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

[Setsunaela]

For years I worked in the office of my uncle's plumbing & appliance repair office. The whole company was staffed by family. Myself, my mother, and her mother in the office, the uncle/owner as the plumber, my stepdad as the appliance repair, and a very close family friend who may as well have been related to us as the second appliance repair tech. It was always funny dealing with people who "knew the owner"
Some of the best though were:
1. An old woman who tried to claim to my grandmother that she "knew the owner's mom from church" (handy hint, my grandma has never attended church since she was a child)
2. A teacher who tried to claim she was the owner's girlfriend (I asked her how she juggled teaching and being a full-time manager at the local S-bux coffee and she hung up)
3. A guy who claimed to be his sister's fiance. (I asked that one if her husband knew she was engaged again, and wasn't it rude of him to not have even met my brother and I, her children?)

[AccountingDrone]

My very first job was a result of nepotism [Thanks Dad!] in a company that was owned by a single family, the head of sales was the son in law of the owner, the president was the son of the owner [and taught me how to dive in his pool when I was 9 years old at a 4th of July party] and I regularly rode to the hounds with one of the presidents sons, who also worked for the company, the second son of the president is now the CEO of the company, and one of the factory managers was married to the daughter of the president who taught me how to dive ... very very nepotistic One summer when I was pregnant they had me run the pool supply and random chemical store on site to keep me out of the main plant and from working my regular hazmat job. You would not believe the people that wandered in to get chemicals claiming to be various relatives, family, assorted lovers .... Since my brother and I had grown up knowing the whole family it got seriously funny. I have to think that the best one was the guy claiming to be the son of the plant manager looking for a discount while my brother was in with me swilling coffee on break. We sort of looked at each other and asked if Dad was a bigamist as he didn't grow up in our house ... as my dad walked in. [He was a vice president, but they used him occasionally to train new mangers and at the time he was training the new plant manager for this location.] The 3 of us got a pretty good laugh out of it.

[Sparky]

There have been many instances of restaurants and bars being named after the owner's child(ren) or grandchild(ren). Wendy's is probably the most famous example of this; Dave Thomas named his burger chain after his daughter.

I am sure this has happened, but I would love to see it when some self-important entitlement whore marches into such a place and says that they are good friends with [Person's Name on the Sign], and that they deserve a discount. At which point the owner (or his great staff) would inform them that [Person's Name on the Sign] is actually the owner's three year old grandson.

There's a local pet store I'll call "Roxanne's." The owner gets a kick out of when salesmen call and ask to speak to Roxanne. She named the store after her St. Bernard. Don't know whether she ever put Roxanne on the phone though.

[sms001]

Many that was super romantic. I mean threatening to shut you down if you don't date him. What's his number?

I wouldn't bother, sis; charmer like that, he's probably got a long line ahead of you.

My most common "I know the owner" is a repeat. Worked door occasionally at a popular bar.

Moi: "$5.00 cover tonight please folks."
Namedropper: "Oh, we know Bigguy."
Moi: "Oh. Then you know he needs the money. Five bucks a head please."

[PepperElf]

There's a local pet store I'll call "Roxanne's." The owner gets a kick out of when salesmen call and ask to speak to Roxanne. She named the store after her St. Bernard. Don't know whether she ever put Roxanne on the phone though.

The rescue shelter i got my dog from is the same way. i originally thought it was the owner's name but read their blog and saw they'd name it after their (now-in-heaven) dog.

[ZumZum]

The most hilarious story from my past was when I worked for Ann Taylor.
People would call looking for her.
People would come in claiming to be a relative.

There is no Ann Taylor.
The name came from "Ann" was a popular name.
"Taylor", the dresses were tailored back in the day.

Did you all learn something new today??

[manybellsdown]

My most common "I know the owner" is a repeat. Worked door occasionally at a popular bar.

Moi: "$5.00 cover tonight please folks."
Namedropper: "Oh, we know Bigguy."
Moi: "Oh. Then you know he needs the money. Five bucks a head please."

I knew the owner at a nightclub I used to frequent, but I'd never have tried "I know the owner." I'd never met a misogynistic gay man until him. He loathed women.

Much better off making friends with the bouncers.

[Sarlon]

is it bad, that now that I own my own business, that I'm ALMOST looking forward to my first "I know the owner" call?

"you do?! you know me?! that why did your number not show up in my phone."

[strawbabies]

I had a lady calling from the local chamber of commerce once who wanted to speak with the owner and went on and on about what good friends they were. The owner was my father in law. I've met his closest friends, but never heard of that chick.

[Eddyisme]

Actually knowing the owner is cool, but if you don't really GTHO.

My Dad and me have an old friend who runs a restaurant and we occasionally drop by to see him, we usually go in the back and chat when it's not busy, if it's really busy we'll make quick chit chat and then order our food. (Love his fries.)

This one time it was pretty empty and we started chatting, we order sodas to go and stayed a while, after we started leaving, I notice a couple watching the whole conversation, I then realized we had forgot to pay, we headed back inside and called out for him money in hand, we told him we forgot to pay and he just laughed and said "Naw, go on, forget about it." and waved us on and headed back in the kitchen, I just thanked him and went out the door, the couple stared at us the whole time.

He hires new waitresses sometimes and I love the puzzled looks when they think me and my Dad are lying when my dad asks for him by name, and then he comes out and they kind of wait to see what happens, then he turns from boss to best friend in two seconds, he'll come out of the going "Hey Man! what's going on?" then he'll thank the waitress and send them off.

One of my absolute favorite moments was when he hired a new waitress just the day before and he told us to "test" her, he sat at the table with us and she asked us what we'd like, my dad ordered with a straight face, "I'll have 11 french fries, just 11, I'm a diabetic, oh and 4 hush puppies and half a glass of water, no ice."
She looked a little confused and looked to her boss, he said "go ahead and write it out, and take his order" he pointed at me, I smiled and said "I'll have a glass of ice, with toast." we waited and talked a minute and low and behold it came out exactly as we had said 11 fries total... she still works there to this day. ah, good times.

[Kisa]

Ugh...you just gave me flashbacks of Toxic Hell, thank you very much. But, yes. This has happened many times.

Example

A lady was whining about wanting to be treated like a pretty princess because she is a special snowflake. I refused. She stomped off after asking is a very haughty tone if I know who she is. I said no. She yelled that she will be sure to mention me when she see's (enter boss name here). It turns out, she was his neighbor who steals his paper every Sunday. Needless to say, my job was safe.

[LuvianBlue]

I'll have 11 french fries, just 11, I'm a diabetic

I lost it

That sounds like an amazing waitress

The old bookshop I used to work for was owned by a larger, local company run by a family. We'd often get family members in and they all got discounts. Thankfully this didn't lead to as much trouble as it could've. They were all listed in the computer system, so we could look them up to confirm who they were, and most of them were very nice if we didn't recognize them.

There was, however, one problematic family member. She was a very old woman, and she used to manage the book store long before I worked there. However, she would always claim that she used to own the store, which I was told was not true.

Her son was the current owner of the book store, so if she wasn't proclaiming "I used to own this store!!" as an excuse for her behavior, she'd be saying "I'll tell [son]"

She'd always treat the store like her personal library. She'd buy books, read them, and return them, even if it was a book she'd special ordered in or it was past the allowed return date. This literally happened with almost every single book she bought. She'd also read the newspapers and magazines and not buy them, or come in wanting us to give her the previous day's newspapers for free.

She'd go into areas of the store she wasn't allowed in (I don't care who you are, you're not allowed in the employee areas because you're not an employee!) and generally acted like the staff was at her beck and call.

I think the manager spoke to the owner a couple of times about this behavior, and we tried to put our foot down on a couple of things, but she just kept acting this way.

Most of the family was really nice though. Many of them worked for the company or for the shops the company owned.

We did get a few people in who would claim to know the owner or the manager. Some were telling the truth, others not, but it was usually pretty easy to verify, 'cause they should be in the computer system with a note about their discount, or we could just ask.

[sms001]

or come in wanting us to give her the previous day's newspapers for free.

Glad most of the family were cool - that scenario has 'relatives from hell' written all over it.

As for the quote, every place I've ever worked with newspapers, they weren't "ours." We essentially vended them, they'd take the returns, and cut a check on a weekly/monthly basis. It's not much, but wasn't she just stealing?

[LuvianBlue]

every place I've ever worked with newspapers, they weren't "ours." We essentially vended them, they'd take the returns, and cut a check on a weekly/monthly basis. It's not much, but wasn't she just stealing?

Some newspapers had different rules than others. Some only needed their headers returned as proof of non-sale, the rest of the newspaper went into the recycling bin.

We had other people come in who knew that the rest of the newspaper would be discarded and who would ask for it for free, saying "It's just going to be thrown out anyway!"

....Yeah, I understand that, that doesn't change the fact that you're just trying to dodge having to pay for things you want.

[sms001]

Some newspapers had different rules than others.

Ah. ty. Kind of like some magazines or p-back books. Moves "Mom" from thief to really darn cheap. Would have been a nice opportunity to say "Sure, they'll be in the recycle dumpster whenever you want 'em." though!