Not Suit-ed To Management

At only eighteen years old, I managed to land a job at a bank. My grandmother was so proud of me that she bought me three full three-piece suits with matching ties and dress shoes. It turned out to be a slight bit of an overdress; my coworkers would joke that I was dressed better than the manager, while the manager himself once joked to a customer, “Our bank president here can explain it further if you have any questions.”

It got even funnier when I would go to a mall after work and someone would come up to me and ask, “Excuse me. Are you the manager?”

It stopped being funny when I was in a restaurant waiting for my order to be prepared and suddenly a child in a nearby restroom began screaming. A man got directly nose-to-nose in my face and screamed:

Man: “Do you not hear my daughter screaming in your f****** bathroom stall?! And you’re just standing there like a g**d*** clueless fool?! Go unlock it and get her out of there!”

A kid nearby yelled:

Kid: “Dad! That’s not the manager! I just watched him order something!”

And the manager behind the counter said:

Manager: “Is there a problem here?”

As the man went over and explained that his daughter had locked herself in a stall and couldn’t open it, I couldn’t help but notice how deep red his face was.

To his credit, though, while I was eating my meal, he came over to my table with his hand extended, admitted to being “totally out of line and acting like a complete jacka**,” and apologized to me while offering to pay for my order. I politely declined the offer but accepted the apology.

But from then on, I’d leave the jacket part of my suits at home and would take my tie off when I was inside a business.