It doesn't matter where you go, you're bound to cross paths with someone who isn't the sharpest tool in the shed and has the subtlety of a sledgehammer. No matter what you do to hammer it into these people that they are in the wrong, nothing seems to work. You know that kind of person, right? Well, if you have never had the (dis)pleasure of meeting one of these intellectually challenged and socially inept fools that grace our fine earth, then look no further because we have a story for you.
A Fun Work Outing Almost Ruined By Some Rude Idiots
It doesn’t matter where you go, you’re bound to cross paths with someone who isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed and has the subtlety of a sledgehammer. No matter what you do to hammer it into these people that they are in the wrong, nothing seems to work. You know that kind of person, right? Well, if you have never had the (dis)pleasure of meeting one of these intellectually challenged and socially inept fools that grace our fine earth, then look no further because we have a story for you.
After reading the following story about a young IT specialist, who we’ll call Stan, who just wanted to have some drinks with co-workers at his neighborhood pub, you’ll have more than your fill of the so-called social elite who lack grace, tact, and common sense when trying to order drinks or deal with people in general.
It Started Just Like Any Other Friday Night Out
Our story starts early one Friday evening when Stan and several of his co-workers decided to break in a couple of the new hires at his IT company. See, Stan and his colleagues had a Friday tradition of going to the nearest pub and have a couple of pints to familiarize the new employees with the culture of the company.
The group of young professionals had been going to this particular pub for so long that they had become regulars and friends with all of the staff. They were pretty much allowed to do what they wanted within the confines of the neighborhood bar and were treated more like friends than customers.
Nothing happened most Fridays outside of running up massive bar tabs and joking around with the bar staff, but this Friday…Well, this Friday was something different entirely.
Stan explained that everything started when he was smoking outside of the pub. As he was taking a drag of his smoke, he watched four fancy dressed senior ladies approach the pub.
“It was quite an odd sight, as the pub was crappiest that I know of, but we didn’t mind,” Stan said. “It’s like a good old friend’s place where everything is a bit off and messed up, but as long as you enjoy your time there, you don’t mind, as everything is comfortable and you don’t need to stress over anything.”
The run-down, yet friendly bar was situated on the far edge of the town’s industrial zone, which could be described as “dodgy” at best. So why were these high society women at this particular pub in this particular part of town?
“It made me wonder how the ladies even found the place, in their high heels, perms and furs and bling and such,” Stan remarked.
Paying as little attention to the group as possible, Stan put out his smoke and decided to do the polite thing to do and emptied to the ashtray into the nearby trashcan before walking back into the bar. Still in the mood of being polite and well-mannered, Stan held the door open for the women and wished them “welcomes and such.”
When he got back into the bar, Stan quickly noticed his co-workers shouting for more drinks and snacks to be brought over to their table. Seeing that the staff was busy, and being so familiar with everything at the pub, Stan decided to just pull everything himself.
After he’d deposited the snacks and drinks off at his table and started to make his way toward the little boy’s room, Stan saw the women trying to figure out the physics of a tall standing table with equally high chairs. But just being a patron of the bar, he assumed nothing of it. That is until one of the women pulled his arm and pulled him into a story he’ll never forget.
The First (Of Many) Cases Of Mistaken Identity
The woman asked for a menu, but Stan just chalked it up as an honest mistake…at first. Not thinking much of it, Stan informed the woman that he didn’t work there but pointed her towards the bar where she could find a stack of menus for both food and drink before walking to the restroom.
When he returned from doing his business, Stan was welcomed by the sight of his nearly empty pint glass at the table. Upon looking up at the bar, he decided to just pull a bottle from the cooler and write it on his tab instead of pestering the already busy bartender.
“It was quite common practice for us, as the bartender is often busy doing something else and we have been regulars there long enough to be able to do self-service when the only staff employee is having a break or so,” he said.
Stan, feeling a little flushed from all the drinks, decided that his next drink would be his last. Maybe if he’d called it a night a little sooner, he might have been able to avoid all the trouble that those fancy ladies would bring.
And Then She Doubled Down
As he was enjoying his (presumably) final drink of the night, one of the ladies started to scream for Stan to come over to their table. Not thinking much of it (“Maybe they need some recommendations for what to drink,”) Stan walked over to the group. As soon as he got within a few feet of the group, one of the women started up with, “How rude of you to just pass us without taking care of us. We would like to order.”
Dumbfounded by the woman’s lack of social grace, Stan quickly responded, “Sorry lady, I don’t work here. But the bar is there (pointing to the wide bar) about three meters away. You can order there.”
Just as Stan started to turn to go back to his table, another woman in the group grabbed onto his arm and shot back, “Don’t lie to us. We saw you emptying ashtrays and delivering drinks and snacks for other customers. We are paying customers and want service, NOW,” as she furiously tapped on the table with her index finger to make her point.
“Paying?” Stan responded, “What did you pay so far? And yeah, those are my colleagues from ‘IT-company.’ I don’t work here. This is a self-service establishment. Besides, if you would even listen and have some manners, I might be helpful, but now please take your hands off from me and place your order to the bar.”
The woman, having none of it, yelled back, “You are very rude and not fit for customer service at all. You are the worst. I have never, I mean never, EVER been treated so rudely.”
The woman entered into a long rant about customer service, Stan had stopped listening and instead focused on how he would teach this group of deplorables a lesson. Already, he had a pretty good idea of what to do.
Let’s Play A Little Game
While the woman continued with her diatribe about the importance of manners when dealing with “paying” customers, Stan locked eyes with the bartender and had the following conversation using only their eyes:
Stan: “Hey Jimmy, what’s up with these witches?”
Bartender (Jimmy): “Do I look like I care?”
Stan: “No, not really. So do you mind if I teach them some manners and tell them how things are?”
Bartender: “Feel free to do so. I don’t like them either and it’s a free country.”
Stan: “Sure you don’t mind? They might complain to you.”
Bartender: “Not at all. Go ahead. They wouldn’t find anything suitable for their ‘class’ to drink anyways here besides a hot toddy.”
Stan: “Thanks, man. Stick around for a bit of a show.”
Bartender: “Cheers, it’s cool. I’ll be just watching from here, safely behind the bar.”
After getting permission from the staff to deal with these “ladies” the best way he saw fit, Stan turned back to them and said, “If you would act like a lady, you would be treated like a lady. With behavior like that, I don’t expect anyone to help you willingly, especially people who don’t work here. Like me.” Continuing, Stan said, “I don’t know what is wrong with you, but my surveys have been at 95% for almost a decade. Whenever we survey our customers, I get full points almost every time. Mostly because I’m so polite, friendly, and willing to help every customer of us, in THAT IT company there, you can see through the window.”
The third woman, who’d been silent so far throughout the tense encounter, finally spoke up. Too bad what she had to say proved that she was just as idiotic as her friends.
“Insolent Brat, Get Me Your Supervisor!”
Not liking what Stan had to say, another lady at the table stood up and said, “Insolent brat. No one has ever, I mean NEVER been treating us so rudely.”
Stan laughed it off and attempted to make an exit from the murder of crows but was cut off by another woman who grabbed him and demanded to speak to his supervisor.
Stan turned and called towards his table, where his supervisor was watching everything go down. “Hey Tim,” he yelled over the music, “We have a group who wants to leave feedback on my customer service skills. Would you mind coming over? I don’t think they can work with a survey link.”
Tim walked up, wearing his company collared shirt and lanyard with their company information and such. “So, I see you have a complaint about my employee,” he said, pointing at his lanyard, which clearly had a different company name than the pub they were all in.
The ringleader of the group (the first one) started saying, “Yes. We have been treated unbelievably rudely and I wish to make a formal complaint.”
Tim just said, “Sure thing. I am deeply concerned about our service level and to provide adequate support, that satisfies the customer needs. What is your service ID?” As he spoke, he began pulling out his work provided tablet.
“What are you talking about? This guy right there.” They started pointing towards Stan, who was leaning against the bar sipping his drink, observing the situation from the other side.
Tim kept going: “Maybe the contract ID then? We need something to verify that you are entitled for the service.”
The women were beyond confused by this point as they attempted to gesture towards Stan’s general direction: “We have never been asked those in a bar. Where can we get this information? What is this?”
Tim: “You need to talk to your Account Manager. If you don’t know even your service levels, we can’t do much for you in ‘IT-company name.’ There are things you need to know before you demand anything. Sorry. No service for you from us without the information I just asked for.”
Having had enough of the nonsense, Tim tried to make an escape when the lady grabbed his arm and said, “Well… WELL! You can’t just shut us out with some managerial garbage. Of course we are entitled for service and we demand service now!”
Tim shook the woman off of his arm and angerly pointed to the badge clearly stating the name of the IT company as he told the woman that neither he nor Stan worked at the bar.
The women still didn’t get it, so that meant Stan was going have to move on to phase two of his plot.
Not Even A Second Manager Could Make Them Smarten Up
After the shock and awe wore off, the women picked back up again and started screaming in the bar. Now they were demanding to speak with Stan’s manager, still failing to realize that none of the men they had spoken with were employed at the bar.
“Manager, I want to talk to your manager! I will be calling the police if I can’t talk to your manager! I demand to speak to your manager!” They screeched.
Tim kept his cool and said, “Alright, but I don’t think that’ll help anything, you ignorant, salty old bat.” To his manager, Tim called out, “Hey, James (Tim’s manager)!”
Stan watched the way the women preened as James approached, obviously thinking that they’d won. “They congratulated each other with snobby looks and with that kind of ‘not bad’-face,” Stan said. “I was expecting some back patting and surely they complied.” They had no idea how dumb they were about to look.
When James walked to the table, he asked, “So what seems to be the problem?”
Crow #2 asked: “Are you the manager of these guys?”
James: “Yes. I am. They are my best employees in ‘IT-company.'”
The woman didn’t verbally respond to James, instead, she continued to look at Stan and Tim as she tapped on the table.
James: “So, I take it that you have a complaint?”
The women started to caw all at once, making up ludicrous accusations about the IT specialists, calling them names, claiming that they’d stolen from them and so on.
James: “Are you serious? But that makes you stupid.”
Ladies: “What? A-a-a-a stupid? Of course, it doesn’t. What makes you say that?”
James: “They told you that they work for ‘IT-company,’ under my management, so what makes you think they need to serve you in this pub?”
Ladies: “But we saw him emptying an ashtray and bringing drinks and snacks for other people.”
James: “Yes, but didn’t they tell you that they don’t work here? Multiple times I might add? Is it forbidden him to empty a full ashtray, like any decent human being would do?”
Ladies: “Well.. yes, they did, but… And no… But… “
James: “No buts! So you are admitting that you are stupid? Great. So what do you want from me? Isn’t it a bit stupid to want service from people who don’t work here?”
The women tried to avoid answering his question, but James kept the pressure on. “Well? Isn’t it stupid to demand service from people who don’t work here? What makes you entitled wretches think you can just demand anyone to serve you?”
At this point, James shut up and looked at all the ladies, just smiling at them. The ladies suddenly became interested in everything but making eye contact with James. This kept going on for a full minute.
After letting the ladies sit in an uncomfortable silence for a long moment, James then continued: “And still no apology for Stan, Tim, or me, even as you admitted being wrong and insulting all of us while being rude. Ab-so-lu-te-ly worst human beings that exist. As you said, if you run into jerks all day, it is very likely that you are the jerks.” Even after being told exactly what they did wrong, these ladies still didn’t want to acknowledge their mistake. They were about to get their comeuppance, though, big time.
Not The Result They Were Seeking
The women finally relented and mumbled something while turning their heads towards their own table. They gestured James to leave them alone, who went back to his table, victoriously.
After a while, he called for Jimmy, the bartender, to bring some shots to his table.
As Jimmy tried to walk back to the bar after delivering the shots, the women stopped him and demanded service.
“Well, you are staff, right?” the ringleader barked at him. “Good.. we would like to finally order some drinks and food. We would like to have this and two of that and couple of these with one of them, and if you have good expensive vino, we would all like to have a glass of it.”
Stan said there was no apology for their series of outbursts, no moment of clarity, nothing.
Jimmy just responded: “You need to order from a bar.” This brought about a second session of furious whispers and several acidic glances toward Stan’s table.
After some time, one of the ladies went up to the bar. The lady got the attention of Jimmy and listed their entire order rapid-fire style. The whole time, she was really talking down to Jimmy, who really hadn’t wronged the ladies in any way.
Stan said it looked like the lady did this just to be belligerent and out of maliciousness.
Tired of dealing with the woman and her flock of undesirables, Jimmy responded: “You need to order from A bar. Not THIS bar, but any other bar. We don’t serve rude people here; this is a sanctuary for the working class. Besides, the kitchen closed at 9 pm, so no. The closest bar serving food at this hour is three train stops towards the city, in XY shopping center. Oh, the train stop is at the other side of the industrial zone, so you probably need to go around left side, as you don’t have work passes to walk through taking the shortcut. It’s storming, so… have a nice evening, by all means, if you please.” Predictably, this didn’t go over well.
And Who Is That Standing In The Rain?
With their voices muted, their egos crushed, and their pride misplaced, the women gathered their things and exited the bar and out into the rain they went.
Stan and his friends were jubilant after the women left the bar and decided to have a few more rounds to celebrate the fact that they would never have to deal with this women again.
Later that night, as Stan and a few members of his group were walking to the train station to catch the final lift home for the night, who did they run into? The group of women from the bar.
“They were also waiting for the same train, but unable to get into the platform even to have cover from rain as they didn’t have train passes, nor cash,” Stan remembered. “They started to shout to us, demanding that we assist them with the tickets, clearly being insanely ticked off, blaming us for their misery.”
More than tired of the women after their seemingly endless barrage of abuse, Stan finally let the women have it: “Look, lady, it might be hard to believe, but I don’t work for the railroad either. But just follow the instructions on the screen on a working machine around the corner pointing towards the other machines, like everyone else.”
The kiosk the women were trying to use had a busted screen, which had been that way for a few months. But if they would have walked to the other side of the station, they would have found a working machine that not only had a maintained screen but also took credit cards, which was all the women seemed to have in their possession.
“There is even a sign about it on the machine they try to operate, which they don’t bother reading,” Stan said. “If you just press a button and put coins in, you don’t need the display, everyone working around there knows that.”
But why should the women listen now? They didn’t listen all night, so why change course? They continued to say that Stan was wrong and that the machine was not working entirely.
Finally, two of the women changed their tune and tried to get the ringleader of the bunch to listen to Stan, but it was far too late.
“These women (or at least one of them) really didn’t learn anything today. Them looking at us, merrily going through the gates with high spirits, high-fiving each other while approaching the waiting train, I can’t even imagine how they felt. But that feeling made me feel very warm inside, especially when the last train left the station leaving the soaked ladies in the middle of nowhere.”
It’s always an amazing feeling when someone gets exactly what was coming to them, especially if they refused to listen to anyone trying to help them out. These ladies had ample opportunities to correct themselves, but they chose to remain ignorant. Their bad night got even worse, all because of their own stupidity and pride.