Fighting It For Twenty Years

(My coworker is a bit hot-headed, but has been working here for over twenty years with no problems. One day, a customer, angry about his sink being clogged, begins yelling at him and then asks him to step outside.)

Coworker: “Yeah! Let’s go!”

(I thought that Coworker wanted to help the angry customer calm down, but instead I see them through the window, swinging at each other! I run to the manager’s office.)

Me: “[Manager]!”

Manager: “What is it.”

Me: “[Coworker] and an angry customer are fighting!”

Manager: *sad chuckle* “Stop joking.”

(Once he realized that I wasn’t joking, he went out there and broke up their fight! No one was seriously hurt. Coworker wasn’t punished, due to his years of service, even though he ought to have been. As clerks, we’re supposed to not sink to the customer’s level even when goaded, which Coworker knows very well. I guess he finally snapped or something, and unleashed it one a man twenty years his senior.)