Imagine being in a bowling alley minding your business when another customer comes up to you and insists that you take their order.

That’s what happens in today’s story, and this woman tries to explain that she doesn’t work there, but the customer doesn’t seem to believe her.

It get’s even more intense after an actual employee shows up.

Let’s see what happens.

He made an official complaint. I don’t work there.

This happened a couple of months ago.

Backstory, I’m a youth worker and part of my job involves taking clients to a bowling alley.

I do this a few times a week, sometimes more than once a day, and usually at odd times (9am Monday bowling anyone?) so the place is basically my second office and we have a good relationship with the proprietors.

There are only two employees during the day.

During the quiet hours, they only have two staff working; one in the office/front-desk/cafe (three separate locations btw), and one behind the scenes.

It means that often there’s a bit of standing around waiting when the front of house staff member is in a different area.

Myself and the other weekday regulars (mostly senior bowlers) are used to it – it actually works well for me because part of what I’m doing there is teaching my clients social skills and coping strategies, so having to occupy yourself and be patient and polite is a good teaching moment.

Another person enters the bowling alley.

My client and I have finished bowling, and we’re sitting at the cafe eating and talking quietly when a man approaches the unattended cafe and immediately starts huffing and pacing restlessly.

I side-eye him, but keep talking to the kid.

A minute later he comes and looms over our table and says “EXCUSE ME” in an aggressive tone.

Now I’ve got my calm neutral face on but inside I’ve started gibbering because

1. I hate confrontation
2. This guy is actually massive

She didn’t want the kid with her to get upset.

The kids I work with are the zero-to-kick your freaking teeth in kind.

And they often get very protective of their workers, in a sweet but messed up kind of way.

So if this guy tries to start something, there’s a good chance there will be red and blue flashing lights in my immediate future.

“Yes?” I enquired politely, keeping one eye on the kid, one hand on my phone, and a vapid smile on my face.

“How ’bout you do your farken job?” He leaned down over the table. His breath was as unpleasant as the rest of him.

She actually was doing her job.

I was surprised, because sitting at a bowling alley eating curly fries with a 15 year old at 10am on a Tuesday WAS my job, and I was doing it well thank you very much!

I was also alarmed because said 15 year old has become very still and very tense.

Not good.

I moved back in my seat and resumed the vapid smiling. “Oh, sorry, I don’t work here. Sometimes you have to wait a minute for someone to see you and come over, but otherwise maybe try the front desk?”

She wasn’t dressed at all like the bowling alley employees.

“Well you’re dressed like you farken work ‘ere!” He leaned over more and jabbed (JABBED! HE JABBED ME!) my chest.

The staff at this bowling alley wear black trousers and violently orange polo shirts, that match the violently orange walls.

Awful.

I’m glad I don’t drink because going in there with a hangover would kill me.

I was wearing baggy hippy pants, my purple Manic Pixie Dream Tarantula tee, and a sparkly sequined backpack.

And a lanyard with the word “staff” printed on it.

She tried to explain the misunderstanding.

I held up the company ID card at the end of the lanyard, which identified me as an employee of the non-profit I work for.

“No, sorry, I work for [company name]. We’re customers here. Now if you don’t mind, you’re being very rude.” [me, trying to role model, terrified]

I smiled my best ‘everything is fine’ smile to the kid eyeing the cutlery bucket.

“Don’t talk to me like that you little jerk! I want 3 beers and some farken wings.” He actually smacked the table with his hand.

I looked over to the main area. Oh goody, he has friends.

This isn’t looking good.

I leaned back as far as I could (the wall was behind me, tables either side, and him blocking my exit).

The kid stood up.

Bad.

Staff member spotted us and started rushing over.

Good.

The dude wouldn’t back off.

We had a time for a few rounds of “I want to speak to your manager” “I don’t work here though, please let me out” before the actual manager of the bowling alley reached us.

He pulled the guy away so I could get up, but dude wants to speak to my manager and won’t let up.

Manager says “I am the manager here”.

Dude: “You’re her manager?”

Manager:”…no, she doesn’t work here…”

Dude, to me: “I want to speak to your manager NOW”

She decided to let him.

At this point I figured, why not, handed him one of our company business cards, and said “Ask for [my manager’s name]”.

He turned away to dial the number and I grabbed the kid and whispered “now watch him make a jerk of himself”.

Kid laughs and relaxes a bit (thank goodness), and the three of us stand in a row and watch this jerk call my actual manager and complain that I wouldn’t serve him beer and chicken wings.

My manager actually took the complaint on an official form and made me sign it when I got back to the office.

Meanwhile, dude is banned, the bowling alley gave the kid a huge pile of free arcade tokens in apology, and I was able to get him to give me back the knife he stole before I dropped him home.

Wins all round.

That was pretty tense for awhile, but I like the way it worked out.

I was worried the kid was going to do something bad, but it actually ended up being a good teaching moment for him of how not to behave.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

I went bowling during P.E. too.

She really did do a good job keeping her cool.

This person is thankful for the job she does.

Another person who volunteers with young adults weighs in.

It would’ve been hard to stay that calm.

Why are people so entitled?

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.