Subway complaint: Rude out-of-control management

I was in line behind another customer who had a coupon. The employee who waited on me tried to complete to cash out that customer, involving a coupon, when the manager walked away, not explaining that it was completed or what was left to be done. The employee asked a question about the transaction, but because there happened to be a lot of noise in WalMart at that moment, the manager (I later learned) did not hear him, so the employee asked it again.

At that point the manager went off on him in the most belligerent manner, with a loud voice that everyone in Subway and a considerable distance could hear, saying, You don’t talk to me that way! and many other belligerent statements, including calling the employee a Mr Fr, and then some more cursing statements meant to browbeat and denigrate the employee – who was standing there with a dumbfounded expression to begin with, and then tried to calmly explain what he had meant. Then the manager, easily twice the size of the employee, walked out in a huff. I had given him a hard look and said, Hey! in a stern voice when this had gone on for enough seconds. I later learned that a Walmart employee, who approached me to find out what happened, heard the manager say as he passed her, I’m gonna come back and tear that bitch up! Meaning me, I suppose.

Through all of this, the employee, a young man with a pleasant demeanor who had made me feel like a valued customer who wanted to make my order right, smiling, and very efficient, held his temper, was clearly embarrassed, but did not puff up or make any comments other than to explain to me what he had said to the manger.

Some minutes later, while I was eating, the manager returned, gave me a stare as he entered, which I returned with a hard stare of my own, but I broke eye contact first. He went behind the counter and began berating the employee again, which the employee was trying to explain, but not as loudly this time. I did not listen to the conversation, just the tone of it. He calmed down and was mollified, but I felt his behavior was outrageously out of proportion to the event. I’ve worked both retail and banking, and two cardinal rules exist: never curse in front of or to a customer, and never berate an employee in front of customers. The manager behaved like a jerk.