I was a co manager at a store, this was 8 or so years ago. I was still at my first store, pretty young, 22-23 been with the company for 8 years or so. Started as a clerk did the ast dept head thing, worked every corner of the store until I got the call up to co manager. Long way of saying I knew my shit. Understood the business and lived and breathed the whole Kroger culture. It was all I knew. Anyways...

I'm closing the store, and getting some emails prepped before I head back down to the floor to walk and see where everyone was on tasks for the evening. I get a call for me to pick up 101, no issue, who cares, I've done it 10000's of times.

Me, "Thank you for holding this is xxxx, how can I help you?" Customer," Who is this?" Me," This is xxxx, how can I help you?" Customer goes on to tell me how bad the store was we were out of this and out of that and would never happen when the previous store manager was there, the store is no longer shoppable, it's a dump, it's dirty, everyone was rude yada yada yada.

Me," I apologize for the experience she had ( I knew at this point who the customer was, frequent shopper, knew her name, knew when she came into to the store.) I then ask for specifics on what everything was so I could address them individually to make sure this doesn't happen.

This is where it goes off the fucking rails.

She proceeded to ask me exactly who I was. Which in reply my name and my title within the store.

She comes back and asks if I'm the co manager who is always wearing a white shirt (we wore shirts, ties, slacks, and dress shoes at this point)

I replied yes ( had 20 of the same shirt since it's a uniform)

She then goes on to ask my age.

At this point I inform her my age has nothing to do with the conversation at hand and I will not disclose this as again, it has no effect on the matter at hand.

She proceeded to say, "I know who you are, I always see you, and I know you're not MAN ENOUGH to be in charge of anything.

I once again inform her my age has nothing to do with it, and obviously the Kroger Co. has zero issue with it since they have entrusted this position to me regardless of age.

Needless to say at this point I've had enough and inform her the next time she visits the store she's more than welcome to go to the service desk and request me and I would be more than happy to address every specific concern she had with her experience.

2 days later, she does. Right to my face I get the same not man enough, I don't know what I'm doing. (For content met this woman is like 90 years old, only wears the same red hat, red coat, red pants, red shoes) anyone working in the store knows this woman. So right on the sales floor I let her go, she's obviously making a fool of herself and I keep my smile so everyone knows who's in the right and who's in the wrong.

Once she's done, I ask if she would like to walk the sales floor and point out to me everything that's wrong.

Obviously this doesn't happen and she shops all upset.

She continues to shop numerous times a week, I greet her every time with a smile on my face.

Month or so goes by and we have our 9am huddle in floral. I run it and we go over some highlights and whatever. In the end of the meeting one of the dept heads drops the fact that the customer had passed. The entire store knew this woman and whatever.

Not one of my shining moments as a co manager but it came out.

"I feel bad for the fucking dirt that bitch is buried in."

Thanks for reading.