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Running a business sometimes means following rules that not everyone is going to like.

That’s the position this market supervisor found himself in after one of the regular customers asked him to hold some bread until the following week.

The problem was the bread didn’t belong to the market. It belonged to one of the vendors, and she had already made it clear she didn’t want it held that long.

So, rather than going against her wishes, he sold the bread like she asked. Unfortunately, the customer wasn’t happy about it and even threatened to complain to the owner.

Now he’s wondering if he should’ve made an exception or respected the vendor’s policy.

Keep reading to see how it all played out.

AITA for not accepting a customer’s request to respect the policy of one of our vendors?

I work at a market where the owner is in a different country, so I’m in charge of dealing with almost everything related to the people who come in.

We often have vendors who rent a small space to sell their own items and make the full profit from them.

One of these vendors is a lady who makes pastries. Well, there is this guy who would always come in whenever she was working and buy everything he could from her. He was a good customer for her.

Then, there was a misunderstanding.

However, last week, he called me to say that she told him he could take whatever didn’t sell after the day was over. I asked her about it, and she said she didn’t say that.

Now, I understand it may have been a miscommunication since he’s often a bit mad when he comes in (I’m not assuming—he has told us, lol), so he may have misunderstood. But she told me she would talk to him about it.

Later, he called to ask me to hold the leftover bread for him until next week. She told me to sell it and tell him that her policy was that she could only hold items for two hours upon customer request.

When things didn’t go his way, the customer became upset.

So, skip to today. He asks me if he should pay me or her for the bread, and when I ask why, he says he hasn’t spoken to her or received any message from her.

I tell him about the policy, and he gets upset and asks to speak to the supervisor (that would be me).

He asks why I couldn’t hold the items for longer if I am the supervisor.

And I just say that because they’re not my items but the vendor’s, I have to respect what she decides to do with them, which was not to hold them.

He pulls the, “I’ve been a loyal customer for x time. Without me, there’s no (market name). I’m gonna write a letter to the owner.”

Now, the store has lost a regular customer.

I tell him to feel free to do so and that I’m sorry, but I don’t make the policies.

I thought he was just a nut job until I talked to another person, and he said, “If you know the customer and they’re coming often, you should just hold the items for however long they want.”

I realized how simple it would have been, but I thought he believed he could just take it and go.

So, while I could have saved the item, I decided to sell it because it’s what she told me to do, and in turn, I lost a recurring customer.

AITA?

Yikes! Well, you can’t win them all, but that’s quite the unfortunate situation.

Let’s see what thoughts the readers over at Reddit have about it.

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This person thinks he should listen to the vendor.

Here’s a good way to think about it.

That’s probably what the supervisor was thinking.

As this comment explains, he needs to post a clear policy on holds.

He really didn’t have a good option here.

On one hand, he could’ve made the customer happy. But then he would’ve gone against the wishes of the person who actually owned the bread. So, it’s hard to blame him for respecting the vendor’s policy.

If she doesn’t want her products held for more than two hours, that’s her decision to make, not his.

Besides, if the customer loves her bread as much as he says he does, he’ll probably be back. Sometimes you just can’t sweat the small stuff.

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Author

Heather Hall

Heather Hall | Contributing Writer, Life & Drama

Heather Hall is a contributing writer for TwistedSifter specializing in internet culture, workplace conflict, and viral customer service stories. With over a decade of editorial experience in digital publishing, Heather excels at curating trending online discussions and providing insightful commentary on the daily dramas that capture the internet's attention.

Since beginning her career in 2011, she has developed deep expertise in SEO-driven digital content, having written for a wide array of publications covering lifestyle, business, and travel. At TwistedSifter, Heather focuses on synthesizing complex social media threads into engaging, highly readable narratives that highlight the human element of viral news.

When she isn’t analyzing the latest internet discourse, Heather is a dedicated mother of three sons who takes family gaming nights entirely too seriously—whether she is dominating in Mario Kart, exploring The Legend of Zelda, or jumping into Roblox.

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