People who have worked in customer service: Did you ever get hit with a "Do you know who I am!?" Did you in fact know who they were?
Happened to me once. I did not know who he was in told him so. It's possible the guy was bluffing. He claimed to be some state senator.
220
Comments151
Worked as the night manager at McDonalds for a while. Some drunk guy comes in and when we asked him to leave he 'my sister is the manager' (she was the assistant store manager) we were like so? Next day we told her and she said 'yeah, my brother is alcoholic, I'd have kicked him out sooner'
Nope, but I did go to school with a kid whos dad worked at Nintendo.
Did the kid in your school have access to experimental kit?
The kid in my school had a special prototype that displayed the Nintendo on the windshield for the passenger of a car. I've been waiting 35 years for that product to hit the shelves.
That would have been so cool, but one guess why it didn't go to market.
Cause the projector would need to be brighter than the sun?
Could be, I guess, depending on how bright a light you could make in whatever year. Also liability for the driver being distracted by it.
If they could do a rear sidewindow version, I guess that would be fine. No guarantee the projector didn't take up the full glove box, though.
If you crash in the game you crash in real life
At my school the kids dad worked for Seinfeld
Did we go to the same school?!
I went to school with the dudes who founded Dice (parallel class).
Working on the helldesk of an internet provider in the early 2010s.
Dude had our bog standard account and tried to claim he was our biggest customer.
Really mate? You aren't a university, you are a mum and pop shop that got shafted by our competitor and we came in and rescued you.
I like that maybe-typo :)
Coming from someone over a decade past helldesk work, it wasn't a typo.
My favorite were university parents who were so sure they were legally allowed to look into their (under 18) kid's grades and shit, and really did not appreciate that we did not give a fuck who they were if we didn't have sign off from the student (and even then, we told them to fuck off and go to the admin building cuz we ain't authorized to give you access to a fucking thing).
I don't get it, why can't parents know what their under 18 kids grades are?
Because (generic) you have no right to your child's information when attending higher learning institutions, no matter your child's age per FERPA. As it was explained to me, when attending higher learning institutions, it's understood that the child is basically an adult and should be treated as such, which affords them the right to privacy, even from their parents. They can authorize you if they so choose, but it's their choice.
Having heard the arguments I got from helicopter parents, it's much needed. The amount of grief I got from assholes who couldn't be bothered to talk to their kids was insane (especially the kids who had a note on their account to not let anyone do phone resets because parents were willing to impersonate their kid to IT to break into their account)
Thanks. Can't wrap my head around the concept, seems like a major cultural disconnect to me.
It's a somewhat-common slang term. Wiktionary has an entry, but it's poorly attested there; you'll see actual examples if you use a search engine.
It's intentional.
Much like calling management manglement. Because let's be fair they are there to mangle up your job to make them look better for the next quarterly bonus.
My phone has given up on trying to correct it.
Former helldesk employee from the mid 1990's here. Thank you for serving.
I had one that did this. Dude bought 10 years worth of dial-up access in 1995.
I was the sysadmin for a local company that mainly did custom ecommerce & CMS site building for local companies. Way before I started they also provided email addresses to local residents, and the first like ~100 people to sign up got a free account for life. We offered like 250MB storage, which was pretty awesome in the pre-gmail days.
Anyway, one of the lucky residents to sign up was a very interesting guy. In and out of homeless shelters, he ran for mayor every election, and at one point built his own three-wheeled Segway-like thing that he decorated to look like a Roman chariot that he would ride around during the weekly farmer's market.
So yea. One day we get a call and the usual tech support bump it up to me because they don't understand it. I answer the phone and am met with a barrage of rants about how my company is in league with the satanic monsters at AOL trying to stop him from becoming mayor and how once he's elected he'll blow our cover and expose us all.
Dear reader, he was trying to send an email to an @aol.com account that didn't exist, and was getting a "no such address" reply from their "mailer daemon" - their mail server software.
I didn't know who he was before then, but that's how I learned.
Yeah, but not how you think.
I worked at a grocery store that was a bit pricey and we did get some locally famous people from time to time. When someone came in, all the employees would run around whispering about it unless they were a regular.
One day Luis Gonzales (all star baseball player) was in the store. I saw him staring at bread and asked if he needed help. He asked me, "What the hell are pita chips?" I told him my wife loves those and he said he was sent by his own to find some.
We talked a bit about wives while I took him over, and afterward as he was leaving he asked, "do you know who I am?"
I told him yes and he said something like "well thanks for being chill."
The real famous people just want normal interactions most days. Like sure, lose your mind at the media event or something, but nobody wants to be swarmed at the grocery
Yep. A buddy of mine lives in the same apt. building as a recognizable celebrity. One time he was in an elevator with her but didn't look at her or say anything. She gave him an appreciative nod as she got off the elevator.
Yes, they claimed their cousin owned the store. The store ower was in their 60s and lived across the country. They, on the other hand, was a pissed off, drunk, early 20s college student at a closed pizza shop at 4am. No, your cousin is not the store owner.
In every case I've seen of this, the cousin probably does own the store - and knows very well they have idiot relatives. If the relative says anything it will be "you should have been harder on [censored]"
They 100% didnt in my case. The company wasnt very large and for some reason liked to include the founding/owners family history as part of on-board training. They were just a drunk college kid upset we wouldnt serve them pizza after closing hours.
Yup, by a semi-high level military dude working at the Pentagon, I kid you not. I got a visit from his boss who apologized and ordered him with an official document that was verbally read to me to not have any contact with me, a 50 bucks gift card and a few months later they transferred him to some random place in Kentucky or Nebraska or something like that. He had been pulling that line all over Pentagon City, Crystal City and Arlington in general and people complained. Had the nicest wife, but he was just a massive asshole. And all this while I was doing him a solid.
Yeah, the US military strikes me as an institution that would not like that. They tend more towards performative politeness.
My brother had a funny story about this. His friend worked in IT and was doing one of those system things that take all day and take the system down. He wasn't supposed to let anyone in the building during this. So an executive comes to the door, his key card doesn't work, he buzzes the bell. The guy inside answers, and says he can't let anyone in. Exec says "Do you know who I am?" and the employee responds with a tentative "well, do you know who I am?"
"No"
"Ok, I can't let you in."
https://youtu.be/r30rw64OlDA?t=32
Exactly, but the guy couldn't even see him.
Holy shit that clip was epic.
Yes, and I got fired for not knowing. I was new to the city so I didn’t recognize the famous local sports journalist who demanded to see the doctor who also worked with the famous local sports team. Normally no one gets to walk into a doctors office and see the doc immediately, so I told them to sit down and wait - I was gone the next day.
They fired you over that? You followed their rules! They should have a vip card or something if they wanted to allow some people in. I'm sorry man, they fucked you there.
That's why you should never go near a business that does the VIP treatment. They will mistreat people over political nonsense.
I mean they could’ve said “I’m new let me ask someone.” If they’re legit they’re probably paying out the ass for that.
In that case as an employee you also risk annoying your boss who is now pulled into this altercation that you could have handled. Then the fact that they were fired over this shows they weren't a good boss anyway, so I can understand the hesitancy to bring them in.
I mean they could just say "Do I let XYZ in immediately" and the boss just has to say yes no.
Right, what about the other 5 people that day who also claimed they were important though? Do you bug your boss every time? Working service it was near daily where someone would claim to know the owner or don't you know who I am or something
I've never had one of these moments, but when I was a manager at my current job years ago, I did have a guy who threatened "he was gonna have my job". It was ten at night, the weather was shit, I was on my way to take my last break, we had no carts, and he was verbally harassing one of my minor associates, who had come to me about the guy being a complete douche. I told my associate to go on home (he was off), and not to worry about this because he wasn't gonna get in trouble. The guy took deep offense and made all sorts of claims about how he knew the owners of the company. Sure buddy, you're friends with the Waltons, and that's why you're shopping here late at night alone. 🙄
I always take some comfort when lying dicks are bad at it, at least. Sorry about the retail hell, though.
Famous old story. There is a fire alarm in a fancy hotel. Guests are told to go to the front of the lobby (near the exit, in case they have to evacuate) and wait for an all-clear. They do that except for this one guy, who lingers around the service desk or something. Hotel worker goes up to him and says "excuse me sir, guests have to wait over there (pointing)". Guy puffs up and says "you know you are talking to the vice president?". Hotel worker goes apologetic and says "oh I'm sorry sir, I didn't know! Do whatver you have to" and leaves the guy alone.
A minute later the hotel worker returns with a suspicious look, and asks the guy "Wait a minute sir, what are you the vice president of?". Guy puffs even more and with a chill in his voice says "the United States of America!". Worker says "Oh! Get over there then (points to guest area). I thought you were the vice president of the hotel!".
Yup. Supervisor in a call center. Guy didn't like what I was saying and tried to pull the "My dad owns <local budget oil delivery service>!” Okay, good. You still aren't getting what you want AND I won't be buying my oil from your dad anymore.
This was years ago and I found out recently that the company has been folded into one of the larger full service providers who I do use. I can only hope that they were bought out and I haven't given their family a penny since.
I had a "I can't believe you're who you are."
When a very wealthy businessman who's well-known in the city as a traditionally married, conservative senior and founder of a charity gave me his laptop to "update and fix any issues". He had a Chrome shortcut on the desktop, but I noticed it also had Firefox installed.
I routinely check all installed browsers for any issues like add-ons that may have been installed unintentionally or malicious websites with the permission to show desktop notifications.
When I opened up Firefox, links with images to gay bondage, leather and shit-eating fetish sites showed up directly on the start page. And this guy was watching me while I was working on it. The tension in the room was palpable.
I quickly opened the settings, did my checks and closed the browser without skipping a beat.
"OK, found nothing malicious installed, now let's check your update status."
And pivoted to some small talk about his charity.
Got the biggest tip of my life that day.
Old conservative gentleman -> definitely is a freak on the internet. The hard data I know about is limited to which US states visit porn sites the most, but there's a lot of anecdotal data.
The repression has to come out somewhere, I guess.
I really don't understand how folks like that don't delete their history before bringing their computer in.
He wouldn't know how, that's why he paid my boss 120€ per hour to have someone do basic software maintenance on it.
A decade ago I worked in lumber dept of Big Orange. Had a guy come in one day demanding special treatment, claiming "I spend $1000s of dollars every week here!". That's not the fee l does you think it is, most local contractors spend that much every week here. You aren't special.
side note, it was always funny when Karens would get mad and say "I'm taking my business to Lowe's!". okay do that, I'm sure the $70 you were going to spend here will bankrupt us and then we'll be sorry.
I worked in a Sear Hardware one summer during college. There was a loudmouthed old man that started coming in maybe once a week to buy one or 2 small things, and would make a scene over prices each time with whichever cashier he got. I don't recall if people gave him a discount or if he just liked the attention or what. Then he made the mistake of seeing me at customer service one day.
He started going off about he could go down the street to Lowes or whatever and get his drill bit set for $3 cheaper or whatever it was. In a polite and professional but firm way I told him: I see you come in here and every time you harass the cashiers and make a scene to where I have other customers apologizing for you. If you take your money to Lowes, me, my staff, and every other one of my customers will be better off and you can save your $3 so we all win.
I don't remember if he bought anything that day or not. What I do remember is that I did see him back repeatedly after that. He would greet me each time, as you entered past the service desk, and he'd usually come to me to check out and be very friendly and cordial. Never a grumpy peep out of him for the rest of the summer I worked there.
Not sure what changed his mood exactly, if it was just I was the only guy working up front, or if it was just someone finally telling him to cut the crap, but I hope that positive change carried over to other places he patronized. Seemed a legitimately decent guy afterwards. I'm sure this is not the usual way this would have played out, but for the whole $6.50/hr I was making, I wasn't much concerned, and I did handle him calmly and other customers told me they loved how I handled him professionally but sternly.
Very interesting.
Like, did he not realise that was dick behavior? Or maybe it was fake and he was trying to manipulate you a different way? What a puzzle.
It was a real head scratcher. The anger seemed like the performance. The improved version seemed more authentic. I always assumed I "earned his respect" or some macho nonsense like that.
Could just be he didn't realize what an asshole he was being until he was called out on it. Most assholes will double down when called out on it. But a few unintentional assholes will actually admit the error of their ways and change.
Yeah, that's why I was fine being nice with him afterwards. Something must have clicked for him. It can take a lot to change.
Anyone who has worked retail will tell you that one of the funniest things a crappy customer can do is threaten to take their business elsewhere. "You mean you'll stop bothering me with your bullshit and never come back? Oh no!!!"
Worked at a shipping and printing store, on campus. The area keeps being developed, so there are architects who get plans printed and such. One of the clients we had usually sent the nicest people in to pick up his father’s company’s print orders.
One day, Junior came in to pick up some bound presentations. You see, his aura was one of importance and power. So when I could not link the order to the account immediately, he busted out a “Don’t you know who I am?”
I looked at him and gave him an apathetic No. I knew exactly who he was, because he dodged my calls when I would have to call him to collect payment for his father’s company. One day, he answered and yelled at me. So yeah, I knew who he was.
We figured it out together at the end. I’d like to say after the journey we had become friends, but…he was the biggest dickhead in the world. So no.
I (also) expeirenced this in reverse. I worked with someone who once casually mentitoned they "play some guitar on the weekend".
I figured out later that I have bought several of their albums. Lol.
What was the band?
Now that's some legit "I'm a big deal" energy.
Both the quiet confidence and apparently being famous enough that they prefer not pointing out who they are.
IT here so "customer service" but internally for a company, and yes I get this one from time to time. More often than its because someone failed their ID check and or forgot their security questions and they blow a gasket when we tell them to open a ticket by email or the portal.
Blah blah blah, do you know how busy I am, blah blah blah do you know who I am, blah blah blah...
Look, I dont care if your some security guard or the CEOs personal ass wiper. Resetting credentials is a critical function that the admins pawn off on us techs because users are insufferable and they dont want to deal with them most of the time. If you cant be bothered to do a little managment of your creds and keys, how the fuck do you still have a job. Get a password manager if its allowed but if we fail an audit because you wrote it down under your keyboard again... Well that problem is above my paygrade.
I love when people think I'm going to get in trouble for following the SOPs and maintaining compliance.
Like go right ahead tell my boss that I'm doing my job correctly.
There should be a policy hidden from higher ups
If a higher up complains to your boss that youre following policy and its fucking up their day, you get a $0.25/h raise each time.
“You don’t know who you are!? Do you have dementia? Is your carer here?
Hey Dave, this lady doesn’t know who she is! Can you get her a cup of tea while I call the police, somebody must be missing her”
I actually had to do this twice to two different customers over a number of years. Both times they backpedaled quickly and stopped being dickheads.
feck, Eddie, call the cops we have another silver alert
Former ISP helpdesk monkey. Had it several times. Didn't recognise any of them.
My theory was that no-one important enough to take that tone needs to make their own helpdesk calls.
worked at Walmart. someone pulled that on me. my response, "If I knew who you were, would you have to ask me that?"
they stood there, kind of stunned and asked to see a manager.
evidently they were some distantly related person to the regional manager.
🤷 like that fuckin matters. I still didn't know, nor care, who they were.
Imagine feeling the need to name-drop in order to somehow improve your Walmart experience.
dude, the clientele for that shithole is so far from average there's research studies on them.
I'm happy to not have set foot inside of one for over 15 years.
Oh yeah. It's usually local business owners, they think being above the local median income makes them billionaire celebrities.
I've also had the opposite. I worked with a friendly regular guy in his 50s wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants, and after he left, another customer asked me if I knew who he was. Turns out he was one of the top heart surgeons in the US.
I was working at a music festival, schlepping cases of beer. Some guy hit me with "I'm Gord Downie's cousin, give me one", I didn't know who he was talking about, so I told him that and ignored him.
Later, a bunch of Ontarians told me I did that in perfect deadpan. In reality, I grew up on the east coast, where the Tragically Hip wasn't nearly as popular, so I legitimately had no clue who he was talking about.
I mean, who gives a fuck about the cousin of a celebrity. That doesn't get you free beer.
I once had a guy claim he was one of the guys that invented the internet. I googled his name afterwards and it didn't turn up anything and he was incapable of performing the basic tasks required to reset his password to our website so I'm pretty confident he was full of shit.
The internet was invented in 1972 by Tim HTML in order to watch his coffee pot in another room. He was going to be rich, but then the plans leaked online.
Close enough, B+
I had that once, they weren't be rude or anything they were just genuinely surprised I didn't know who they were.
Turns out there were some famous basketball player from Florida. Still not sure why he was touring a recycling plant in England.
Maybe he was hoping to find people who didn't know who he was so he could feel normal again
thats why robbie williams loved america, nobody knew him. he even showed a date his performance at some big show in england and she still didnt believe him lol
Having toured waste facilities before, they are pretty cool
I was working security at a port where cruise ships were loaded, and a bunch of dudes carrying guitar cases and music gear came through. They didn't listen to any of my instructions and tried to go through the metal detectors without putting their shit on the conveyor belt thing. I had to send them through several times, and one of them was like, "Are you sure we have to do this?" and I was confused and told him yes. I found out later that they were the Beach Boys.
Especially the Beach Boys /jk
reminded me of how awesome Randy Blythe was about not being recognised https://youtube.com/shorts/MiF7QgT3YS8
No, but I did get asked if I knew who someone was after by a coworker. Some actor who has played a side character in a film I saw a decade ago. Along with a lot of other films I haven't seen. I don't watch many films.
My grandpa had an interesting twist. He was working bartender for a community charity event (this probably would be illegal today, but in the 1950s), and the other guy starting taking off his apron "I can't work here, those kids coming this way will tell my parents to not buy from my business if I refuse to serve them" (remember, 1950s, it was illegal to serve alcohol to kids, but odds are half the community only cared about that law if they thought the state police would find out, which in this type of event there was reasonable odds of).
My grandpa responded "oh don't worry, if you don't want to serve someone just send them to me"
"oh, is that why you were sending all those kids to me with a 'he's the boss'?"
"Yes. That is also why they put two people who don't know each other on this job - odds are we don't worry about the same kids"
No. Though I have helped multiple celebrities like scary spice and Helen Hunt.
Always were respectful to us.
I have done customer service, and I have heard the phrase used by a customer; though not at the same time. The only time I actually heard someone say "do you know who I am?" in a customer service capacity was a random dude ahead of me crashing out at 7-11 over $0.05 because the asshole couldn't do some simple arithmetic. He claimed to know the owner and threatened a bunch of shit to the teen behind the counter, holding up the line for like 20 minutes. And in a very "that happened" moment, when he finally fucking left, half the people in line literally clapped.
If he was the owner dude should've gotten a bonus or something for doing a good job
Was asked about making a key for a private plane. It was a high security blank we couldn't get so I told the guy we couldn't do it. The guy wasn't happy with that answer so he then hit me with "this is Dr Phils plane". Told him that still doesn't change the fact that we can't get the blank therefore we can't make a key that will actually work. I have no way to verify if he was telling the truth.
Could you have maybe made a key that forced the lock not to engage so that the door would whip open mid-flight and suck that fuckface out into the yonder?
“Is there a doctor on board?” Nope, but there wasn’t one before, either.
😂
Heh. Not exactly. But I worked retail in college and this really popular chef opened up a new restaurant near us. He came in one day and was being helped and every time his phone rang he stopped the person helping him to go walk off and take the call. This happened A LOT. So, I went out there and said clearly you’re not in a position to be helped today so we’re going to take care of these other people first. Then I paused and looked him right in the eyes. He got it, left then came back in a few days later when he was actually ready. I looked out there and he threw me a nod. After that he’d come in every now and then and we’d talk a bit. We never talked about that day but I think he respected what I did and understood he would do it for his staff also.
Yes, I did get hit with a "Do you know who I am?". It's not an exciting story and it took place about 20 years ago so my memory is faded. However, it was a bit weird.
This was a 50 or maybe 60 year old white man and he was neurotic about everything but also felt as though the policies that cover every other customer did not apply to him. For example, he was a habitual "I'm going to park right in front of the entrance to the store in the no parking zone" customer. But at the same time, our company policy is that we were supposed to greet customers a specific way (ex: like the chickfila people who are supposed to always say "my pleasure" instead of "you're welcome"), and if we didn't greet him that specific way, he'd ask to speak to the manager and tattle on us.
He was mean, nasty, rude and super arrogant. Apparently, he was also a lawyer, so management would basically concede to this guy's every whim and request, no matter how absurd.
This guy was a regular customer at the main store that I worked at in a town about 25 miles from where I lived. When I switched store locations to be closer to home, I noticed that he shopped there, too. This guy lived in the same town as me. Yuck.
His "Do you know who I am?" spiel came about when I was calling customers about bounced checks, which was part of my job at the time. I had no idea what the guy's name was at the time (and I've forgotten it now all these years later). But when I called him about the bounced check, he insisted it didn't bounce and yes, pulled the "Do you know who I am?" line on me. This is also how I learned that he lived in the same town as me, since his address was on the check.
The weird part of this story is that I was telling my dad about this guy because he was such an ornery cuss, and my dad knew who he was because this guy also shopped at a store my dad was working in at the time. my dad lived in a town and worked at a store that was over an hour away from either location I'd worked at.
It honestly sounds like the "Do you know who I am?" guy spent his days driving around and shopping at different stores all over the state simply being an irritating and infuriating asshole of a customer. Like whether or not he actually was a lawyer, I could see him being the type of person who intentionally tries to cause trouble in order to give himself opportunities to sue people/companies and that's how he makes all his money. I don't know that for sure, but it wouldn't surprise me.
Yes. Running sound for a concert in THE shittiest sounding room (concrete cube). I warned them how bad the sound is and I'll do everything I can but in the end the room is awful and there is no way around it, we will do the best we can without getting screaming feedback.
Singer of this band was a real cock. Literally said (not jokingly) "I'm famous you know". Wanted a monitor pointed directly at him blasting obscenely loud (louder than the mains) while he played acoustic guitar and did vocals. If any of you have dealt with a stage monitor pointing directly into a guitar sound hole, you know how bad this is. And he wanted it louder.
Walked right past me at the end of the show , totally ignored me. At least the rest of the band was decent. But that guy was really full of himself.
I'm not a pro mixer. But ive heard pros in that space and it sounded just as horrible. You can't fix a bad room with tech.
You can, if that tech is shitloads of foam.
Common misconception, foam will do nothing to capture mid to lower frequencies. Those square black panels guitar center sells? Absolute hogwash shit. All that does is maybe suck up a tiny amount of the only good high frequencies you have.
No, true room treatment is bass traps, 705 panels, large ceiling hung diffusion panels etc.
6 figures easily with this stuff. Which is why most places do not bother even though terrible sounding rooms create fatigue and are awful to be in. A lot like modern houses. They sound horrid inside due to giant square boxes, no wood surfaces (drywall sounds awful), steel beams instead of wood, not even any popcorn ceiling to help a little with diffusion.
I always wanted to do acoustic education/installation for folks, but its too costly, its not somethibg they can "see" results of so its a dead business unless you only do mega churches. Really a shame, as its such an important thing psychologically
At some point you're just building a better room
I have met some celebrities. Didn't know a single one of them. Have been absolutely uneventful in these conversations. I did get the 'Hey I used to work here you know!' a couple times at my current job at a supermarket. Which is always funny because our turnover is insane so like, yea, you and a thousand other people who tf cares, I'm not looking in the back for your apple juice sir.
I used to always look in the back. They never had anything otherwise it would have been on the shelves ready to buy, but it was a good opportunity to have a break.
I do the same thing sometimes when customers are persistent lol
My favorite uncle quagmire tells a story. This is from the early '80s.
He's working near the counter of the coastal airline he's working, another pilot dealing with check-in. Just then, a beautiful blonde starlet comes up, quite over-confident, and needs to get on the next flight. It's booked. But she needs to, you know, and she drops that famous line "don't you know who I am?"
Uncle's peer shoots back at her: "lady, if you don't know who you are, I'm not sure you're in a state to be flying anywhere!". He got in trouble after; and my uncle too for some Alan Alda style guffaws from the next room.
Not exactly what was asked, but I once worked as a personal banker at a bank branch that served multiple of the Washington Redskins (at the time), including many of their most valuable players. But I don't care about sports, so I never knew who any of them were until I'd have to ask them occupation questions by regulation. A ton of them kept coming to me and told me that they loved that I didn't know or care who they were and that I would never ask them a single football question.
Closer to the topic at hand, I also had another unrelated customer who had a doctorate, not a medical degree, and I accidentally called him "Mister" one day instead of "Doctor," after which dude literally spent an hour of his day waiting to talk to my boss to ream him out for being "disrespected" by not using his title. Any time after that when he came in I made sure to include "doctor" in literally every sentence when speaking with him. 😁
I work for a university. Everyone around me has a PhD. I am also earning my own doctorate. NOBODY uses the term "Doctor" except when someone passes their defense and their committee chair gets to be the first person to call them that. I know several university deans and provosts, and I call them by first name. My physician is also faculty. First name. This guy was an idiot.
I have a friend with a PhD in computer science. He doesn't go by 'doctor' because people ask him for medical advice. 😂
I want to get a PhD and go by "Doctor." Then, when people ask for medical advice, just start winging it.
@spittingimage @stoly "have you tried switching yourself off and on again?"
Yes, I have known plenty of PhD holders, and never experienced this with any other of them, just this dude. He was also like 5'1", so I suspect he had other ego issues he wrestled with as well.
I'd never have called him doctor even after that. Let him give you free rent in his giant-egoed brain.
Funny, I have a cousin who worked as a massage therapist at a physical therapy clinic who was in a similar boat, to the point where many players would ask for her by name because of how she didn't talk shop with them
Edit: Oops, commented on the wrong post.
My friends ex has a doctorate in like speech communication or something like that and we were all at a wedding a few months ago and I overheard her bitching about how his mom had sent her a birthday card at some point and she was pissed because the card wasn't addressed to "DR. xxxx". Literally the only job she could find with that degree was teaching it at a community college. Calm down.
looks likes its one of those degrees that arnt marketable, people who get a psych degree act as they are psychiatrist, or psychologist, no you have to get a psyD or phd/MD for that.
Yeah it is for sure not marketable or particularly useful at all as far as I can tell. I tried having conversations with her about her field and she never once explained anything to me that wasn't common sense stuff.
my cousin who got a psych degree went to grad school to get her PSYD the proper way to do it, the other is MD for psychiatry or doctorate for psychologist.
community college is pretty where some doctorate ends up if they cant find research jobs at a university or in private sector, i see alot of stem professors would be useful in doing research than teaching in CC, not that it is anything wrong with that, likely its the limited amount of jobs stem.
Not a great plan when you have 100s of thousands in student loans to pay off.
THEY CLAIM THEY like to teach at a CC, some of them had been in the private sector(probably gatekept from university jobs since those are ultra competitive, and faculty just dont leave til they croak, or they become to old to teach)
Hmm, that level of fragile ego but also not a medical doctor. Some kind of engineering?
Wish I remembered 🤷♂️
Somewhere that guy is subconsciously grumbling about you not remembering
I love this, thank you.
I worked at a now closed greasy spoon directly across from University of Kentucky in Lexington about 25 years ago. We would put your name on your ticket, so that we could call your name when your order was ready. Apparently I thoroughly insulted several of the basketball team because I had no freaking clue who they were. I went to Transy. I don't know your sportsball teams.
Lexington is fucking weird about that basketball team… The whole city was bizarre when I lived there.
Admittedly the place in question was Tolly Ho's so I understand some of the confusion on the player's part. They do LOVE basketball in that town. Friendly people though, at least when I went to college.
That's the name of the place I assumed it was lol! It was bugging me that I couldn't remember. I only lived there for like a year though. And yeah the city was far nicer to me as a visibly queer person with an Ohio accent than I expected it to be.
The best little Ho-house in Kentucky!
Not quite but I got, " eats dinner at my house!" I don't know why they didn't just talk to the owner over dinner
yup, I knew exactly who she was, problem was, she didn't know who I was. Crazy bitch was my next door neighbor. I exited the situation just before she began throwing wine bottles, knowing that things would devolve quickly. Sorry Alan, I left you with a real shit sandwich but you didn't pay me enough to deal with that kind of mental health crisis and it was time for my break.
I've avoided that that by knowing, in advance, who they were. But I worked a desk where I called them.
When they start getting shitty, pre-empt the problem by hitting them with a "don't you know who I am".
My friend was working front of house at a posh hotel in Edinburgh and Irvine Welsh (the author of Trainspotting) tried to pull the "Do you know who I am?" as he was being thrown out for being rowdy. My mate responded, "Yes I know who you are that's why I'm chucking you out!"
Was a cab driver. A relatively famous singer stepped in. Said where he needed to go, didn't say a word otherwise. It was a 5 minute drive. I stopped, said.. that'll be 15 euros. Or something like that. And got hit with the 'dont you know who i am?' I answered, "Well 'his name' , Im 'my name' and you need to pay".
So, not customer service but yeah, around ten years ago at an antique bookstore in Marseille.
I was shopping with a friend, visiting that shop for the first time. We were looking for ancient stuff, books that smell like vanilla and attic. It was our thing at the time.
Anyway, there was the shop owner (I assume) and a single client in his 60s dressed a bit extravagantly, little golden glasses and all. Unfortunately I can't remember what prompted the line, but we exchanged just a little and when we asked something about him, he did this raise-eyebrows-little-smirk-slide-glasses-down suggestively and goes "don't you recognize me ?". I was taken aback and went uuuhh.... nooo...? and I think what mental image he had of himself got hurt a little that day. Or maybe not. But I did not ask who tf he was.
I surmise he might have been a semi famous author or something. Or maybe it didn't have anything to do with writing, but the context seemed to suggest this.
Yes. It was a cousin on my mom's side who I definitely should've recognized. Oops.
Well I've got to drop Ronnie Pickering
https://youtu.be/hg5cJNXWEpk
At my job about 15 years ago we had some sales rep who thought he was hot shit. He was old and i think he did bring in decent sales. He was also an olympic gold medalist from a soccer team like 50 years sgo. So whenever he called our help line for IT support he would blast that line off basically every single time. Everyone knew and it was basically a huge joke because you knew it was coming. Everyone hated that guy, thankfully he was old so he ended up retiring i think several years ago. As far as i know despite him threatening people with that line i dont think he actually got anyone in trouble, probably because its not like we didnt help him and was treated the same as everyone else.
I think it's happened about twice for me and not once did I recognize them... but I have issues recognizing faces as is
I had a colleague say something like "we are bit short staffed so thanks for being patient" which just pissed up this entitled woman who then started spouting about how she worked in HR and she wanted to know who the manager's name was. Just going on and on and eventually I just yelled out who the name of the manager was, which somehow short circuited the diatribe. Somehow she was one of those people who could become offended by a genuine "thanks for the patience".
Im a bit conflicted on this. When service is usually good and its not going as well as it should a thanks for patience is a nicety. If it keeps dragging on and become severe it becomes sort of a. Hey worry about getting work done and pairing down the que and don't worry about apologizing for it as its gone beyond a minor inconvenience. Its time for magement to think about vouchers or something. Then also you get all the businesses now, especially with phone support, who under staff and so thanks for your patience is just business as usually as they intentionally provide poor service (not the individual people its the company that has a policy of doing it poorly)
It wasn't even bad service. We sold watches. It was the sort of "I will help you as soon as I am done with this customer" thing.
yeah I mean if the wait is to long in that scenario then leave. When I go places I just see a line and am like. nope.
State senators are pretty easy to overlook. I know one and he's not super recognizable, he just looks like a well-dressed guy.
I work for the NHS. I'd lose my job if I told anyone what famous people I've worked with.
Not that I have met anyone famous at work.
I knew a guy whose dad was a high-up at a well-known snack company. We got some rotations of experimental beef jerky.
" Experimental Beef Jerky" is the name of my new Bluegrass/Metal Bee Gees cover band.
I was a bouncer. A lot of people claimed to be someone important. They mostly weren't. I pulled Jess Gower (a local celeb) and her friends out of the queue years ago because I knew she was a bit famous. She seemed a really nice normal person.
The important people don't enter through the front door.
My clubs weren't that impressive.
Yes. No. Local rich guy.
I forgot what the questions were this far down the page.
Not that I can remember, but once, I was working as a server in a restaurant, and I guess one of the guests that got sat in my section had stared in a TV series that I was only vaguely aware of, but my coworkers loved. My coworkers we're all excited and whispering the entire time, but otherwise they were just another average, unmemorable guest.
My manager at my last job (grocery store in Missouri) loved telling about the time Chuck Berry's sister came in and said this. Apparently she was a massive bitch who thought everyone should worship the ground she walked on cause of her brother who was a creep with how he handled his restaurant down the street. Like she was demanding stuff be free for her.
"Sure! You're Jim Pingston, delivery truck driver from Tahoma! What's up man!"
...but no I haven't. Except when I talk to my boss sometimes he has to remind me.
Do you know who I think I am?
I always liked telling those people that I did not know who they were and directed them to social services if they required assistance recovering their identity, and that if this was an emergency they should call 911.