Hello guys,
so for context I work in a coffee shop in a high street and theres a staff car park for all the shops at the back
I had a really bad day when I went to go to my car to go home and the owner of another local cafe confronted me saying I shouldn’t have parked in the marked bay as it was blocked off (when I parked/arrived it was definitely not blocked)
I tried to be polite and say there wasnt in fact a barrier but i’ll be more mindful in the future (I tried to be polite as im non confrontational amd dont like to be rude)
Thats when she started to have a really big go at me and was very rude to which I tried to explain myself but after 5 minutes of her having a go I did try to argue back my piece as I was really done at this point and while I dont like too it did get mildly heated to which I just walked off as I wasnt feeling great
After the fact I left a 1 star review which took them off a 5 star rating and just explained they were rude to me
on my next shift my manager said that she had come in teary eyed over the review and was saying how it was unfair and she’s trying to run a business and I was made to feel like a bad person by various people
I have since taken the review down but still feel like people think im in the wrong
I am not the type to normally do this but found she was needlessly rude when I tried to be amicable
EDIT
I was allowed to park there as its a private car park owned by a third party for the shops of the high street
I was in an unblocked bay that I’m allowed to use at time of entry to car park
so lovely people of reddit AITA?
(sorry for the length)
NTA
I had a similar situation – a mechanic at a local dealer was SUPER aggressive towards me when I was with my 5 year old and it made him cry. It was over a tiny disagreement, and I was being polite.
I wrote a review on yelp and google factually stating what happened. The manager called my wife, whose phone they had on record, to make a sob story about how this review was hurting her business. My wife told her that if they fire the employee I would take it down. Manager refused. Review stayed up. Manager became rude to my wife. So I edited the review to indicate the story above, saying that the manager refused to discipline the employee and then became rude to my wife. As of this day it’s my most upvoted “helpful” review on yelp lol.
Customers deserve to know.
Yours was definitely worse so more warranted specially with children involved
I left the review only because I tried to deal with it in a friendly manner but wasnt met with that so was just hot headed after the fact
Your review seems perfectly reasonable to me. If people are going to be assholes, they should expect consequences.
I agree, NTA. People have a right to know what kind of person’s business they’re supporting. Especially since the lady was wrong in the first place, OP was polite, and she still wouldn’t budge!
It always amazes and amuses me when people throw a tantrum over consequences to their own actions.
Being an asshole isn’t illegal, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be a fallout.
Free speech means you can say what you want (mostly): not that people won’t judge you accordlingly.
Isn’t that what reviews are for? to tell other people what to expect when coming into her shop? write up another review, telling how she was rude over a simple “mistake” that was not even your fault.
NTA: When someone represents a business, they have to remember that their interactions will reflect on that buisness.
NTA. Its what reviews are for
NTA. If the owner/manager of a business cones out to harass you, they get what they get.
Freedom of speech means the owner can yell and scream, berate you as long as you let the AH do it. Freedom of speech also means your review should stand: the Owner likes to yell at people for a very long time.
YTA for taking the review down. She’s upset bc she was held accountable for her behavior.
NTA, did the owner think that they aren’t representing their business when they berate people outside their shop? You can leave a review for anything to do with the shop or owner. Like people need to realize their words and actions have consequences. They are lucky you didn’t just name drop the business with the story on social media. There would have been way more than a single bad review.
I see a lot of people saying Y – T – A because this was a personal problem, not a professional one, but what those commenters fail to realize is that it BECOMES a professional one, when the owner of the business is just outside their business yelling at someone who was trying to be civilized. You can give a place a reasonable bad review for anything, and the manners of the boss are definitely a part of that anything. NTA
i wouldn’t want to eat at a restaurant where i knew the staff was harassing people, even if those people aren’t patrons. i would be thankful to read about it in a review. NTA
and it’s so ridiculous that she came in crying just because her reviews dropped her to 4.9. is that why she has a 5, because she cries and guilts people into removing reviews that are anything less than perfect?
Definitely NTA. If I was considering going there, this is the sort of thing I’d want to know about.
ETA: What all these Y T A comments are missing is that the owner was speaking as the owner of the cafe during this confrontation. If you have a bad interaction with someone, *unrelated* to their job, and then you find out they own a business and leave a bad review… that would be inappropriate. But this was relevant to the business. Sharing the parking garage with other shops and communicating with them about it is part of her job.
If this is how the owner acts in a professional capacity (including going to complain to OP’s boss,) that says bad things about how her business is run. If the owner flips out on another businesses employee over a misunderstanding, they’ll do the same to a customer.