Ask Lemmy

Was a cab driver. A relatively famous singer stepped in. Said where he needed to go, didn't say a word otherwise. It was a 5 minute drive. I stopped, said.. that'll be 15 euros. Or something like that. And got hit with the 'dont you know who i am?' I answered, "Well 'his name' , Im 'my name' and you need to pay".

I was a bouncer. A lot of people claimed to be someone important. They mostly weren't. I pulled Jess Gower (a local celeb) and her friends out of the queue years ago because I knew she was a bit famous. She seemed a really nice normal person.

Yes. It was a cousin on my mom's side who I definitely should've recognized. Oops.

Not that I can remember, but once, I was working as a server in a restaurant, and I guess one of the guests that got sat in my section had stared in a TV series that I was only vaguely aware of, but my coworkers loved. My coworkers we're all excited and whispering the entire time, but otherwise they were just another average, unmemorable guest.

"Sure! You're Jim Pingston, delivery truck driver from Tahoma! What's up man!"

...but no I haven't. Except when I talk to my boss sometimes he has to remind me.

Well I've got to drop Ronnie Pickering

https://youtu.be/hg5cJNXWEpk

Do you know who I think I am?

IT here so "customer service" but internally for a company, and yes I get this one from time to time. More often than its because someone failed their ID check and or forgot their security questions and they blow a gasket when we tell them to open a ticket by email or the portal.

Blah blah blah, do you know how busy I am, blah blah blah do you know who I am, blah blah blah...

Look, I dont care if your some security guard or the CEOs personal ass wiper. Resetting credentials is a critical function that the admins pawn off on us techs because users are insufferable and they dont want to deal with them most of the time. If you cant be bothered to do a little managment of your creds and keys, how the fuck do you still have a job. Get a password manager if its allowed but if we fail an audit because you wrote it down under your keyboard again... Well that problem is above my paygrade.

My friend was working front of house at a posh hotel in Edinburgh and Irvine Welsh (the author of Trainspotting) tried to pull the "Do you know who I am?" as he was being thrown out for being rowdy. My mate responded, "Yes I know who you are that's why I'm chucking you out!"

My brother had a funny story about this. His friend worked in IT and was doing one of those system things that take all day and take the system down. He wasn't supposed to let anyone in the building during this. So an executive comes to the door, his key card doesn't work, he buzzes the bell. The guy inside answers, and says he can't let anyone in. Exec says "Do you know who I am?" and the employee responds with a tentative "well, do you know who I am?"

"No"

"Ok, I can't let you in."

I had that once, they weren't be rude or anything they were just genuinely surprised I didn't know who they were.

Turns out there were some famous basketball player from Florida. Still not sure why he was touring a recycling plant in England.

State senators are pretty easy to overlook. I know one and he's not super recognizable, he just looks like a well-dressed guy.

I once had a guy claim he was one of the guys that invented the internet. I googled his name afterwards and it didn't turn up anything and he was incapable of performing the basic tasks required to reset his password to our website so I'm pretty confident he was full of shit.

I was working security at a port where cruise ships were loaded, and a bunch of dudes carrying guitar cases and music gear came through. They didn't listen to any of my instructions and tried to go through the metal detectors without putting their shit on the conveyor belt thing. I had to send them through several times, and one of them was like, "Are you sure we have to do this?" and I was confused and told him yes. I found out later that they were the Beach Boys.

I have done customer service, and I have heard the phrase used by a customer; though not at the same time. The only time I actually heard someone say "do you know who I am?" in a customer service capacity was a random dude ahead of me crashing out at 7-11 over $0.05 because the asshole couldn't do some simple arithmetic. He claimed to know the owner and threatened a bunch of shit to the teen behind the counter, holding up the line for like 20 minutes. And in a very "that happened" moment, when he finally fucking left, half the people in line literally clapped.

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!".

I think it's happened about twice for me and not once did I recognize them... but I have issues recognizing faces as is

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'

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.

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.

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

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.

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.