Scary Encounter With a Manager!

[ShinyObject]

This is kind of long and I really need your feedback on it. The incident happened on Friday (8/31) and I find I'm still having some physical and mental fallout over it.

My sister was grocery shopping and bought 4 roasting chickens for me. The plan was to smoke one and grind the others up for cooking chili and the like, with one going to feed my dog who has severe congestive heartfailure and must have salt-free food. I'm a severe salt restriction as well (important.)

I had the chicken ready to smoke and glanced at the ingredient lable as I threw it away. Thank God I noticed that every serving contains 25% of the sodium for the day! I could have made myself sick and possibly killed my little dog. I was upset and took the chickens back to Big Why for a refund. I also thought it was important to get across how dangerous putting so much hidden sodium in a food could be.

I asked for the manager and a big important looking man came out. I did my best to tell him that so much sodium was bad and he cut me off and asked if I hadn't ever learned to read a food label. He was so rude that I lost my temper and slapped my hand down on the label and said "Listen to me!" He said "I'm done listening to you!" Now I was really mad and pointed my finger and said "No you need to listen!" I'm sure I got louder but I was in no way yelling, cursing or causing a scene. He stepped back and flung his arm out and demanded "Get out of my store or I will call the police!"

I was astounded and for a moment considered letting him do it, but I saw that he had an ugly look on his face and thought the better of it. I asked "what about my money back." He glared at me: "If you want your money back -- ask Obama for it!"

I realized that he wasn't too tightly wrapped at that moment and he looked like he was going to have a stroke. I think I said something brilliant like "My God you're a Republican." and I headed for the door. I had to pass the entrace to the service desk and I looked up to see him coming at me. He was either just out of the desk area, or almost out when I passed him and the look on his face scared the crap out of me. I shoved my cart out the door and hurried to my car looking back a couple of times to see if he was following me. I was upset enough so that I forgot to put the chicken back in the car and didn't notice until I got home. I thought about going back to get them but honestly felt that he would have me arrested for littering.

When I got home I was shaking. My sister is my roomie and I told her what happened. She works retail and of course was horrified. I thought I'd blow it off and contact Big Why corporate and complain. I find I'm not blowing it off. My fibromyalgia kicked in big time and I was in pain all weekend. I am now having trouble sleeping and have not slept past 4am since this happened. I keep waking it up thinking about it. It was weird because I went shopping at another grocery yesterday and I kept feeling like I needed to look over my shoulder. I left without getting everything just because I was nervous. I'm getting irritated with myself because he did not attack me, but I think my brain really thought he was going to and I seem to be stuck feeling like there is a threat somewhere. People have been telling me to contact an attorney. I don't know what to do. I just know that all I intended to do was to return a few chickens.

[Lady_Pigeon]

Send a letter to their corporate line, explain what happened, explain how you felt afterwards. Ask them to review the tapes to back up your story. Ask if they can at least refund the chickens, but if not to make sure that other customers don't feel like you did/do at the moment.

Push comes to shove, look into an attorney.

As an aside, politics should NEVER come into play in a situation like this, especially over some chickens, but since this is SC.com... ;-) Good luck!

[AmbrosiaWriter]

I think you do need to contact corporate, try to get a phone number if you can. Letters are very slow and might not even get read or will just get you back a cut-and-paste reply "apologizing."

He had no right to berate and insult you just because you wanted to return a few chickens because your sister made a little mistake. Mistakes happen. I get it, retail workers get a lot of crap because of mistakes they made, but that doesn't mean that they should start dishing it out if the customer makes a small one (and the customer wasn't being rude.)

That's a good way to lose a whole lot of business if you're treating polite people who made honest mistakes like that.

Attorney might definitely be a good idea, it sounds like you have a case for pain and suffering because this jack-ass manager decided to have a go at you, physically threaten and intimidate you.

[Little Retail Rabbit]

I would say that in all fairness, the shop workers themselves cannot help what ingredients their products contain if all they do is sell it.

But having said that, that manager sounds like a real scary bastard. I mean, clearly, if he was speaking so rudely to you, of course you were going to be angry, but he seems to have kept escalating the situation. Maybe he was hoping to pick a fight, I don't know, but the man clearly has no place working with the public.

I would write, and make calls, and also demand that tapes are looked over- at this point I think it is your only chance of result. Without being accusatory, HR only have this sociopath's word for it (and he may well be good at talking himself out of situations like this) and because you accidentally left the chickens behind because you were so upset, they may read that differently. But if they see the footage of you running out because you were being pursued, it would back you up.

[bhskittykatt]

I would say that in all fairness, the shop workers themselves cannot help what ingredients their products contain if all they do is sell it.

But having said that, that manager sounds like a real scary bastard. I mean, clearly, if he was speaking so rudely to you, of course you were going to be angry, but he seems to have kept escalating the situation. Maybe he was hoping to pick a fight, I don't know, but the man clearly has no place working with the public.

You just nailed it here. That manager was a total ass!

I would write a letter AND make a call. The letter gives the paper trail, and the call will get you noticed. And this is big enough that I'd pursue it until you're satisfied.

There have been customers that have aggravated me enough that I sometimes let my cool slip, but I've never chased them! (Actually, I've had to chase trespasses off the property before...those are special cases, though...even then it's less chasing and more passively following while shooting dirty looks.)

[PepperElf]

I'll try to look at both sides here since you asked. After thinking about it for a while... I personally feel neither side really comes out as the winner.

As a side note, are they allowed to return opened food? I know if there's something actually wrong with it, say it's expired etc that's one thing, or if they switched the item you picked out with something else you cannot have. But for this situation, I don't know if they are allowed to or not.

Of course there's no harm in asking - or there shouldn't be at least. Although from the way this resulted, YMMV on that.

For the breakdown however... again since you asked us,

On the manager's side:

I also thought it was important to get across how dangerous putting so much hidden sodium in a food could be.

How was this hidden?

I did my best to tell him that so much sodium was bad

bad for you specifically, or bad overall? I ask because although I personally despise having too much salt, I have friends who love it. (yes I think they're weird, but that's another topic perhaps)

If the refund request was including judgement calls on what should and shouldn't be in food... it's not something for the manager to fix. They're not responsible for what is put into foods, nor should they have to debate what is and isn't good food. There's no "right" answer in an argument like that and it puts them in a losing position.

On your side

The manager should have kept his temper down. He should only explain why a food cannot be returned, if it cannot. Or gone through with the refund if allowed.

The most negative thing he should have said was to advise you that the foods in question are not advertised as low-sodium, and perhaps offer assistance if you wanted to pick out something more suitable for your requirements. And perhaps offered a feedback method to the corporation to request less salt.

He shouldn't have leapt right into 'read the label' or being condescending towards you. On that part you may have a good complaint against his ability to handle complaints professionally.

on no one's side
delving into personal attacks. in the spirit of fairness I think both sides were wrong here.

I know it's hard, especially when people really piss you off, but ... if anything, the thing to remember when arguments degrade into personal attacks, no one really wins. And when using labels as part of the attack, you also risk insulting friends or family who may fall under the label in question. It may feel right at first but you may also end up with your foot in your mouth.

For an example outside of politics - one of my sister's friends (∏) once started talking about another student (Q) and commented that Q couldn't even get accepted to a State University. ∏ ended up really hurting one of her other friends ∑ who had also not been accepted to one of the state universities. Yes, Q was a jerk and quite frankly needed to be put in her place a bit... the method to do so however was one that ended up including friends who didn't deserve being insulted.

For situations like that, the best way to "win" is perhaps to not respond at all, but to take the matter to the next level up. In this case, calling corporate. That way you avoid getting into a fight that pisses yourself off, and you perhaps get the chance to get the employee in trouble over their own bad behavior.

him coming at me

this part gets its own topic because it's hard to tell if this was an attempt to intimidate / attack you, or if he was positioning in order to ensure you left. it's one of those things that could go either way depending on how it looked.

[Yfandes]

I have found that its not that easy to find chicken (and other meats) without added salt, unless I go to the places that have a larger selection of healthy or organic foods. I don't think that frightening the customers is they way to resolve any issues though.

[Food Lady]

That "manager" was totally out of line. What he should have done was to hear you out, then explain that he couldn't do something at the store level about product ingredients. Whether he could refund you would be up to company policy. (Some companies might, some might not due to it being labelled clearly). If I were in his place and knew I couldn't refund you, I'd explain nicely that I was sorry that I couldn't and offer a way for you to let corp know how you feel. If I could do it, I would. But I would not accuse you of being illiterate. People are often in a hurry and miss things. I have. I misread a sign, and after having it nicely explained to me, I declined to take the item.

[MoonCat]

I think most of the suck was on the manager's side. Yes, you did get upset, but only because he wouldn't let you explain. He should have shut up, waited until you were done, and then explained why/if he couldn't control the salt content, and whether or not he could give a refund. Making a snide comment about you being able to read was uncalled for, rude and unnecessary.

And your comment back to him about him being a Republican was, I'm guessing, a gut reaction to his completely off the wall comment about asking Obama for your money back. What on earth does the president--any president--have to do with this situation? HE brought politics into this situation, where it had no place. His remark would have been inappropriate (and stupid!) no matter who the president was.

I agree with both writing and calling their corporate office. His behavior was combative, hostile and nasty right from the start.

[AccountingDrone]

I have found that its not that easy to find chicken (and other meats) without added salt, unless I go to the places that have a larger selection of healthy or organic foods. I don't think that frightening the customers is they way to resolve any issues though.

That manager was definitely wrong.

And yes, many 'manufacturers' are pumping brine and other flavoring liquids into meats to disguise less than optimum critters. [Read labels sometimes - with the whole lower the fat insanity meats like pork is really dry if cooked by traditional parameters unless brined, so the meat packers are pre-brining pork so people don't start whinging about how dry and flavorless their blast furnace cooked pork chops are. You really don't want to look at the average turkey!]

[ShinyObject]

Thanks for the feedback. It was such a weird situation that I still don't know what to make of it. He was so intimidating that I still have the feeling that I'm afraid he will find out who I am. It probably isn't logical, but I haven't been able to sleep past 5am since it happened. I keep waking up hearing him and seeing him come at me. I'm seriously thinking about contacting an attorney about this.

When he came out I was smiling. I did say I was upset, but I wasn't angry. I was telling him that other brands do not add sodium to their raw chicken (it's the only one I've ever seen with so much sodium, Purdue, Tyson and the store brands are all at 3-4%) My point was that this much hidden sodium could not only harm me but it could kill someone. My request, had he listened to me, was that he pass it along and to ask him who I could contact at corporate.

His expression and what he said was ugly implying that I am stupid and out of line. I'm normally a peaceful person and I can't remember ever going from about 25 to 100 so fast. I expected polite disinterest and got bullied. The Obama statement was idiotic and literally had me standing there with my mouth open.

I was flippant and as I started to leave I looked at him and said "You go, Mitt." This is what seemed to put him in batshit mode. The look on his face was murderous and he came toward me very quickly. My first reaction what that he was going to attack me and I headed out the door as fast as I could. I remember lookng over my shoulder several times to see if he was pursuing me. I dropped the receipt I was holding and left hoping he hadn't gotten my license plate number. Although I'd intended to donate the chickens to the food bank if they wouldn't take them back I didn't realize I'd left them until I got home. My sister was home and said I was shaking. I wanted to go and see if I could get the chickens were still there but I truly felt he would have me arrested for littering so something. He was very serious about calling the police on me.

At any rate I'm having some psychological fallout over this and I consider myself to be a pretty together person who is hard to intimidate. I am going to call customer service tonight and follow it up with a letter. I have been out of town and haven't had time to call (can't call them from work.) I have no idea how it will go but I'm nervous about it and I'm pissed off at myself for being nervous.

[AmbrosiaWriter]

Just breathe, keep your mind focused on what you want to say and if they start to try to bully you again, hang up. You don't deserve to be treated like that when all you were asking about was for contact information.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Is this pre-made deli chicken or pre-packaged by some other brand? In any case they're usually always pumped full of preservatives and sodium, just so the product can keep longer until it sells.

You say you were asking for contact information. That is information the manager may not have had access to.

So then, was that worth pounding on countertops and demanding the manager "listen to you" ? To me it isn't. I would've just returned the chickens, if possible, and gotten on with life.

The manager's responses were quite rude, but you did egg him on. You should consider yourself lucky he didn't follow through on his threat to call the police. It may not have gone well for you.

Finally, hire a lawyer? For what?

At least we know where you will not be doing your grocery shopping any more.

[AmbrosiaWriter]

Finally, hire a lawyer? For what?

If she can prove that his unnecessary aggression and threatening actions caused her physical distress, she can sue.

I'd love to see someone keep their temper when the Manager (or anyone) refuses to let you talk and proceeds to insult you with each interruption he makes. All he had to do was let her talk, then explain what he can or cannot do.

Interrupting her again and again to insult her and act like a condescending nit, coupled with the comments about "You want your money back? Ask Obama!" is way out of line. So what if he may not have the information she needs, that doesn't give him the right to treat her like a piece of dog turd. He started the situation escalating by his unprofessional attitude right off the bat, initiating the aggression by insulting her to her face without letting her explain what she was requesting.

Manager was a sucky manager, creating an aggressive and combative atmosphere when there was no reason for there to be one.

[Dave1982]

A few posts have crossed the line from advice into personal attacks. Let's keep it civil please.