Ask Lemmy

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!".

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.

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.

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.

“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.

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.

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.

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. 😁

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."

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.

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'

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 sports all teams.

Nope, but I did go to school with a kid whos dad worked at Nintendo.

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.