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Don't you know who I am!? I'm IMPORTANT! or "I know the owner!"

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  • Don't you know who I am!? I'm IMPORTANT! or "I know the owner!"

    Never had these happen to me personally...but I've read enough stories...

    Discuss.

    Ever had that happen to you??
    Skilled programmers aren't cheap. Cheap programmers aren't skilled.

  • #2
    About a half hour ago.

    "I was on the phone with the owner just a few minutes ago and he said he could knock another 10% off the price of this widget, as I am a very loyal longtime customer bla bla bla"

    Me: "I own this establishment, I didn't receive any phone calls from you today, nor have I ever seen you in here before. We're the cheapest in town on this particular widget, did you wish to buy it or not?"

    Comment


    • #3
      Not specifically an "I'm the owner" story. But when I worked for the SHC in the electronics department, I had a guy tell me that he was a shareholder. I don't remember the specifics of the conversation, only that there was something I could not do for him and he seemed to feel that bringing this up would,

      A: Intimidate me into doing it.
      B: Make me bend the laws of space and time to accomplish said task.
      C: Compell me to reward him with a cookie.

      As it stood, our stock options weren't worth the paper they were printed on.

      Comment


      • #4
        I often see this in an online game I've played. Now usually a really big MMO won't have just one "owner", but this is a smaller one that actually does have one guy in charge. A guy I actually know. So once I had this conversation:

        Randomkid: hey
        Me: Hello.
        RK: u want 2 go out with me?
        Me: Emphatically not.
        RK: my dad owns this game.
        Me: I very much doubt that.
        RK: if u dont date me i can delete ur account
        Me: Seeing as Ownersname's son is 2 years old.
        Me: You know what? Go for it. Delete my account. Right now.
        RK: i wudnt because i like u to much

        Comment


        • #5
          Many that was super romantic. I mean threatening to shut you down if you don't date him. What's his number?
          The angels have the phone box.

          Comment


          • #6
            Whenever I'm training a new manager at my shop, one of the first things they have to learn is how to soft-deflect all the people who want to speak to "The Owner." (Me.)

            Mostly it is cold sales calls for things I want nothing of; those are easy enough to deflect. Then there are the Special Snowflake customers who want me to throw down my tools or whatever and run to the phone personally to muse aloud together with them when the best time to come in for an oil change will be, or our business hours, or myriad other mundane questions that I pay the manager to handle.

            Many of the people try to claim that they are my "old/best friend" and suggest it's a personal call, only to be someone I don't remember over the phone anyway asking a question such as above. I NEVER REALIZED I HAD SO MANY BEST FRIENDS IN THE WORLD!

            It has been so bad that I finally proposed a simple best friend test: What colors is Automan's living room? That's right, plural. The answer is easy to remember but difficult to guess- lavender with saturated purple and yellow trim, once seen never forgotten. Once we started this quiz program, I discovered that all of these newfound "friends" were an angry, tempramental, mysterious, and flighty lot, who really didn't want to talk to me personally that badly anyway, apparently.

            Besides, if they really WERE my good friend, my staff would know or quickly learn them, and they would not be rude or pushy to my staff. Seriouly, if a friend tried to pull rank and be a douchenozzle here, I would loudly end the friendship on the spot.
            Suckiness is reinforced up OR down at every transaction. Accepting BS makes them worse for all of us; firm fairness trains them to suck less.

            Comment


            • #7
              I was helping at my brother's company once, many, many years ago answering phones. I don't even remember what the problem was but said he wanted the name of the owner because he was dissatisfied with the customer service, the technician was a douche etc.

              turns out my brother owns the company AND was the technician that did the escrow on this guys house. The dood was pissed that he had to pay so much in repairs, that's all. But see, that's what happens when you got foundation problems and tons of termites.
              "The problem isn't usually that there are stupid people in the world as much as it is that the stupid people like to call or come in and point out how stupid they are to the working public" -Justa

              Comment


              • #8
                "DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM RABBLERABBLERABBLE!?"

                I'm sorry, stay right here and I'll try to locate somebody who can tell you who you are.
                Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study hard. Be evil.

                "I never said I wasn't a horrible person."--Me, almost daily

                Comment


                • #9
                  I get the occasional one where I work.

                  SC: How much is it to play X games?
                  Me: $16 sir
                  SC: Don't you have some kind of discount for regular visitors? I come in all the time!
                  Me: Let me check your membership on the database *checks, sees customer has played maybe 10 games in the past year* I'm sorry sir, but you do not qualify as a "regular", having played only 10 games in the past 12 months.
                  SC: I want to speak to your manager!
                  Me: You're talking to him. (side note: Even though I'm only a part timer, I'm pretty much the most senior employee there besides the boss, I've even been the interim boss a couple of times while he was on vacation. Fun times.)

                  (Note: We have a number of people who have played over 1000 games, plus a small number of "veterans" who have played anywhere between 5000-10000 games in their lifetime, THOSE are the kind of people that we happily give specials to.)

                  EDIT: Oh, also we run a special promotion on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays where you pay $17 and get to play unlimited games for 3 hours (though you may not get into every game if we get a lot of people since we can only have 22 people playing at one time)

                  SC2: How much is it for us to play?
                  Me: *tells them about the special promotion going on*
                  SC2: How much would it be for a child/student/other arbitrary discount grab
                  Me: If you look closely, you will see it says "No additional discounts apply", this is because it is already EXTREMELY cheap, usually you would be paying $16 for 3 games, instead you are paying $16 for 3 HOURS, plus the arcade games being on free play too.
                  SC2: Oh. *coughs up the cash*
                  Last edited by Kagato; 01-26-2013, 11:20 PM.
                  Violets are blue,
                  Roses are red,
                  I bequeath to thee...
                  A boot to the head >_>

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    I've had this the other way where the 'owner' of a side hobby business went all angry because it got back to him that I de-subscribed from his news because I was fed up of seeing him say "I'll cry if you don't..." in his mailings. Totally went off on one saying that in his day job he deals with "multi-million-£ (things) and what did I do, was it important..."
                    I am so SO glad I was not present for this. There would have been an unpleasant duct tape incident. - Joi

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Quoth manybellsdown View Post
                      I often see this in an online game I've played. Now usually a really big MMO won't have just one "owner", but this is a smaller one that actually does have one guy in charge. A guy I actually know. So once I had this conversation:

                      Randomkid: hey
                      Me: Hello.
                      RK: u want 2 go out with me?
                      Me: Emphatically not.
                      RK: my dad owns this game.
                      Me: I very much doubt that.
                      RK: if u dont date me i can delete ur account
                      Me: Seeing as Ownersname's son is 2 years old.
                      Me: You know what? Go for it. Delete my account. Right now.
                      RK: i wudnt because i like u to much
                      I hope you made sure his account got deleted.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Oh, the stories.

                        As for the "Do you know who I am?" one, there's a story I've told here before that I'll dredge out of the locker, because many of you may not be familiar with it.

                        Happy hour was starting up, and I was rather busy, running around, getting drink orders, making drinks, cashing people out, getting people menus, getting food orders, etc. You get the idea.

                        At one part of the bar were three 50 something guys. They had their drinks, and were waiting to order food. I was at my terminal, right by them at the bar, when one of them decided to be a comedian. "Jester, WE'RE your only customers!" I pointedly looked around the bar at all the people, then said to him, "No, you're not!" Not getting the point, he decided to continue. He pointed to his buddy next to him (who was just minding his own business) and asked, "Do you know who he is?!?" I looked the Comedian in the eye and said, "No...do you know who *I* am?" This was clearly not the response the Comedian had been expecting, and he said, "Um, no....who are you?" Not missing a beat, I said, "I'm the guy controlling your fucking booze."

                        Stunned pause.

                        "No problem, captain. We'll be right here waiting for you whenever you're ready!" And that was pretty much the end of that.

                        Quoth Automan Empire View Post
                        Whenever I'm training a new manager at my shop, one of the first things they have to learn is how to soft-deflect all the people who want to speak to "The Owner."
                        We get these calls all the time. The Owner, however, is not "on the clock," as it were, and pretty much everyone calling on the phone to speak to The Owner really just needs to speak to the General Manager. The Owner comes and goes at his leisure, and while he is very involved in the big decisions of the place, and actually does know what is going on day to day, he doesn't work shifts or anything.

                        Quoth Automan Empire View Post
                        Many of the people try to claim that they are my "old/best friend" and suggest it's a personal call, only to be someone I don't remember over the phone anyway asking a question such as above. I NEVER REALIZED I HAD SO MANY BEST FRIENDS IN THE WORLD!
                        We get this shit ALL the time. Owner is a big name up north in a particular area, and so EVERYONE from their insists on saying how they are his bestest friends. To be fair to them, Owner is the kind of guy that when he meets you, he makes you feel like his best friend, and he never, ever, EVER forgets people or their names. Quite literally, he has met people one time, and then met them the second time ten years later and remembered them quite clearly. Yeah, that kind of shit makes an impression.

                        Anyway, when Owner first opened The Bar, he told the original staffers point blank, "If anyone ever says they're my friends, they aren't. My friends don't do that. I'LL tell you who my friends are."

                        That never stops people from trying to get discounts/freebies/whatever by dropping his name. As if we don't know the guy. "Oh, I'm great friends with Owner. If he were here, he'd want us to have this round on him." Well, he isn't here. Too bad, so sad. "I think you should call Owner and ask him if he wants to buy a round for Franky and the boys from South Bullshit." Hey, if you're such good friends with him, why don't YOU call him. "Hey, we're great friends with Owner...is he in town?" Hmm, if you were such good friends with him, why would you have to ask his bar staff if he were in town? Wouldn't you just know from asking him, being such good friends and all? And so it goes. Staff have actually started calling these people Friends of Owner. I.e., people who met him once and think they are all that. And this is not something we do behind Owner's back...he's been told of this many times, and he always laughs about it. (Did I mention I work for great people?)

                        Quoth Automan Empire View Post
                        It has been so bad that I finally proposed a simple best friend test
                        Another repeat story: at the Waterfront Bar, they give discounted prices to regulars. Not locals, as many places do, but regulars. So one time, this guy comes up to the bar, and orders a bunch of drinks from "Tina," a bartender who has been there for years and years.

                        TINA: "That will be $24.50."
                        SC: "Oh, we're locals."
                        TINA: "We don't do a local discount, we just have special prices for regulars."
                        SC: "Oh, I'm here all the time."
                        TINA: "Really?...What's my name?"
                        SC: "Um....."
                        TINA: "That'll be $24.50."

                        He silently paid her the amount. I was working there waiting tables at the time, and I laughed my ass off when I overheard this. When I asked her about it, Tina said that happens to her ALL the time.

                        Another time in the same bar, I asked a guy for ID, and he didn't have it. I told him I couldn't serve him, and he said, "But I work security at So and So Bar." Well then, he should know more than most that I couldn't serve him without ID. "But I know the bartenders!" Really? You know the bartenders? Well, if any of them can vouch for you, I can serve you. Which bartender do you know? At the time, the four bartenders working there had EACH been there about 15 years or more, and there really wasn't a day that went by when one or more of them weren't on shift. "Oh, I don't know any of THOSE bartenders." Yeah, if you don't know any of THOSE bartenders, you don't know the bartenders here. Thanks for coming, no beer for you!

                        Quoth AnqeiicDemise View Post
                        But see, that's what happens when you got foundation problems and tons of termites.
                        If you got termites, I feel bad for you son.
                        I got 99 problems, but wood rot's not one.



                        Quoth Kagato View Post
                        SC: Don't you have some kind of discount for regular visitors? I come in all the time!
                        Love these types!

                        Um, no, you don't come here all the time. You know how I know that? Because we have names for people who come in all the time.

                        Names like Frank, Buddy, Louise, Cathy, Jake, Jenna, Sam, Brad, Susie, etc. See, we KNOW the people who come in all the time. We don't know your name? You don't come in all the time.

                        NEXT!

                        "The Customer Is Always Right...But The Bartender Decides Who Is
                        Still A Customer."

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Quoth mjr View Post
                          Don't you know who I am!? I'm the man who's going to burn your house down!
                          There, fixed it for you.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Quoth Skelly View Post
                            I hope you made sure his account got deleted.
                            I might have reported him for impersonating game staff. I can't remember. He probably only got a warning though.

                            I'm friends with one of the moderators, and sometimes he shows me my report history. People report me pretty much for existing. A girl reported me 3 times just last week for "underage player". I'm 40.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Get these a lot, I'm the best friend/old school pal/secret lover of the owner/owner's kid/owner's kid's kids etc so just let me get away with illegal parking

                              Doesn't work

                              It's even funnier now that the entire company has changed hands, and you'd think the "best friend" of the owner would know that, well, he isn't the owner anymore.

                              The moment of silence when you tell them "he no longer works here" is oh so grand.
                              - They say nothing good happens at 2AM, they're right, I happen at 2AM.

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