In customer service, the phrase “the customer is always right” often leads to nothing but trouble.

At a fear-driven food service job where write-ups were handed out for literally everything, one worker stopped pushing back entirely.

So when he followed every customer demand, the business practically started hemorrhaging profits.

You’ll want to keep reading for this one.

“The customer is always right”

About 9 years ago, I worked at a food service job within a retail store. This job was absolutely horrible, as I got written up for anything and everything I did.

There was pretty much no action that was safe from a write-up.

If I took my breaks, write-up.
If I didn’t take my breaks, write-up.

I called out once with a doctor’s note saying that I absolutely could not work, as my illness was highly contagious—write-up. This was my first time ever calling out, and I gave 48 hours’ notice.

The second and last time was for my grandma’s funeral, which I had requested off and was denied. I was written up then too.

Any excuse my supervisor could find to write me up, he did.

At first, the employee took this really hard, but eventually caught on that this was all part of a larger pattern.

Being in high school at the time, I took this very personally and assumed that I had done something wrong.

I worked there for 2 years, taking each write-up as a “learning opportunity.” However, I finally reached a point where I recognized that it wasn’t my fault, and the malicious compliance began.

Customers were constantly complaining, and so they called over the manager.

In this job, there were add-ons, and these add-ons came with an upcharge. I had customers complain to me constantly about not wanting to be charged extra, but normally they would just pay it and move on.

One customer, however, refused to pay for the add-on but wanted it anyway.

I pointed to the sign which said that it would cost extra and tried my best to politely explain to her that I couldn’t give it to her without charging her.

She demanded to speak to my manager.

But instead of having their back, the manager just threw them under the bus.

I happily called the manager over, as at that time the leader was also my area supervisor. I’ll call him Bob.

Bob was employed through the retail store specifically. Regardless, I thought that surely Bob would have my back, as he knew the rules I had to follow.

I was very, very wrong.

After listening to the customer, Bob proceeded to yell at me in front of her, stating, “The customer is always right, and you are not paid to argue with her. Give her what she wants and DO NOT charge her for any of it!”

He also informed her that I would be written up for this—and I was.

Then the employee started playing it differently.

From that moment on, whenever a customer complained about having to pay for an add-on, I didn’t charge them for it.

If they demanded their items for free, stating that they didn’t like them or had a bad experience in the past, I gave it to them for free.

After all, the customer said they shouldn’t have to pay for it, so who was I to argue?

The employee didn’t even bother consulting the boss anymore.

Of course, he meant that I shouldn’t “argue” to the point of the manager being called, but he didn’t specify. I didn’t want to be written up again, nor did I care to follow a “do as I mean, not as I say” policy anymore.

It didn’t take long for the people who worked in the actual retail store to learn that they could also get add-ons for free if they complained about it.

At the time they were ordering, they were technically customers too.

All this free stuff was beginning to add up.

Since each add-on cost between 60 cents and a dollar, and most customers wanted more than one add-on, the company was losing an average of $2–$3 per transaction on add-ons alone.

That didn’t even account for customers who got their entire order for free.

Of course, $2–$3 doesn’t seem like much, but it was enough to catch the attention of my district supervisor, who I’ll call Ann.

Ann was suspicious of this, and decided to launch an investigation.

Ann was employed by the food service company and oversaw the branches inside retail stores. She was very nice and respected the employees who worked with her company, even if they weren’t directly employed by her company, like me.

She first asked Bob why our location appeared less profitable than others and less profitable than it had been a few months earlier.

Bob tried to throw them under the bus once again.

He tried to pin it on me, saying I was stealing from the company by giving my friends and coworkers free items.

Ann, understanding how serious of an accusation that was, insisted on speaking with me alone.

I expected to be fired.

But Ann took a very different approach.

Instead, she asked me why profits had gone down.

I explained what Bob had told me about “the customer always being right,” how I’d been written up, and how I didn’t want to be written up again—so I followed his instructions word for word.

For the first time since starting that job, someone took my side.

Ann actually took their side.

She agreed that not charging for add-ons explained the losses she was seeing and that Bob’s handling of the situation was unprofessional and entirely against policy.

Having Bob accuse me of stealing to protect himself was my last straw.

I put in my two weeks’ notice that same day.

But that wasn’t the end of the story for Bob.

HR had apparently taken notice of how Bob was treating me. Her exact words were, “It’s about time. I’m glad you’re finally standing up for yourself.”

With my consent, she altered some dates to make my end date a week earlier than planned since the schedule hadn’t been written yet.

To this day, I think of her as my guardian angel.

Shortly after my last shift, my friends informed me that Bob no longer worked there.

Ann refused to go easy on him, and for good reason.

Ann was so upset with him that she contacted his supervisor and launched an investigation into his behavior.

As it turned out, I wasn’t the only one he had written up without legitimate reason.

They were also furious that he directly caused unnecessary profit loss.

Finally, the truth about Bob’s toxicity came out.

He couldn’t blame me for it. It was his own words, and many people corroborated that he had said the same thing to them.

I was just the first to maliciously comply, bringing his behavior to the attention of someone above him.

He was fired—effective immediately.

Bob finally got what he deserved.

What did Reddit think?

What does “the customer is always right” even mean?

According to this commenter, the phrase used to mean something very different.

Oftentimes the customer is outright wrong.

This user thinks it’s time to get rid of this pesky phrase altogether.

When a manager trains people to stop caring, they shouldn’t be shocked when the register shows it.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.