I recently got to nuke a former manager’s chances at my new job.

I used to work at a now-defunct bookstore chain, and a new manager was transferred into ours. All the employees believed that she was intentionally transferred there to tank our (previously well-performing) store so corporate could justify closing that location down. 

[Manager] drove away half the old-timers who had been there for years and knew what they were doing. She often took several hour-long lunch breaks. In an eight-hour shift, her record was four breaks. She also often left the store when there were no other managers on shift.

Three-quarters of our cafe staff quit (including me) after [Manager] fired the cafe manager over a minor incident. We all went in at the same time to submit our two-week resignation notice, and she swept everything off her desk in a rage. The result was a very heavy stapler hitting the wall hard enough to leave a dent. She had a screaming meltdown at all of us.

Immediately, our two-week notice became “effective immediately,” and we all gathered our things, punched out, and left. The entire time, we were serenaded by [Manager] growing increasingly more vile and personal in her freak-out.

A year or two later, I worked as an assistant manager for a competing chain.

General Manager: “By any chance did you work with [Manager] at [Former Location]? She’s applying for a management position with our company.”

I explained everything above, and then I added:

Me: “If you bring her on board, you will have my immediate resignation on your desk before the end of the day.”

Another coworker who had worked for her a few years before me at another location said the same.

Thankfully, the general manager took us seriously, and [Manager] was not brought on board. The sad part is that with people like her, you don’t even have to exaggerate; just telling the truth is enough to make any smart employer toss their resume.

I am working the express register. Our express lane moves around the store, so the signs indicating it as such are not permanent. Each cashier also has a physical “lane open” sign that we carry around with us to place on a hook over the register. It’s all very charmingly old-school and analog.

A customer moves the “10 Items Or Fewer” sign out of the way to push two full carts up to my register.

Me: “Ma’am, this is the express lane. Only ten items or fewer.”

Customer: “I don’t see a sign.”

Me: “You just moved it out of the way.”

Customer: “Well, I still don’t see it.”

She continues to place her items on the belt, ignoring my further polite attempts to redirect her to the correct lane.

Realizing you can’t reason with such people, I turn off my register, pick up the express lane sign and the “lane open” sign, and walk over to the next lane, which is closed. Since my register was card payment only, I am confident in saying this to the customers who were stuck in line behind the entitled customer:

Me: “This lane is now the express lane! All customers with ten items or fewer in the original express lane line, please move over here.”

Of course, the entitled customer can’t move over fast enough since she’s already unloaded half of her items and the other customers only have their baskets.

Customer: “Hey! I’m unloading here! You can’t just close the lane!”

Me: “I’m afraid I am working the express lane, ma’am, and that is now this lane. The lane you’re on is currently closed.”

Customer: “Look! This lane is open! Serve me!”

I look the lane over quickly and then look back at her.

Me: “I don’t see a sign.” 

She fumed, but I ignored her to check out the customers who actually did follow the rules. She gathered up her items and angrily got in one of the correct lanes.

As with most Asian families, my family believes that having a white-collar job is above anything. This is very evident with a couple of relatives who force their children to go to medical school. Any career other than a doctor is a sin in their eyes.

My mother was open-minded about my choice of career. The only condition she had was that I should have at least a bachelor’s degree before getting a job. So, I started working in the IT industry after college graduation. I had decent pay, I was able to learn and experiment at my own pace, and I even got an opportunity to work abroad. I was happy with my career.

Things weren’t easy at first, as with all jobs. I struggled to settle down with the workload and the new city. I reached out to my family to help me find a job near my home. My entitled relatives got hold of this piece of news during a family gathering.

Instead of helping me out, they scoffed. My aunt told my younger cousins:

Aunt: “See, this is why you shouldn’t be an engineer. You’re going to struggle and end up with nothing. After all, a doctor is the most respectable job in society.”

I blinked at her. I was shocked that she could just insult my career in front of everyone. I was also disgusted at her because she’s a teacher and I expected her to know better. I didn’t want to make a scene, so I didn’t talk back. But someone else did: my mother.

My mother is a single parent. She was a brilliant student at school and dreamt of being a teacher. But that was all gone when she was married off. She regretted that when she was divorced and struggled to live. She wanted her daughters not to go through the same thing. She sold her jewellery and spent her savings to get us a decent education so that we could get jobs. She was furious when someone insulted our hard work.

She didn’t hold back her anger as she thundered:

Mother: “Are you out of your d*** mind, [Aunt]? You’re a teacher! Can’t you show a bit of dignity when you speak? Don’t you have common sense to think that your daughter couldn’t work in a hospital with electricity, running water, machines, or software if there were no engineers? Even a janitor at the hospital has their value. If you ever insult my daughter or her choices again, you will see the worst of me!”

The room was silent as everyone watched my aunt process what was going on. Nobody had ever seen my mother that mad.

But it did a good thing. [Aunt] never raised a word about her children’s careers or mine after that. Also, two of my cousins got into the engineering stream following the incident!

I worked in an insurance company call centre to help pay my way through university about ten years ago, and although I was part-time, I was recognised for having a good rapport and became a bit of an example of how to interact with customers due to being considered a bit of a chameleon.

I could be speaking with the financial director of an oil and gas company with an enormous liability risk and have the same effective rapport with them as I might with a farmer wanting the minimum cover possible for a forty-year-old truck that wouldn’t leave their farm, who was haggling and having a laugh with me.

Calls were monitored for training and compliance on a regular basis, so my calls were picked up by the compliance team for being of high quality. They asked if I would mind if they picked a few of my calls to demonstrate to new staff the different ways that I would mirror each customer’s expressions and portray a likeness to gain trust, making the calls easier, making the customers more relaxed about answering questions, and ultimately making it less of a sale and more of a consultation.

I agreed, and the compliance team went to work, selected quite a few calls, and then arranged for us to all sit in a room to listen to them.

They found quite a few examples of objection handling, calming irate customers, upselling, and professional yet friendly rapport. These were all their words. (And despite how I have described myself so far, I didn’t realise that this was a marketable skill or anything at that point; I was just being me and trying to do a good job, so I found it really embarrassing to listen to.)

They put together all of the audio clips and presented them to the training team to assess. They liked the examples, they put them to the test, and the feedback was great.

They then asked if I would mind doing a live call with a customer for the new staff to listen in on and see how I reacted off-the-cuff. Again, I agreed, and we arranged to have the audio of the call played in the training room, along with a mirror of my screen so that they could see what I was doing. (This is slightly important as it changed the process.)

My first call came in. It was a plumber looking to change his van on his policy. Simple. I made a few jokes, made sure everything was accurate, and got all of the legal and regulatory jargon completed. Happy customer.

The next call was from an estate owner who was looking to renew her estate insurance. It was a very serious call, strictly professional, and with very little rapport as she was giving one-word responses and everything was “taking too long”. It was a good example of when to just do exactly what the customer was looking for and no more. However, with a room full of new staff and her bank account likely having a few zeros before the decimal, I opted to use our secure telephone payment system rather than have her read out the card details to me over the phone and be heard in the other room whilst also being recorded on the call.

Me: “Okay, that will be [total]. And if you have your card there just now, I will talk you through our secure telephone payment system.”

Customer: “Yes, I do, as long as it doesn’t take long.”

Me: “No, no, if done correctly, your payment will be made and your policy will be renewed in the next thirty seconds. I am now going to start the telephone payment process. When I tell you to, type in the long card number on your phone, followed by the pound key; that will then populate my screen with your card details censored out.”

Customer: “Okay, bear with me.” *Pauses* “Done.”

Me: “I don’t think that has worked. Can you try that again?”

Customer: “I thought you said this would be quick. Okay, doing it now.”

Me: “Oh, I don’t think that has worked again. Can I just confirm that you are pressing the pound key?”

Customer: “Yes, I am hitting the bloody pound key. I don’t have time for this terrible system. If it doesn’t work this time, I won’t be doing it a fourth.”

Me: “I’m really sorry about this, I am not sure what is going wrong. But if it doesn’t work this time, I can arrange to call you at a better time to take the payme—”

Customer: *Interrupting* “Done.”

Me: “I’m sorry, it hasn’t worked this time, either.”

Customer: “Oh, for God’s sake. This is absolutely ridiculous. All I want to do is renew my policy. It really shouldn’t be this difficult. We decided to stay with you because it is a good policy, but there is obviously a reason why you are working in a call centre if you can’t take a bloody payment.”

Me: “I’m really sorry about the trouble here. I don’t understand what is going wrong, as everything looks correct on our side. There may be an issue with your phone connecting to our system. Could we possibly try your landline?”

Customer: “I am on my landline. Do you think because my mobile doesn’t have great signal, that is the issue?”

Me: “Sorry, what do you mean? Are you on your landline or mobile?”

Customer: “What don’t you understand? I am speaking to you on the landline.”

Me: “Okay, but you asked if your mobile not having signal could be the issue?”

Customer: “Yes, I am speaking with you on my landline. My mobile phone isn’t doing anything when I press pound.”

Me: *Blurting out* “Sorry, just to check, are you speaking to me on your landline and putting your card number into your mobile phone?”

Customer: *Condescendingly* “Yes! Now we are getting somewhere.”

Me: *Trying not to laugh* “I am… Ahem… I think I have… Ahem… Found the issue. You see… Ahem… You need to type your card number into the phone connected to the call — not just a random phone.”

Customer: “It’s not just a random phone; it’s my phone… Oh.”

Me: *Getting the giggles properly this time* “I am so sorry. I don’t know why I am laughing. You just caught me off guard with that one.”

She burst out laughing, too.

Customer: “Oh, my God, I am such an idiot.”

The two of us laughed uncontrollably for about a minute. I finally moved us along, tears running down my face.

Me: “Sorry, I know you were in a rush. Shall we try this again?”

In proper hysterics and not able to speak, the customer started typing in her card number properly this time.

Customer: “Done. Hopefully, that works.”

The two of us kept ohhing and ahhing from the aches of laughing so much.

Me: “Right. Now I just need you to put in the three-digit security code from your card and push pound again.”

There was silence, and then we both hit hysterics again.

There were then another five minutes of on-and-off giggling before she finally thanked me for my patience and for giving her a much-needed laugh.

I came off the phone sweating and aching with pains in my cheeks and ribs, walked into the training room, and got a standing ovation. Apparently, every single person in there was in hysterics with us the entire time.

I heard recently that the call is still used sometimes and is named “[My Name] Thawing The Ice Queen Live.”

Via the cameras, I spot a customer taking a pair of sunglasses and sneaking them into their handbag. I wait at the checkouts to give them the benefit of the doubt, but sadly, they walk straight through without paying.

Me: “Ma’am, can I see what you have in your bag, please?”

Customer: “I have social anxiety!”

Me: “I understand. I just need to quickly look in your bag.”

Customer: “No! Your behavior is very triggering for me right now! You’re bringing up a lot of trauma!”

Me: “That’s not my intention, ma’am. I just need to quickly look in your bag.” 

Customer: “Why are you targeting me? Is it because I’m neurodivergent? Oh, my God, are you being ableist right now? So sad. You should do better.”

Me: “Ma’am, I am not trying to do anything else — literally anything else — other than look in your bag.” 

Customer: “Don’t call me ‘ma’am’! I’m non-binary! That’s offensive! Your language is very triggering!”

Me: “I apologize. But I still need to check your bag.” 

Customer: “But why?”

Me: “To be perfectly honest, because our camera caught you putting a pair of unpaid-for sunglasses into your bag, and I need to confiscate them.”

Customer: “Oh, my God! You were watching me?! Are you a creep? Is [Store] run by perverts?!”

Me: “Ma’am, please, just—”

Customer: “I’m non-binary!“

Me: “…Please just return the sunglasses. You’re lucky I am not calling the police and that I am simply asking for them back. Give them back, and we can both just walk away from this conversation.”

Customer: “You want to call the police?! You want them to shoot me?! I’m one-sixteenth Native, and they shoot people like me! Why are you being so racist?!”

Me: “Okay, I am done with you.” 

I motioned the security guys over, who kept them cornered until the police arrived. The police managed to get them to take the stolen sunglasses out of their bag — after the same run-around of social anxiety, trauma, ableism accusations, misgendering accusations, pervert accusations, and finally, racism accusations, in the exact same order. And then, the police escorted them out, not because they had stolen from us, but because we could all smell the alcohol on them and they had driven here.