I work at a gift shop in downtown Austin. We’re not exactly a huge business, but Austin’s got a lot of people in it, so there’s pretty much always enough revenue coming in to keep the place up and running. Plus, though I don’t mean to brag, a lot of the customers do talk about how nice and friendly an employee I am and how good I am at customer service.
However, my coworker is not as nice, friendly, or good at customer service. He often goes around playing pranks on the customers, scaring the children with stories, and behaving like an overall jerk to everyone who comes in the store. He is even pretty mean to the other employees, which is why most of us tend to dislike him, as well.
The manager is out sick, so [Coworker] is being more of an a**hole than usual and getting on everybody’s nerves. Apparently, his favorite hobbies when the boss isn’t around are blowing air horns in our ears at random intervals, lying to customers about where to find stuff, and doing whatever else he can think of to make us hate him more than we already do.
At one point, I am restocking shelves when I notice a little boy, seemingly about seven or eight years old, at the other end of the aisle. He doesn’t seem lost, considering he isn’t really yelling out for his parents or anything, but it also seems a little off that he would be in the glassware section of the store and not the children’s section, especially without anyone else around.
I begin to walk up to him and ask him if he is lost, when [Coworker] pops up seemingly out of nowhere and begins talking to him before I can.
Coworker: “Hey, little guy. What’s your name?”
Boy: “My name is [Boy].”
Coworker: “Well, [Boy], are you lost or anything?”
Boy: “A little. I think my mom is still in the store, but I can’t find her.”
Coworker: “That’s unfortunate. Do you know what we do with little children that get lost here?”
“Oh no,” I think. [Coworker] isn’t going to help this kid out at all.
Boy: “N-no. What?”
Coworker: “We grab ’em by the feet…”
He picks [Boy] up by his legs, at which point the boy begins screaming.
Coworker: “…and then we take ’em to the ’employees only’ part of the store and feed ’em to the hungry crocodiles!”
The boy is now really beginning to shriek, undoubtedly alerting the whole store to his presence. I, of course, have finally had my fill of [Coworker]’s d*****baggery, and I begin walking up to him to give him a piece of my mind.
Out of nowhere, a lady’s voice suddenly shouts.
Lady: “FREEZE!”
[Coworker] quickly turns his head around to his side, where he sees an armed officer pointing her gun in his direction.
Lady: “DROP THE BOY AND PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR!”
[Coworker], of course, complied immediately and put the boy on the floor. The boy shouted, “Mommy!” The officer then put her gun back in its holster and hugged the boy tightly. I, of course, was absolutely stunned.
Of all the kids [Coworker] picked out to pick on, he chose a boy who just happened to be the son of a Dallas police officer. Honestly, I thought it was pretty incredible Karma that had taken place that day.
Long story short, while [Coworker] did manage to avoid getting arrested, the manager unsurprisingly found out about the incident and fired him from the gift shop the following day. I’m still in awe over the incident, and honestly, I think I may never be able to forget that day when the kindergarten bully in a grown man’s body got taken down by local law enforcement.
