Some managers want updates about everything, while others act annoyed the second the phone rings.

This employee worked at the same job for three years and regularly called the manager whenever major store issues came up. Sometimes it involved angry customers, and others, it was about stolen food, register problems, or questions about handling deposits and payment systems.

Most of the calls involved situations that managers usually need to know about.

But things became awkward after a new night shift lead started working there. One night, after the employee updated the manager about problems with the card machines and deferred payments, the shift lead suddenly claimed the manager hated getting calls unless the building was literally on fire.

Read on to see what happened next.

AITA for calling my manager ‘too many times’?

At my job, for the 3 years I’ve worked here, we’ve never had a night shift lead. Recently, we finally got one. Cool, things aren’t really changing much, just have somebody here who can keep the people in the kitchen in check. I work the register anyway.

Yesterday, our card machines were down. The coworker I relieved that day had came in, called the POS company and was told to put the registers in a deferred payment mode. Was told to call back a few hours later and see if it had been fixed.

My coworker then called our manager and let her know what was up. A couple of hours roll by, and I call the POS company back and was instructed to turn off deferred payment and to process any cards that were ran.

The team lead dropped a bombshell.

So, after that, I figured I ought to call the manager and let her know I had already ran the payments so she wouldn’t have to tomorrow. She didn’t seem agitated, but she did let me know she didn’t work the next day. I apologized and made sure she knew what I did with the credit receipts.

As soon as I got off the phone, I made sure to tell the lead what I was up to for a moment.

The lead then told me that the manager hated how I “always called her,” and that she only ever wanted to be called if the building was burning down. They went on to say that the manager hated that I called her because she had a life outside of work and she didn’t want to be disturbed. I went quiet and didn’t talk to the lead much after that.

In reality, they haven’t had to call the manager much.

Mind you, I can’t really think of times I called that weren’t about things pertaining to the store. My manager was going through a breakup and if I called for something and she sounded sad or like she had been crying, I’d ask if she was okay and let her talk. I never pushed her to talk to me, ever.

I apologize if I’m rambling, but as I’ve wrote this I’ve come back to it a few times and thought about it. I’ll list a few instances of why I’ve called her.

First, I called to ask her if I had to make a deposit for the bank that day.

And these were the other times.

Then, I called her when a customer was screaming and calling me racist and threatening me. That happened because I had told her that whatever she told the person at the register, it was on the kitchen’s ticket.

The customer proceeded to yell at me and threaten me as my security guard stood there. I started to have a panic attack and walked to the back and tried to call my manager 10 times to let her know what happened. And also to just talk so I could calm down. She never answered.

I also called her when I have problems with a customer. For instance, them calling and claiming they never got x or y on their sandwich and we had to remake their whole order. I’d basically let her know to warn her that she’d be getting called later and what my side was.

Finally, I called her when a coworker was stealing large bags of food and stole a rack of ribs.

AITA?

Yikes! That is a lot of times to call your manager.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a restaurant manager who confronts a family who left a very small tip.

Let’s see what opinions the folks over at Reddit have.

That’s some good life advice.

This may be true.

This person explains what happens to needy employees.

According to this comment, she did everything right.

Some of those situations absolutely justified calling the manager, especially the theft and the customer making threats.

But some of the smaller issues probably could’ve waited for a note or a quick update later instead of an immediate phone call.

As for the manager, after dealing with employees for long enough, constant calls probably start feeling exhausting too, especially outside work hours when somebody is trying to mentally check out from the job for a while.

Either way, it’s important to choose your battles wisely.