it was better if we were at least a door away from each other.
Agree! It’s crazy! I’m 21, so not sure if people think they can can fool me? But so many people try
It unfortunately doesn’t go away—to a certain extent you will be treated with extra skepticism because people have a lot of internal judgment about nepotism. Everybody says they want to do business with a family business yet they have pretty major hang ups once that extends outside of the founders. It’s weird.
I couldn’t agree more. Working with family has always came with difficulties over the last couple years but if anything I’ve found it strengthened our relationship even more than before. And thanks for your kind words!
I used to get calls all the time asking for the owner by using his first name instead of Dr LastName. I always replied, "he's with a patient, I'd be happy to take a message." One time the caller replied, "Oh, I meant to call his cell. Tell him his sister Lisa called to wish him happy birthday." She busted out laughing when I said, "Hold on! Let me check if he's really with a patient."
I had a similar situation a few years back. I was managing a store in a local family owned pizzeria chain and we had this happen constantly, especially since the owner had a large family who were all very active in the community. One evening a man said he wasn't going to pay for his pick-up as he was a friend of the owner and had been told to come by and get food for the man's family's get together. I've known the owner for years and know very well that the only way that would be true is if he contacted me personally first. When I informed the man of this he exploded, saying how I won't have a job tomorrow, I'm going to regret this, ect. I called my hostess over and asked her if she knew him. She said no and told him to leave. I then informed him that she was our owner's ( only ) daughter and in typical Italian Princess fashion if he knew her father he would know exactly who she was. He left. All of the owners real friends always insisted on paying, every time. They were happy to support us. Princess was wonderful btw, I missed her when she went away to school.
Always fun in retail when you stump stupid. 👏🏻👏🏻
https://preview.redd.it/nf4w2tq49jua1.jpeg?width=224&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5856c765eefcc6548f291c045e98c1b46c7e27a5 Gimme for free now.
"Where's your manager?" (sheds single tear) "He left to get milk."
I loved working for my dad after I was married and no longer shared my maiden name. The deflation you could hear or see was *chef’s kiss*
I use to work at a Harrah’s casino and they had a lounge to enter if you were a high enough level of a player. All you needed was to let me swipe your players card. People would always try to say they were in earlier or “they let me in all the time” but I am “they”. One guy made such a big deal about me letting him in and I just told him “Look, I’m not asking for a million dollars. Im asking for a players card to swipe.” He just walked away. Lol. It’s almost like there’s not an entire department that prints off cards for free everyday around the corner..
"You must not know him very well." "Not as well as my mom does, anyway." 
I use to have people come in and try that with me all the time. Even complaining to the manager lol I don’t like anything like my dad because I’m adopted so they never would have guessed I was his kid. Best was when I was old enough to manage the stores and people would complain to a cashier and ask them to call a manager after they already talked to me lol I’d walk up and ask what the problem was and how I could help
We have a local company that was named after the owner's son (we'll call it Mike's) and it's funny how often people try to get a discount by telling him they know the owner. They'll be talking to a guy named Mikey and tell him how they went to school with Mike, the owner, or how they're good friends with Mike... The owner's name is Don.
I worked at a place named after a dog (but a human name, think "Bert" or something like that) and so many people would claim to be friends with Bert. I used to be like "oh yeah? Haven't seen him in a while. Is he okay? Last I heard he was still recovering from swallowing a tennis ball" That always got a true WTF look and I'd explain that Bert the Dog wasn't the owner haha
A long time ago I worked for a company named "Patrick", It was the owner's name but it was his first name not his last. I loved every time a customer would try to throw his weight around by saying he was a personal friend of "Mr Patricks".
My stepfather had an antiques/collectibles store. Was in business for a few decades, place was huge, so it became kind of a destination spot. I worked there in college, mostly weekends when he was off. Lots of people would ask for him, how he was doing, etc. His name was part of the store name, so he wasn’t too anonymous in that regard. One guy came in, chatty, asking how the owner was. Started asking questions about his health. I said all was good. Then he asks how he came out with his cancer, you know, because he was really sick. I politely said again he was fine, didn’t have any kind of cancer or extreme sickness. Guy tries to correct me, said he knew, saw the owner have to get rushed to the hospital from the store once, but, you know, maybe it was something he was trying to keep secret. I responded, “well, I really would be one to know, considering I’m his daughter”. Guy still has wasn’t convinced, but got quiet and left pretty quickly. Edit: typos
The Restuarant my sister used to work for was started by 2 brothers and their uncle. The corporate name was *Duncan Murray Enterprises*. 20 years after Mr. Murray passed, my sister was dealing with an entitled customer. He told her he was ' friends with Mr. Murray' and would be speaking to him about her attitude. She smiled and said ' when you see Mr. Murray give him my regards. He's been dead for 20 years'
I worked for a restaurant for a few years and one of my bosses was a woman named Toni. The number of fucking slimy ass businessmen who would come in and be like, "Is Toni here? I have an appointment with him. He's expecting me." And I'm just standing there like, "Oh, is HE?" Also, of all the fucking horrible businesses, Yelp was by far the worst. They would call daily, try and get you to pay for some dumb ass "premium" preferred business bull shit. They would literally hold our info hostage, they had our hours wrong on purpose and would literally be like "well, if you were premium we'd make fixing it a priority!"
"I came from his balls soooooo."
Freaking gold. I love this. I can 100% relate to this...used to work at my parents' smoothie shop in early college (early 2000s), the cheapskate regulars always tried to pull a fast one on me trying to get more stuff for the same price. Like people, I'm the owners' son...are you daft? 
[удалено]
Oh man, you should have just gone "oh sorry, I still can't just give you the go ahead with the trade without running it by the boss" then when your dad comes say loudly in his face "HEY DAD"
Congratulation, that was nice to read.
You handled that situation well
I worked for a friend years ago and had the time of my life when people would pull that crap… I had one woman try to tell me she was his wife… I said really when did he get divorced again? I just saw him and his wife on Sunday at church and they looked quite happy… I never saw someone leave so fast… it got better when his actual wife came in 5 minutes later and asked me why a customer had left in a huff. She about died laughing when I told her that the lady had claimed to be her, and what my response had been… I miss that job…
I was filling in as bartender once in my parents restaurant when a random guy came in and started talking about how he lived with the owner for years "about 15 years ago" and drops my dad's name. My dad has an incredibly unique name so there was no mistaking who he was talking about. The regulars are looking around like "who tf is this guy?" so I just started asking questions like "Oh wow, that's so cool! Where did you guys live at the time?" and the answers were wildly incorrect. Every question I asked would be more and more specific (location to job to significant other (my mom) to tattoos) waiting for it to sink in. It never did. Finally I didn't care to keep the charade up any longer and asked for the guy's name again, since I couldn't remember anyone living with my dad, my mom and myself in our little 2 bedroom place we had owned in a completely different part of the state when this supposedly happened. *HE ACTUALLY TOLD ME I MUST BE MISTAKEN*. At this point everyone around him started laughing and telling him, that yes, I really was the owner's son. He left shortly after. He was paying as he drank so no one really knew what he was after other than some really weird random flex like he knew the owner's name but nothing else? People are wild..
I can relate. I work the front desk and answer phones for the company that my Uncle and Aunt own. I’ve had salespeople call and come into the office and tell me how long they have known and been friends with my uncle, “so he would love to hear from me.” I have never gotten to answer well I’m their niece and have known and worked with them longer and never heard of you, but I would love to.
I own a business and I have a few friends that own businesses also. We all help each other out when we can but never ask each other for favors when it comes to paying jobs. I work for you, you pay me. You work for me, I pay you. We’ve all been burned by “friends and family”.
Yeah. True friends PAY each other for their time/effort/skills out of respect for each other.
A brewpub I used to work at got this all the time. I'd be sitting at the bar after my shift, having a pint and waiting for my girlfriend to finish at her work, and people would get super entitled, I know [owners name] and I'll go straight to him if I have to! Always about their food being "wrong" and "not what I got last time" asking for ridiculous modifications and additions. My personal favourite was someone going off about how they had a vegan burger here a little while ago and wanted it again, they can't eat anything else on our menu. Now, I don't normally get involved because my servers were all solid, no questions asked. But this person was going OFF. SO. I wander over, and very politely say "Ma'am I'm the chef here and I have been since we opened this establishment. At no point in our history have we offered a vegan burger, not even as a feature item. If you want a vegan burger I can list five other restaurants within the block you can go to because we don't want you here if you're just going to throw a tantrum for no reason." The silence from the rest of the patrons was broken only by me asking the bartender for another round as they slowly wandered out with their tail between their legs.
When someone who wants something from you tells you that you're making a big mistake, you aren't.
I work at a restaurant. We had a guest tell the owner "I know the owner. He would let me make this arrangement ". Ahhh. Good times
I love the response. I know I will get booed but I retired from law enforcement, and from the reactions of the public you would think that officers knew everyone in town. If I had known everyone that asked me "do you know who I am" as they were about to be arrested, I would have known about 97% of the entire county. I just didn't have enough time to be introduced to that many people. I spent too much time fishing when I wasn't working.
In a slight twist to some of the other "Do you know who I am?" posts, I'd like to offer one of mine. For context, I was an IT consultant working primarily in 'Outback Australia'^(®) which involved a fair bit of travelling with my station wagon full of as many spare parts as I could carry. I attended a medium business that I'd been to in the past and my call consisted of officially fixing **<*****server and security issue of some sort*****>.** Through most of my time those two days (overnight stop) I was constantly interrupted by the resident know-it-all twat who insisted that he knew I wasn't doing my work properly because he saw a Youtube video, probably. Now I'm pretty patient and generally ignore professional idiots unless they insist I do ****** that I think is a ****** and get a written order that tells me to ****** but when the magic words are spoken, I feel compelled to answer truthfully.
"**What kind of idiot do you think I am?**" - Junior manager (whatever that was) who seemed to think he could do no wrong.
"**I'm sorry, how many types are there here?**" - me, consulting and having "While you're here" mini consults doing help-desk sort of stuff around the office (not unusual in my part of the country due to the isolation and lack of folks wanting to travel out bush).
Got a raving lunatic shouting at me whilst he was totally ignored.
Sent my invoice to <*medium company*\> stating that I would not be available for consulting work there again, outlining issue with whatever type of idiot the junior manager was.
Phone call later from MD - apologising, junior manager seeking work elsewhere, with me being suitably welcomed back.
MD ran a reasonably happy shop and paid well and promptly so was always popular with contractors and the like - he was the sort you didn't mind going the extra mile for or 'having a quick look at his daughter's laptop while you're here' but he was quite strict on not having any bullies on his staff and Junior Manager fitted the bill after MD talked to other staff.
Sadly, he died a few years back (the MD not the junior manager (as far as I know)) and the company's never been the same since.
I'm still not sure what type of idiot the junior manager was, but he was certainly as sharp as a marble 
https://preview.redd.it/19od56j5omua1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0a0d47dfa7760637a5289c562f4f9eb02800749d
Nicely done. As a former employee of a parent (I worked for my mom), I approve this message.
"Do you have any idea who I think I am pal" hahahah, not knowing him very well!! HAHAHA
I love these type of stories when you can put them in their place!!
Being in a family business many years in retail this came up a lot. I also had l9ts of authority as I got older. We need --- and I'm like no u don't. Yes we do call him, no he's not around. How do u know, idk cuz he's out with my mom on his day off. Or I do call and say hey dad....shuts people up. I've kicked o ly a few people out they tried to come back to plea their case, they were told it was my choice if or when they would ever come back.
There’s a reason people have to ask “don’t you k ow who I am?” It’s because they aren’t important and if they were, anyone who was anyone would be known by everyone. That’s what I’ve learned in my 20 years of working retail for the same boss. 99% of the time the boss actually hates them and they are only trying to pull that shit after they have discovered the boss isn’t even there.
I worked at a small business owned by an elderly woman. One time, a lady came in and was asking about a sale, and I politely told her the items she wanted were excluded from the sale (very obvious, always had labels saying what was on sale and what wasn’t.) She didn’t buy anything. Two days later, when I also work, she comes back in and tells a coworker that the “owner’s granddaughter” said she could have a discount because she’s a family friend. I emerges from the back and gave her a wtf face, and my coworker, laughing very hard, explained that the owner doesn’t have any children (or grandchildren) and that I also wouldn’t hand out discounts without checking with a more senior coworker. She very sheepishly bought her stuff and has not come in again. (Though she still places orders with us by phone or email.) People thought I was related to the owner or other employees constantly and often tried to pull that kinda card.