Retail employees deal with all kinds of entitled customers, but what happens when the “employee” doesn’t actually work there?

A man in the wrong shirt learned the hard way that some people won’t take “I don’t work here” for an answer.

You’ll want to read on for this one!

She wanted to speak to my manager, so I called the person who manages my life.

Yesterday, I was in Canadian Tire.

For all of you non-Canadians, it’s like a mix between a Wal-Mart, a Home Depot, a Bass Pro Shops, and an auto shop.

His choice of attire would soon become an important detail in the story.

I was wearing jeans and an old red polo shirt.

The employees there wear black pants and a red polo with a triangle and maple leaf logo on the chest.

I was getting wipers for my car because mine weren’t clearing the rain off my window anymore.

It’s a riveting story.

They have this touch screen thing where you select the vehicle, and it tells you the specific sizes you need for each wiper and brand.

I was fiddling with the screen, going through the different sizes and makes of wipers, and reading reviews on each one.

That’s when he heard it.

I heard someone behind me say, “Excuse me.”

I thought she wanted to use the screen to figure out what wiper to buy, so I moved to the section with the wiper brand I was interested in and started looking for the size I needed.

My assumption was wrong.

This customer had set her sights on him and she wasn’t giving up so easily.

She followed me to where I was now poking through the very badly stocked wipers.

From now on, I’ll be ME, and she’ll be DC.

DC: “Why did you walk away from me? That’s very rude.”

I didn’t even know she was talking to me at this point, so I kept looking at wipers.

DC: “This is unbelievable! I’m talking to you.”

Finally, he put two and two together.

I finally clicked in that I was the one she was talking to.

I stupidly turned to face her while gripping a 28-inch wiper like a toddler holds a crayon.

ME: “You talking to me?”

DC: “Yeah, you. I need to know what size wiper to get for my Mercedes.”

He was having none of her rude attitude.

ME: “That’s what the screen is for,” I said, gesturing toward it with the wiper in my hand. Then I went back to searching for the second elusive 28-incher.

DC: “You are terrible at your job. This isn’t proper customer service,” she said, all huffy.

ME: “Umm, I don’t work here. I’m gonna go back to this now.”

DC: “I want to speak to your manager right now! This isn’t how you treat customers. Ignoring me and refusing to help me is disgraceful.”

She still insisted on following him around, desperately trying to locate a manager.

At this point, she kind of stomped off — but only a few aisles away.

The aisles in the automotive department aren’t full-height ones; they’re chest-height, so you can see right across the whole department.

She just did a few laps around the aisles near me, looking all over for a manager but not going far.

I think she didn’t want to lose sight of me.

He tries once again to level with her, but everything’s going in one ear and out the other.

ME: “Still don’t work here. Sooo… it’s going to be hard to find that manager… and you’re not listening to me… okay…”

I trailed off as she obviously didn’t care at all and went back to my wipers.

While she was on her little walk, I found my wiper and started heading toward the checkouts.

But finally she did something he just couldn’t ignore.

She chased me down and got in front of me, trying to stop my escape before a manager arrived.

DC: “No! You’re not allowed to leave until I speak to your manager about you!”

I’d had enough of this buffoon. I pulled out my phone and called my manager.

Although, it wasn’t who this rude customer thought.

I’m self-employed, so I called the one person in my life who could reasonably be called my manager — my wife, henceforth referred to as BOSS.

ME: “I’ll call her for you. You aren’t going to be able to find her here.”

The customer took great joy in the thought of him getting busted right in front of her.

I put it on speakerphone so the crazy lady could hear.

As the phone rang, she gave me this superior smirk like I was about to get my butt chewed out.

ME: “Hey, how’s the trip going?” (She was on a business trip.)

BOSS: “Great! Been having some excellent meetings with the L3s (VP-level people). What’s up?”

ME: “Picking up some wipers.”

BOSS: “And you’re so jazzed about them that you needed to call me in the middle of the day?”

The customer was getting impatient, so he cut to the chase.

DC was getting really frustrated at this point.

I was obviously not getting to the “me getting fired” part fast enough for her.

ME: “Nope. Got a lady here at Canadian Tire who wants to talk to my manager. I kind of thought you’re the closest thing to that. Want to talk to her?”

BOSS: “What the hell, [ME]?! Am I on speakerphone?”

ME: “Oh yeah, the crazy lady can hear you. How else is she supposed to talk to my manager? Say hi to the crazy lady.”

Finally, the customer started to realize he had been telling the truth.

DC was finally starting to realize that I didn’t have a store logo on my shirt and that maybe I wasn’t an employee.

BOSS: “You’re such a jerk. I’m sorry, ma’am. My husband is an idiot. But he doesn’t work there.”

I started to laugh at this point.

He decides to make one last dig at the customer before hanging up.

ME: “It’s cool, hun. She seems kind of slow or something. She probably doesn’t realize I’m laughing at her.”

DC made some kind of appalled noise from the back of her throat and stalked off.

I managed to get my wipers and leave the store after that without any further incident.

My wife thinks I was mean to her. I say I was fighting stupidity with stupidity.

He finally showed this stubborn customer he wasn’t the employee she was looking for.

Let’s see what Reddit had to say.

Sometimes the manager is right in front of your eyes!

This commenter definitely got a kick out of the story.

This user thinks the punishment pretty much fit the crime here.

Sometimes the best response to nonsense is some well-placed absurdity.

In the end, he got his wipers and she got her reality check.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.