Sometimes, trying to help just makes people mad that you did their job better.

So, what would you do if you were just trying to help at your local hardware store, first guiding an elderly woman and then showing a new apprentice which glue to recommend, only for the manager to accuse you of working for a rival store?

Would you defend yourself? Or just take your business somewhere else?

In the following story, an undervalued customer finds himself in this situation and chooses the latter.

Here’s the full scoop.

This kinda escalated.

In the little town I live in, there’s only one hardware store. Since I have quite creative hobbies, I spent a lot of time and money there.

At one point, I even got myself a company card available for 10,000$/year or more spent.

The service in this place is horrible, with management being its own worst enemy, and workers that are motivated as… well, as motivated as an underpaid employee in that ******** can be.

The employee wasn’t interested in helping, so he stepped in.

For a cosplay railgun I was building, I was browsing through the metal stuff and looking for something coil-like when I overheard an old lady asking, “I need something to lock my basement door, since my neighbor keeps stealing stuff out there.”

The employee downright answers with, “We don’t have anything to help you,” while he stood in front of the ******* padlocks!

I chimed in and asked the lady what kind of basement thing she wanted to lock, like a door, some barricades, or whatever else. Where I’m from, people are very creative with basements.

She was so thankful that she gave him a nice tip.

The employee didn’t give a crap about the situation and moved along.

I helped the lady, and she gave me 100 bucks for it (I didn’t want to take it, but she insisted) and went on her merry way.

As I was going to check out, an apprentice came up to me. He told me that he just started there a few weeks ago, and even though I didn’t work there, he had a difficult customer requesting some very specific stuff on glue.

Not in a hurry, he agreed to help other customers.

Well… I park for free at that store anyway, and I was not in a hurry, so I went with him.

In all, I sold some 2-component metal glue to the other customer, explained the glue terms to the apprentice, and tried to check out once more.

The store manager came up and asked, “Who do you work for? We’re capable of handling our own customers. Are you from [that other hardware store], the one that just opened [5 min walk from location]?!”

Having seen enough, he returned the items to the shelf and went to the other store.

The glueguy came up and explained that I was just helping to get customers served, which is a task their own staff was not capable of.

I returned the stuff I was going to buy.

I mean… the dude just recommended me a store that can’t be worse.

Wow! That manager and his rude employees sound like something else.

Let’s see how the folks over at Reddit feel about what happened here.

Here’s a good question.

According to this reader, they hope he made it clear why he was leaving.

For this person, they can’t understand the manager’s way of thinking.

Yet another reader who doesn’t see why a rival employee would help.

What a nice person!

It’s a shame the manager wasn’t more appreciative, because that was very kind.

Thought that was satisfying? Check out what this employee did when their manager refused to pay for their time while they were traveling for business.