I’m an assistant manager at a huge family-owned liquor store in Texas that has now been around for sixty years. I have to call out on a Saturday because of family issues, so I’m not there to deal with this issue firsthand. Since we legally have to be closed in my state on Sunday, I don’t hear about this until the following Monday.

Cashier: “So, what happened with the crotch goblin theft?”

Me: “The what now?!“

Cashier: “Oh, didn’t [Store Manager] call you and let you know?”

Me: “Obviously not!”

Cashier: “Yeah, turns out we caught some lady that was shoplifting after the fact, but we couldn’t prove anything at the time because she shoved the bottle of [Expensive Tequila] under her dress and up herself and walked right out! We didn’t catch it until [Store Manager] saw it on camera!”

I can understand shoplifting food, medicine, baby formula, or something like that, but there’s no reason you need that tequila THAT badly.

In 2021, our state imposed a mask requirement but later reduced its scope to the unvaccinated. When the state announced the complete repeal of the requirement, the city imposed a functionally identical order to replace it. This led to a lot of people attempting to enter the mall in violation of the order, because the state’s repeal got far more publicity than the city order, and because many patrons were not local (we’re on a major interstate and get a lot of visitors off the highway) and so wouldn’t have been aware of news in the city.

Some customer service people (not the actual security guards) moved to the entrances and began demanding the little CDC vaccine cards from anyone not wearing a mask. Since our mall location is fairly near an entrance, we got to hear a gazillion variations on the same conversation.

Employee #1: “You can’t enter the building without either showing proof of vaccination or putting on a mask.”

Customer #1: “No, the governor repealed that. I don’t carry a mask anymore!”

Employee #1: “[City] has a health order about it, separate from what the governor repealed. If you don’t have a mask and can’t show proof of vaccination, you must leave the property.”

Customer #1: “I don’t want the vaccine! It’s my choice, and you trying to coerce me into undergoing a medical procedure I don’t want is unethical!”

Employee #1: “One of the consequences of your choice is that you’re still subject to the mask requirement, then.”

Some of these people managed to track down masks, and others decided to leave. Employees at the individual shops in the mall tended to get an earful from the former group. It’s not as if we had any say in the health department order, or in the mall’s enforcement of it, but having our customers come in already annoyed did not make us huge fans of either. Just being a sympathetic ear was usually enough to mollify the customers.

And then, one afternoon, it just stopped. It seemed oddly quiet but took maybe half an hour to figure out that the door guards had abandoned their posts, and the arguments and shouty customers had ceased. The health order hadn’t been rescinded that we’d heard of, so it was something of a mystery as to why.

The next day, we heard from the manager, by way of mall management, the following exchange, which was blamed for the end of the enforcement procedure.

Customer #2: “I don’t want the vaccine! It’s my choice.”

Employee #2: “One of the consequences of your choice is that you’re still subject—”

Customer #2: “I’m going shopping one way or another, but I brought this with me.”

The customer shows the handle of a pistol.

Customer #2: “You can choose to try and stop me, but remember that your choices have consequences, too.”

The employee decided that discretion was the better part of valor and did not try to stop the customer. The actual security forces were alerted, but with the description being “white guy in a tan jacket and jeans,” they didn’t have any luck locating him.

The police weren’t interested as no direct threats were uttered, menacing is a fairly low-grade misdemeanor that doesn’t usually merit much investigative effort, and displaying the handle of the weapon didn’t constitute brandishing. Mall management made the decision to scrap their hard-nosed enforcement policy as a direct result of the comment and replaced the doorkeepers’ stations with simple signage.

Related:
An Ugly Side Of Society Has Been Unmasked, Part 26
An Ugly Side Of Society Has Been Unmasked, Part 25
An Ugly Side Of Society Has Been Unmasked, Part 24
An Ugly Side Of Society Has Been Unmasked, Part 23
An Ugly Side Of Society Has Been Unmasked, Part 22

I’m a seventeen-year-old girl working for a chain craft store. I’m on my lunch break shopping as a normal customer, with no uniform or identification that says I work there. This man comes running up to me.

Man #1: “Do you work here?”

Me: “Yes, but technically not right now, since I’m on my lunch and not being paid.”

He proceeds to ignore my entire sentence. He grabs me by the arm. This man is probably in his early thirties, and as I stated before, I am seventeen and I’m a very small female. He begins to drag me to the register.

Man #1: “Your cashier needs help, and I’ve been waiting for my change for five minutes now!”

Me: “Please remove your hand from me before I drop these candles.”

To his benefit, he does. We make it up to the front, and there is a long line with one cashier working. I proceed to just page over the PA system for backup and go back to my lunch break.

The next thing I know, the man’s friend comes up to me and also grabs me by the arm to drag me to the registers.

Me: “What is with you and your friend and your need to put your hands on me?! Now please remove them before I get someone to escort you out!”

My manager then approaches me.

Manager: “Can you please hop on a register for just a couple of minutes? You’ll get an extra five for your lunch.”

Annoyed, I do what they ask and hop on a register. I start ringing up the guy who grabbed me. He has a $3,000 basket of sewing lights and Visa gift cards, and he pulls out a wad of cash. I take the cash from him, and it definitely doesn’t feel right, so I put it through our bill readers and mark the bills with the counterfeit marker. Both indicate that these are fake bills.

I hand back all the money he gave me.

Me: “This money is fake. You need to leave the store, and you are not welcome back. I will be informing my manager, and they will decide whether a police report needs to be filed.”

The guy fast-walked out the door. l told my manager everything and told them I’d be needing fifteen minutes more lunch time since the guy took up eighteen minutes of my time and wasted them. I didn’t get the extra lunch time.

My client regularly downloads thumbnails off of Google Image Search and emails them to me to post on his site.

Me: “I’m sorry, but I can’t post these on your site.”

Client: “What? Why not?”

Me: “For one thing, that’s copyright infringement, which is illegal, and for another, these are way too small to even be of any use. You need to use your own camera and take photos of your workers, your vehicle, and other things you want on your site, or have someone do it for you.”

The client proceeds to take pictures of pages in magazines and email the photos to me.

Me: “These won’t work, either.”

Client: “Why not? You said if I took pictures with my camera, it’d be fine!”

A woman comes up to me and asks me for help finding canned black beans. I showed her where they are located and help her find a brand she’s happy with.

Customer: “Thank you so much!”

Me: “No problem!”

I turn to leave, but she grabs my wrist and pulls me back around.

Customer: “No, no, the proper response is ‘You’re welcome,’ not ‘No problem’.”

I wrench my arm out of her grasp.

Me: “Excuse me. You have no business touching any of the staff members here!”

Customer: “How dare you speak to me that way?!”

Me: “I’ve read about people like you on the Internet. I’m afraid that attitude won’t fly in this store. You need to go to the registers and get out.”

Customer: “Who the f*** do you think you are?!”

Me: “I’m an assistant manager, and I am the manager on duty for the day. I’ll escort you out.”

This is where I made what could have panned out to be a fatal mistake: I turned my back on her. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in a hospital bed. With a few quick questions to the hospital staff, I found out that the woman had been brought to the same hospital and was also under arrest. My manager was then brought in to explain to me what had happened ahead of the police coming in to speak to me.

Apparently, as soon as I turned around, the woman grabbed a can of soup and threw it as hard as she could at the back of my head, which rendered me unconscious. She then turned and threatened another customer with an “object out of her purse”. The other customer, not willing to put up with that level of bulls***, rammed her with his shopping cart, breaking her ankle.

The hero customer had then called for help and began first aid while paramedics arrived.

I pressed charges against the woman and won all of my court days. She is currently in prison, and I am working at the same store as the new manager. I met the hero customer after returning to work a few weeks after the incident, and we have now been together for two years, as well. With no lasting health issues, this incident gave me three weeks of paid vacation and a soap opera-style significant other meeting.

Since then, I have never confronted a customer myself again. The store schedule changed to add two more people to the floor, and we were provided with radios and earpieces to communicate. The last thing the previous manager did before leaving was taking us all through training on how to use the new system and how to identify when we should engage and when we should call the police immediately.