Staff smartly handles a sexist customer who demands female employee get him 'one of the boys'

People in the service industry meet all sorts of customers in their line of work. From the extremely respectful to the rude and demanding ones, we've all heard both good and bad stories about employee-staff interactions over the years. The r/MaliciousCompliance Reddit community is a treasure trove of such stories as members often share creative ways in which they've maliciously complied with a difficult customer, co-worker or boss. Reddit user u/WoolliesMudcake did the same recently when they recounted how they dealt with a customer who asked his female co-worker to "get one of the boys" to help him.

"This was a few years ago when I was around 18, I worked at a large chain of automotive parts stores. The store had a roughly equal number of male and female staff and being automotive, the women seemed to get a decent amount of men (and other women) who would ask for 'one of the boys' to help them," they wrote. "I was out the back loading stock onto a trolley to run onto the floor when one of my female coworkers (mind you she's worked here for around 7 years at this point compared to my ~3 months of employment) comes and finds me and asks me to help a customer. I ask why she needs help because she usually knows more than I do, considering how long she's been working here."

"She explains she was standing at the service desk and a guy came up and asked her to 'get one of the boys.' She tried explaining to him that she is more than competent to help him but he insisted that a man needs to help him. So after hearing this, I decide, 'f**k it, I may as well have some fun.' I tell her to follow me back to the desk where he was and to just let me sort it out," u/WoolliesMudcake continued. They went on to share exactly how they and another male co-worker left the customer with no choice but to accept their female peer's help.

"I get to the customer and ask what he needed. He explained what he was after so I kinda just stare with a puzzled look for a moment. Look at the customer and say 'I'm sorry I actually don't know how to help with that one' and turn to my coworker and say 'actually, she's an expert in that field she knows more about that than I do I'm sure she can help you.' He looks annoyed and asks for 'another one of the boys' and on cue one of my other male coworkers who had overheard the entire conversation walks over. The customer looks at him and asks for the same thing again to which he replies 'oh actually she's an expert on that she's probably the best person to ask that question to' before wandering off again. The customer begrudgingly got her help on the matter and walked out without talking to anyone else in the store."

Other members of the r/MaliciousCompliance forum loved how they dealt with the difficult customer and many shared instances from their own life when they had to deal with similar people. 

This article originally appeared on 9.21.22.