More often than ideal, new managers refuse to listen to people who have been there longer than them.

In this case, a new manager had to learn the hard way that following the rules too strictly would backfire.

Let’s read the story.

I created a “hostile work environment”

I used to be a server at a major restaurant chain that you see in every mall in the US, and my particular location just happened to be in one of the wealthier parts of the country.

Because of that, a large percentage of the clientele wanted their dishes a certain way.

There were some oddball regulars (like the one lady who wanted a Caesar salad with no dressing but 3 whole lemons to squeeze on the lettuce).

99% of the time though, they’d ask for rigatoni instead of penne in a dish, or red onion instead of yellow on a burger, or something of that nature.

Sounds normal enough, so far. But this would pose an issue.

The thing about this chain, though, is that technically you’re supposed to charge them for substitutions like that.

So, for instance, if a guest wanted a different kind of dressing on a salad, it might be a 10 cent charge.

Or if they wanted Swiss instead of cheddar on their burger, it would be like a 15 cent charge.

So the prices didn’t vary much.

As a server you were supposed to know all the upcharges, but because there were like 26 pages to the menu it was daunting enough to just memorize what we even had.

But obviously, no one ever charged for these things because what’s an extra 15 cents on a $200 tab, especially when you’re in the weeds and you’re pretty sure the host stand wants you to have a mental breakdown.

It was complicated.

Not only that, but because rich people tend to be the stingiest people you’ll ever meet, we would never charge them because they would instantly complain if you did.

And the restaurant’s policy was essentially “the customer is always right” no matter how wrong they were.

We even had regular grifters that would order the “wrong thing” and then complain and get an entire free meal EVERY FREAKING TIME.

Wow. But then, one day, things escalated.

So one normal day I’m serving a table and someone asks for goat cheese on their salad instead of feta, which is supposed to be one of those 10 cent changes.

I obviously don’t add the upcharge, just like I hadn’t for any of the other countless times in over 3 years, and like 15 minutes later the new manager (I’ll just call him Brad) comes along and pretty much chews me out over it.

Keep in mind, this is Brad’s 2nd day on the job and he came from the other side of the country to replace our beloved former manager who left to manage her own restaurant.

He wasn’t nice about it at all, nor was he willing to listen to the seasoned employees.

Dude hadn’t even introduced himself to me and he comes out of nowhere to yell at me for not doing the upcharge.

I explained to him why I didn’t, and how it was pretty much a directive from the general manager not to do upcharges because of the 99% chance that a complaint and free meal would follow.

But Brad just blah blah blahs some more and tells me I need to add the upcharges or I’d get written up.

He complies and it backfires, of course.

So when the next table (a party of seven that had a $500ish bill) changes literally every dish, I added the upcharges (which totaled like, $1 at most).

When I dropped the check they freaked out over all the upcharges (even though I informed them of the charges when they ordered, the itemized receipt made it look so much more severe) and they demanded to speak to the manager.

It became a Karen’s playground.

Instead of getting any of the other managers I had worked with for years, I grabbed Brad and made him deal with them.

He ended up having to comp all $500ish because he insisted I charge an extra dollar for all the substitutions.

But did he learn his lesson? Nope!

It took him a while to realize that wasn’t going to work.

So I did it over and over again to the detriment of my bank account (most people still tipped me though, so that was nice) and I got to watch tables routinely chew him out over the charges.

This continued for a month or so until he finally relented, and not too long after I was suspiciously fired for “creating a hostile work environment”….

While on vacation.

He tried to warn him.

Too bad he preferred to stick with arbitrary rules – he was the one who created a “hostile work environment”.

Let’s see what Reddit has to say about this.

This reader sounds baffled.

Not fair.

This commenter shares their opinion.

This person can’t believe this is true.

Another reader chimes in.

This person is done with assistant managers.

This is probably why it’s best to keep them as assistants TO the managers.

The power goes to their head.

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.