Customers can be difficult to deal with sometimes, but in most cases, a store manager is going to do everything he can to be polite and keep them happy so that they keep coming back for future purchases.

Every once in a while, especially with a small privately owned company, however, you get a manager who doesn’t mind putting his customers in their place.

That is what happened in this story where an upset customer tried to demand that another customer help her with her order, and when he refused, she went and got the ornery old manager. Which she now definitely regrets.

Me: You Need Glasses. Manager: You Need Counseling

This story involves a quaint hardware store manager so overdrawn from his give-a-flip account that he snapped on a lady, which I feel was reasonable.

We’ll name this lady, “Nancy Drew” (ND). His narrative proceeds:

Going out of town for the holidays can be fun.

I was visiting some relatives I didn’t know well, way out of town during the holidays.

The senior-age lady of the household couldn’t get her senior-age husband to make progress on touch-up painting some wooden furniture something, and seeing my opportunity for (a) more personal space, (b) escape from nearly the same decor as the house from Men In Black’s sugar-water lady, and (c) a chance to “see the sights” of this back-country Iowa town aside from such excitements as “the weird hay bale,” I volunteered to help out.

When painting, you want to get the exact color you like.

The hang-up was that it needed a specific hue of paint, and he hated dealing with the incompetent paint mixing kid at the lone mom-and-pop hardware store.

I wasn’t the only out-of-towner that day, as the hardware store was lightly swarmed with others of us, including ND. Not only did I get to introduce her to my brand of sass, it appeared that the manager of said shop also supplied his own hometown snark.

Ok, no big deal.

I was so eager to exfiltrate the kitsch of their house, that I didn’t even bother to emerge from the comfy cocoon of my bedding clothes: I soon found myself next in line, bedecked in the finest of Thomas the Tank Engine PJ bottoms, backwards ballcap with anime patches all over it, and a Ramen-noodle themed hoodie.

It would be nigh impossible to mistake me for a worker, but did that stop ND?

My dear reader: it did not.

Why would she hand this to him?

I was next in line at the paint counter, with a fleck of the furniture that fast needed fixing, and was about to speak to Incompetence Jr, when ND spoke first, handing me a paint swatch.

ND: I need 2 cups of this color. Make it snappy. I don’t have all day.

Not being an employee, he doesn’t need to be polite.

Me: That’s not all you need.

ND: Oh yeah, smart guy? What else do I need? Some upsell bulls—-? Look I don’t have time to deal wi-

Oh, wow. Does he really have to be mean to this lady?

Me, interrupting: You need some glasses. I don’t think they sell those here. Besides, I don’t think paint comes in cups anyway.

ND: Oh, it’s me that needs glasses? Look at what you’re wearing? How could you come to work like that? I’m getting your manager.

Obviously, he did not come to work like that, since he doesn’t work there.

How indeed, could I come to work, adorned in disheveled college-dorm chic? How indeed was it, that my attire might instead rather better indicate that I am not employed here? Such clues as to this mystery evade the burden of the thought process of the wild ND.

After some brief banter with Junior Paintsmith about how weird that was, I was in the process of handing over the fleck when ND comes clop-clopping her cloven hooves with a manager in tow.

Yikes, what is this guy going to do.

He bore the expression that he’d reached the limits on his keep-it-together account and was in danger of overdraft.

This was no bright eyed young manager an upscale grocery, eager to please.

He won’t put up with rude customers, I’m betting.

No, this was a long-time part-owner of a small town hardware shop in whistle-and-spit Iowa, in his overalls with pencil behind the ear, who I snicker in imagining likely set down his banjo and took out the wheat stalk he was chewing, to deal with someone who never had his business to begin with, as she was now well into the fourth bullet point about the audacity of his staffing choices.

Manager, managing to get a word in, pointing to me: You’re talking about THIS guy?

LOL, insulting his PJs

ND: Do you see anyone else here in children’s pajama pants?

Manager: The person behind the COUNTER is the employee, ma’am. This is very obviously a customer. You do not need PAINT. You need COUNSELING.

I bet she was livid.

Time froze for a moment, before ND opened her mouth again to catch the mic before it hit the floor.

ND, jabbing a long manicured fingernail into his chest: Your job is GONE, Bucko. I am calling corporate and they are going to come down hard on you for this! Harder than you ever dreamed possible!

Where does she think she is? Home Depot?

Manager: We don’t have a corporate. We got a cash register from 1986. The bell above the door you jingled when you pranced your way in, is older than your grandfather.

Kindly remove your 99-cent Lee Press-On nails from my chest and vacate, or Sheriff Buford Tannen (real name lost to time) will take especial delight in finding out whether your expired plates have warrants, in only the longest way he can muster, making you as late as humanly possible to whatever barn animal cuddle party you need to get to so quickly. GOT IT?

This comes from years not not dealing with people’s stupidity.

I had the feeling that little speech had been rehearsed, as it came off the tongue a little too fluidly.

Maybe they were the lyrics of whatever bluegrass breakdown he had been composing when she walked up and thus so-readily came to mind. It was good, regardless.

Good, get out of here.

ND, to her credit, knew defeat, but did a teeth-gritted urrrggghhh noise except from what sounded like an auctioneers bullhorn, as she clop-clopped her way back out, swiping her hand across some boxed ERTL model cars, and ringing said bell again, to find said Sheriff already running said plates, and seeing her hand swipe as he looked up.

Manager: Sorry about that, sir. (Looking down at the fleck I was still in mid-handoff to the Paint brat). I see your resemblance to Mr. (surname of my relative) and I gather he still hasn’t painted his wife’s furniture?

I nodded.

Now that is good customer service.

Manager: I actually ran the color codes myself after the second mismatch, and have the best match we can make waiting for him, on the house, should he ever make a third visit about it. I’ll go grab it.

The noise of the once-busy small hardware shop gradually resumed normal volume, and upon his return from the back, I thanked him for the show and the paint, and a story to relate about how I got it.

I’m sure everyone talks about this fun interaction.

I can’t help but wonder how many times that encounter was repeated over the years, by others within earshot, and to what degree of instant small-town celebrity those who were there suddenly possessed.

As I emerged from that fine establishment, ND was cross-armed and fuming.

She didn’t get away that easily.

There were multiple little slips of paper the sheriff had written already, and he was giving her eyebrow-raised inquisitive look that suggested, “please, make additional comments.”

I gave her a little wink and sallied forth into brighter pastures. The paint did match!

While being polite to customers is usually smart, there are times when you just need to put them in their place, and this was one of those moments.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

This person loved his writing.

Make it make sense.

This type of manager is great.

That’s too funny.

I’d watch this movie.

Don’t mess with a small town hardware store owner.

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.