Don’t Question It

(I work in a supermarket deli. A coworker is off sick today due to a case of vomiting, so we are a bit slower and there is a line forming. Most of the line is fine and understanding once they know why we are behind. One customer, though, a gentleman in a sharp suit, is getting increasingly irate.)

Gentleman: “CAN I GET SOME F****** SERVICE, PLEASE?!”

Coworker: “Hmm, no.”

Gentleman: *stunned* “Excuse me?!”

Coworker: “I said no.”

Gentleman: “B-but, I’m the customer!”

Coworker: “Right you are. It’s our obligation to serve you. However, since you posed the question, you have opened yourself to the possibility that you could be denied, which I have taken the opportunity to invoke.”

(Several in the line laugh at her response, and the gentleman stares at her, completely dumbstruck and blushing.)

Gentleman: “You can’t do this! I’ll complain and get your a**e fired!”

Coworker: “Oh, please, go ahead. If it means never having to deal with your attitude again, I would happily get my a**e drop-kicked out of the door.”

(More in the line laugh and the gentleman storms off, screaming so loudly we can hear him still as he complains to a duty manager on the service desk. During a lull in activity, the manager comes to us.)

Coworker: “So, am I fired?”

Manager: “I’ll probably have to write you up, but I’ve never seen [Gentleman] so flustered. God, it was satisfying.”

Me: “So, you know him?”

Manager: “We went to university together. He stood up in front of an entire lecture theatre and spent nearly an hour explaining why he would make the perfect representative. He wasted so much time the lecturer banned him from ever speaking again in her presence. He lost the election and made this big demonstration outside of the union about how we all had no respect for him. It’s sad to know he’s still a self-entitled prick!”

(He came back in again to gloat, acting arrogant and authoritarian, until he saw that my coworker was still here and ran back to the duty manager to complain again. He then made a big fuss when he was banned, with the duty manager standing over him, hands on hips, shouting, “Really, this again? You’re worse than an old soak!”)