Previously, I told you about my worst customer ever and how this crazy women screamed at me for fifteen minutes, during the retail Christmas rush, for not removing the fashion magazines from the magazine rack in the bookstore.
I told you how the next day our District Manager was visiting our store. I told both her, and our store Manager, what had happened the previous night with The Wrath of God. Our District Manager said “Don’t worry about it. You acted appropriately and handled the situation.”
I figured that was the end of things. But wait, as they say, there is more to the story.
A few days later, our District Manager came back to our store, specifically to talk to me.
It turns out that The Wrath Of God, not having gotten any satisfaction because I wouldn’t remove the fashion magazines from the magazine rack at the front of the store, went to the Mall Office. She spent 45 minutes ranting at the mall Manager.
After The Wrath Of God left, the mall Manager got on the phone and spent 45 minutes ranting at my District Manager, trying to find out why this crazy woman was in their office ranting at them. This did not go over well with our District Manager.
The upshot of all this is my District Manager came in the store, told me I was clearly in the wrong for not acquiescing to the customer’s demands, and that if I ever did anything like that again I was going to be fired.
Way to back your employees, District Manager.
I was also told I had to write a letter of apology to The Wrath Of God. I flat out refused to do so. The Wrath Of God was in the wrong, and probably not in her right mind, and there was no way I was going to write a letter of apology to her.
Ultimately I won that battle, but it was a Pyhrric victory. My Manager ending up writing the letter of apology, and I pretty much killed any career advancement within Waldenbooks.
I did end up leaving Waldenbooks several months later and went to work at another bookstore. That store had its own problems but that’s a tale for another time.
Corporations don’t care about you, no matter what they may say. You are just a replaceable cog in a money-making machine, and if you aren’t making money for the company, you are worthless. A hard learned lesson from the School of Hard Knocks. Learn from my mistakes, dear reader.
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