Work politics and such

When I worked on New Years, I didn’t really expect the day to be eventful. 

So, my friend - my friend who happens to be someone that used to work at the store - came in to shop. That wasn’t the issue. 

Policy is that we can’t ring up our friends. So naturally, I told my manager to ring up my friend. 

My friend got these products where one item would be like 50% off with a purchase of X amount of dollars from the same line (Sorry for the ambiguity of this, but if I am more specific, it might give away where I work, and I don’t really want to do that). The problem with this promotion is that you have to manually change it. Unlike most other promotions that just change automatically. My friend and I knew this, and somehow my manager, somehow did not. This was issue number one. Because she knew about how the promotion worked - and apparently along with not knowing how the promotion worked, the manager also did not know the promotion existed. My friend said “You have to change it manually” and the manager walked away to the wall to see what she was talking about and under her breath muttered “don’t tell me how to do my job”.  I was really tempted to say she used to have your job. But I didn’t. 

My friend was about to pay for her purchase and was taking out her money so she could give exact change. She placed her money right in front of her and the manager reached over to get the money. My friend explained that that was rude. And that she should wait to be handed the money. I’m not really sure what happened here. I was back and forth between the rest of the store and the cash register area. They were getting a little heated, and once I was near the register the manager told me “Can you finish this for me?”. This is where it was an issue for me. 

On Wednesday, our head manager called me to the back room to talk about what happened. He said that the customer (this case my friend) called the store and customer service and explained that she was really dissatisfied with her experience at the store. I explained what happened, and why it might have gotten as bas as it did. I explained to him that it was someone who was my friend who also worked here, and because it is policy that we don’t ring our friends, I asked the manager at the time to ring her up. But that they had gotten in an argument and I finished it to keep the sale and try and make her experience positive. 

He asked me something I felt weird answering “How did that make you feel as an associate?” I said this: I felt weird witnessing that. I felt awkward. I felt that [the manager] did the exact opposite of what we’re expected of. 

If a customer yelled at me, for whatever reason, whether my fault, not my fault, a misunderstanding, x y z… I would NEVER yell back. There is no point. There should be no reason for me to raise my voice at a customer. In fact, customers treat me like shit all the time. I finish helping them, all while smiling, and when they’re gone, I go to the back room, take a sip of water or soda, brush off my shoulder and walk back onto the sales floor. And I try not to let that customer ruin the rest of my day. 

Then he asked, “How did it make you feel the way she handled the situation?” I answered: I felt it was handled wrong. All wrong. Especially with an associate standing nearby. It sets the wrong example. His response was: “that’s what I like to hear from my associates”. 

I felt like I threw my manager under the bus. But at the same time I feel that she needs an attitude adjustment. This is the second time I see her do something like this. During the holidays she yelled at a customer and threatened her by saying she would have security come remove her from the store (which is against our company policy). When all the customer wanted was for her to help the associate that was ringing her up (she was new and didn’t know how to split payment between two credit cards). 

What I’m most scared of is that this manager will retaliate against me. Obviously it’s going to go back to her. Since I was the only associate there at that time the old “an associate working at the time” will totally give away that it was me who said something. And I feel because I said it was “my friend” instead of “a former employee” that she’ll think I stood up for my friend rather than a former employee who is still a customer. 

Dilemas.