Manager Override Override

I feel like anyone who has ever worked retail can relate to this. You go to the job, and they tell you all the rules and things you can and can’t do. Until a customer gets upset and gets a manager, and then the manager comes over like “oh, how could you not allow this sweet lady to do this?” and uses their manager override to allow the customer to do whatever they want. Making them look like the hero and you look like the angry employee who didn’t let them do what they wanted.

Back when I worked retail, I had this happen countless times.

Me: “This meal doesn’t come with cornbread, that’ll be an extra dollar fifty.”

The manager comes over and gives them cornbread.

Me: “The discount you are talking about was for a sale that ended two days ago, sorry.”

They get angry at you, and the manager comes over and gives them the discount anyway.

I got super fed up with this and kept track of EVERYTHING a manager let happen. If a manager one time let a customer buy this for this amount of money. Every single time a customer asked about it, I would call the manager over and get him to override it.

The moment a customer came in and asked for something clearly against policy, I would just call that manager over and make him override and say, “he does this all the time” to the customer. 

It happened so often that he had a meeting and got reprimanded by corporate. He mentioned me by name as the one who does it, and when questioned, I told them the same thing.

Me: “He did it all the time before, and I just assumed that he, as the manager, was doing the right thing.”

He wasn’t fired or anything, but he stopped folding in front of customers and making me look like the jerk. 

I’ll never understand why managers never back up their employees on store policy.