I love hearing stories about managers and bosses standing up for their employees!

Because, let’s be honest, we still live in a world where a lot of people believe that “the customer is always right.”

But not this time, folks!

Check out what happened in this story from Reddit’s “Tales From Retail” page.

The day I protected my employee.

“I was out of the country.

Before I left country I had interviews with a very smart intelligent young lady.

I had every intention on hiring her and training her when I returned from my vacation. However due to an employee getting into a car accident and being hospitalized I was forced to hire her and have her start without me from 9 time zones away.

It was only going be 4 days…which should be fairly slow.

They told her what was going on…

However because of this, and the nature of the job she could only greet people/take notes/and be nice.

So I instructed to do exactly this, I also told her to explain the situation: “The employee who was supposed to work today is in the hospital, unfortunately I am not trained to handle your problem I however am more then happy to take notes, collect contact details and on this date my manager will call you to take care of you, we apologize for the circumstances.”

There’s always one…

She had 5 customers in that 4 day time frame, she took notes, and did as she was asked…but one customer she mentioned was incredibly rude. Called her stupid, said she was lazy, etc.

Whatever, **** happens. I still want his business. Maybe he was just having a bad day.

Well that customer comes in and I begin handling his situation (keep in mind besides a few minutes of wasted time…this situation didn’t cost him anything).

Well of course my employee is in the office as I do on the job training. He immediately resorts to insulting my employee, I ask if he was explained the situation…on why she was unable to help him…He said “That doesn’t matter…she should know better. How complicated could this **** be? She’s an idiot for not figuring it out”

At which point I had enough, I grabbed our brochures from him, cleared my desk, looked at my employee who was standing, and said “please have a seat.”

Room is silent…customer is looking at me with a strange look on his face when I start.

They were done dealing with this joker.

“Look sir here is the deal I normally have two employees work for me…this is what the market will bear. One employee just joined the military and the other one was in a car accident meaning I had no one left to keep the office open and take notes. I hired this young lady from 9 time zones away…in another country and she had interactions with 5 customers to include you.”

“Out of those 5 only one said he had a negative experience and the other 4 understood the unfortunate circumstances which lead to those 4 days of having an untrained employee behind this desk. Now because a mistake in this business could cost both myself and you a large sum of money I instructed her to only take notes and advise the customer I will work with them as soon as I get back.”

“Now I can understand that you might be frustrated with the current situation and I apologize for that…that however gives you no right to call this talented, intelligent young lady a moron, do we understand each other?”

He responded with “well you should have had a trained employee ready.”

I fired back “Well, hindsight is 20/20 and I couldn’t predict a car crash. I apologize for that. Now what gives you the right to insult my employee?”

He is quiet.

“Sir are you married?

He goes “yes”

I go “How would you wife feel if she saw how you acted both the day of the incident and today?”

He’s twiddling his thumbs.

“Do you understand the situation better now?”

He responds “yes”

“Great…now with that in mind do you feel that it was appropriate to insult this young lady intelligence and make her visibly upset? Is that something your OK with? Cause I’ll tell you what…I’m not ok with it”

He agreed…quite shock actually

“Sir I feel it’d be an appropriate time to apologize for how you treated this young lady…would you agree”

This guy was learning a big lesson in humility.

He agreed I then asked him to apologize to her. Which he did, he was actually quite sincere about it. I turned to her and said “Do you accept his apology”

With the biggest **** eating grin on her face she accepted

Of course tensions where high, so I said “Sir, you’ve proven yourself to the bigger man. I thank you very much for your apology…I suggest before we move on we have a cup of coffee. How does that sound.”

He agreed, I brewed up a couple cups of coffee and we all calmed down, got to know each other personally…and he became my best client ever.

Also the employee in question is still loyal and faithful to me to this day. After he left she was shocked, she never seen a manager stand up to a customer like that before. Especially in an industry where we only see a dozen or so clients a month.

I personally at my business I put employees needs ahead of the customer. I feel creating more satisfied employees creates a better environment improving customer service.”

Reddit users shared their thoughts.

This person weighed in.

Another individual was impressed.

Another individual chimed in.

And this reader shared their thoughts.

This is what being a good manager is all about!

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.