I’m going through the Taco Bell drive-through and handed them my American Express Hilton Honors card to pay. Basically, the more I use it, the more hotel points I get.

Employee: *Sincerely.* “Are you the owner of Hilton Hotels?”

Me: *Taken aback.* “No.”

Employee: “Are you in the family?”

Naïve me is thinking she knew what kind of card it was referring to the ‘Hilton honors family’, and that maybe she was a member too.

Me: “Yeah.”

Employee: “Woooow! REALLY? Is Paris, like, your sister?!”

So that’s how my local Taco Bell now thinks that I am an heir to the Hilton family.

I used to work for a cheap custom frame company that could custom-frame your poster in about five minutes, if you selected one of our in-stock frames.  We called ourselves the McDonald’s of framing.

Our manager was the most irresponsible, narcissistic personality I’ve ever met, and the source of so many “can you believe it?” moments that I almost don’t know where to start.

One time, a very nice couple special-ordered a frame we didn’t normally carry, and when we got their order, we framed their art and called them to pick it up. They came, and loved the job we did with it, but decided they wanted to change the “glass” (plexiglass) from clear to non-glare. They paid the difference in price and agreed to come back in an hour after they had eaten some lunch.

So far, so good, right?

Sometime during that hour, my manager, who wasn’t even on the schedule for that day, stopped in because she needed to finish a frame job for one of her friends. She realized she’d forgotten to special order her friend’s frame, so she took the frame off the art from the nice couple we talked about earlier, cut it down to size, and framed her friend’s art.

She didn’t tell anyone she had done this.

She left my coworker to discover the couple’s art, completely disassembled, frame nowhere to be found. The framed art they’d seen was completely framed less than an hour before.

Does it surprise you to learn that they were p***ed off? They demanded to speak with the store manager and looked not a little lost when it was explained that the manager was the one who had done this to them.

My mother used to work at a craft store (they sell yarn, cross-stitch supplies, and things like that). A guy came in one day with a grill piece from a BBQ, the part you put the food on.

Customer: “I want a refund.”

My Mom: “Sir, this is a craft store.”

Customer: “And I want a refund!”

My Mom: “We don’t sell BBQs… because it’s a craft store. You must have got mixed up about what store you’re at.”

This store is all by itself, a few miles away from any other store, but whatever, my mother was trying not to embarrass the guy.

Customer: “No! I got this god-d*** grill at this god-d*** store, and you’re going to do a god-d*** return for it even if I have to stand at your god-d*** cash register and yell at you all god-d*** day!”

My mother’s manager comes out from all the shouting, and within a single instance of being shouted at by the customer, collapses like a house of cards.

Manager: “Apologies for my associate’s uncooperative behavior. How much was the grill?”

Customer: “Sixty bucks!”

The manager takes sixty in hard cash from the checkout drawer, hands it to him, and lets him leave.

My Mom: “You know that was a BBQ grill, right?”

Manager: “We are not in the business of alienating possible future customers!”

My Mom: “Awesome! So if my friends and I need free money, I’ll tell them all to come to our store, and the idiotic manager will just give you cash for any old s*** from your garage, and give the minimum-wage employee crap for not being more customer service oriented towards… how did you say it… possible future customers!”

Manager: “You don’t get to talk to your own manager that way!”

My Mom: “You’re right, but you’re not my manager, because I quit!”

My mom walked out right there and then. That manager had the gall to call my mom and try to write her up for her drawer being sixty short! And THEN he held off on giving my mom her final paycheck in the hopes she would come around and come back to the store (the store had trouble retaining employees – I wonder why?) 

About three weeks later, my mom got a call from some corporate big shot from the store, explaining that her manager had been fired, and if she would like to come back to work for them, she’d be welcome. He also added:

Corporate Big Shot: “Also, since that manager has gone, can you please stop sending all your friends to get refunds on items we don’t sell? It’s getting quite expensive…”

My mom did not go back to work there, but she did stop sending her friends with all their garage s***.

Coworker: *Out of nowhere, to the entire office, but directly at no one.* “Do you think cats think in meows?”

Manager: “They’re called shower thoughts for a reason, Brian…”

It’s annual review time at our company. This year, I know it’s going to be a hassle because my manager is new; my previous manager got a new job and left the company in August, and they didn’t replace her until mid-September. 

Our team is technically two teams in a trench coat, and my manager has been focusing on learning the other half of the team’s work because it’s the one that makes money, and therefore what her boss told her to focus on. She has said, repeatedly, that she’s not worried about our half of the team because I’ve been the lead for almost ten years now, and I know how to keep it running while she gets up to speed on the other half, then she’ll come learn our job. 

[Manager] has been asking me for two days to give her a list of “projects and tasks outside the scope of [team]” that I’ve done over the last year. Due to English’s lack of distinction between the singular and plural “you”, I initially sent her two lists of projects and/or tasks that the team did before she finally specified, she wanted things that I, personally, myself did outside my duties and goals. I sent her a couple of little things I’ve done that technically aren’t my job.

She calls me over to her desk. We have this entire conversation in a whisper.

Manager: “I’m trying to do your annual reports. I want to give both you and [other lead] ‘Exceeds Expectations’, but I have to justify it. [AVP] says she asked me for this a while ago, and I really don’t remember that; that’s on me, but I just haven’t been here long enough to know.”

Me: “I… I really don’t know what I’ve done. I mean, my job description—”

Manager: “Says ‘any other tasks requested by managers or attorneys’, yeah, I know. The thing is, they’re not going to accept ‘answering questions’, that’s literally part of your job… and this thing about helping [other team] with their scanners, they’ll just say, you shouldn’t be doing that, they should call IT…”

Me: “I know. The thing is, I did do a lot more, but [AVP] outright told [previous manager] I wasn’t allowed to because I was overstepping.”

Manager: “I know. It’s because you and [other lead] were basically running your teams. I’ll be honest, I don’t actually know what [previous manager] did.”

Me: “A lot of meetings, basically.”

Manager: “Yeah. Just…” *Frustrated sigh.* “You both deserve this. You both do so much. You don’t need me. You HAVE been running this team. [Other lead] HAS been running that team. Like, what am I even doing here?”

Me: “You’re doing a lot.”

Manager: “I don’t feel like it. And [AVP] actually looked me square in the face and said, ‘If they’re both exceeding expectations, why did we bother hiring you instead of promoting them to the management position?'”

Me: “What?!”

Manager: “Yeah.”

I stare at her for several seconds, then say the only thing that comes to mind.

Me: “We both applied.”

Manager: “You what? For what?”

Me: “For this position. BOTH of us applied. [Other lead] didn’t even get an interview; HR didn’t even bother to call him. And [AVP] called me into the office and told me point-blank she wasn’t going to bother interviewing me because I ‘don’t know how to do anything but the mail’. Direct quote.”

Manager: “[My Name], I am so sorry. I didn’t know.”

Me: “No, it’s not your fault at all. But [AVP] just lied to your face.”