Unfiltered Story #67036

(This is a story I share with people when they have a bad customer. The event occurred in 2010, it should be noted that I have been working for this company for three years by this point)

Me: Hi, what can I do for you?

Grandmother: Two children to [12A film].

Me: (to the girls) Could you girls tell me your dates of birth please?

Girl: 1999!

Me: I’m sorry ma’am, but they cannot go in alone, she can’t be older than 11 and must be 12 to go in unaccompanied by someone over 18.

Grandmother: But she’s 12.

Me: She’s just told me she was born in 1999, so she can’t be older than 11.

Grandmother: She started high school this year, of course she is 12.

Me: Ma’am, with all due respect I started secondary school at 11 and turned 12 the following summer.

Grandmother: I am a teacher! How dare you contradict me! You need to learn how to treat your customers young lady! I demand to see your manager!

(I call the manager down, by now, she’s accusing me of having an attitude problem, but I go to serve others while my manager takes her to another till on the stand, ringing her up for a U rated film)

Grandmother: You need to teach your staff to serve properly, the customer is always right!

Manager: I’m sorry ma’am, but that’s not always true.

(Later, I see the manager again and we talk about it)

Me: You know, I really was fighting the urge to tell her my mother is a maths teacher.

(I share this story over dinner a while later, my mother, who teaches Maths and engineering at a local sixth form college, commented that this woman clearly never noted her students’ dates of birth)