I work in a grocery store. I am usually stationed in the self-checkout area since I like it while most employees hate it. Most other employees are five to twenty years older than me.

As I’m running around the self-checkout, one of my coworkers, a woman in her thirties or forties a full head taller than me, grabs me by my upper arms and SQUEEZES. The way she’s grabbed me, she’s staring me straight in the face.

After a brief moment of shock and panic, I ask:

Me: “What on earth are you doing?”

Coworker: “It was either you or the customer.”

I make her let me go and continue working. A second later, she walks up behind me while I’m with a customer and lightly slaps my shoulder. I turn around to tell her off.

Me: “Do not touch me. If you grab me again, then at some point I’m going to end up hurting you.”

Coworker: “All right, all right…”

I still can’t believe I had to tell a grown woman that it was inappropriate to grab her twenty-year-old coworker with zero warning. Keep your hands to yourself!

Related:
Someone Missed Personal Space Day In Kindergarten

I am working behind the bar. A group of about sixteen young guys has been drinking pretty heavily when a young woman walks to the bar on her own.

Drunk Guy #1: *Pointing to his crotch* “Hey, sweetie, come sit here! Come sit on this!”

She ignores him and orders a drink.

Drunk Guy #1: “Hey, b****! I’m f****** talking to you, you sk**k w***e! Now, come sit on my d**k!”

I immediately step out from behind the bar and walk over to him.

Me: “No! You don’t talk to our customers like that. You need to leave now!”

Drunk Guy #1: “F*** you!”

Drunk Guy #2: “Yeah, he leaves, we all leave, too!”

Drunk Guys #3-16: “Yeah!” “Urrrrh!” “[General noises of agreement].”

Me: “That would be greatly appreciated. I will get your bill. Please take your obnoxious friend with you and have a nice day.”

Drunk Guy #2: “F*** you, man! You don’t understand. He goes, we go, and you’re going to lose out on all these sales for some dumb b***?”

Me: “Right now, you’re being asked to leave because you are disturbing customers. If you swear at me or say anything further about any of our customers, you will be permanently barred.”

Drunk Guy #2: “That’s bulls***! Get me your manager!”

My manager, drawn by the rising noise, steps out.

Drunk Guy #2: “This f****** b****—”

Manager: “Sir, that is enough! I have heard everything, and I heard my team warn you that if you continued to cause a disturbance, you would be permanently barred. I am making that official. You and all your friends are barred from ever entering this establishment. Now, pay your bill and leave immediately, or I will call the police and have you trespassed. Do not come back!”

The drunk guys all look seriously deflated, pay, and leave.

Woman: “Thank you both so much for stepping in like that. I hope it doesn’t hurt business.”

Manager: “Don’t thank me. Kicking out drunk bozos like that might sting for a night but won’t do much to our bottom line, but if women no longer feel safe in our bar, we are doomed.”

Me: “Also, I would far rather not have to serve loud idiots like that. I was about to cut them off, anyway.”

CONTENT WARNING: Harassment, Domestic Abuse

I have just quit my job at a fast-food place because they wouldn’t accommodate my one simple request to leave through an alternate exit due to my abusive ex waiting for me in their lobby every day.

Every day I came to work in an Uber to avoid walking into him, and every day he’d come in, order something, and sit for HOURS staring and glaring at me until my shift would end. He would then follow me outside the door and try to harass me while I’d get into an Uber only to then show up at my apartment to keep threatening me or to break windows.

I begged them for a solid month to just let me leave through another door to get a head start to my ride and every single time I’d get some BS answer and they’d tell me I was overreacting. I basically got sick of constantly wondering which day would be the day he’d come in there with a gun, and I told my supervisor if she wouldn’t let me leave through an alternate exit then I’d quit.

She laughed in my face.

About a week later after I called, left a nice resignation letter to the big boss who totally understood, and after dealing with unemployment… I get this phone call.

Ex-Supervisor: “Sooooo when are you coming in [My Name]? Because you’ve been gone about a week and we’re short-staffed. I know the other bosses let you do whatever you like but I’m putting my foot down, girl! You better be here in forty-five or you’re fired!”

Me: “Uh, remember the last time I worked with you?”

Ex-Supervisor: “Yeah! Over a week ago, boo! You can’t keep playing these games girl, this s*** isn’t cute! Your little boyfriend hasn’t been here either so you can calm down now.”

Me: “Yeah, no. I told you that since you couldn’t accommodate my one request I would quit. I’m even collecting unemployment already…”

Ex-Supervisor: “So… are you coming in or not? Because if you’re not I’m writing you up and I’ll make sure you never work anywhere again!”

Me: “I. Don’t. Work. For. You. I quit. I quit and I’m literally collecting unemployment as we speak. What don’t you understand?”

Ex-Supervisor: “You have thirty minutes—”

Me: “—Fine I’ll be there.”

Obviously, I didn’t go in, but I did block my ex-supervisor’s number and had the time of my life greeting random coworkers she would send to my house to try and get them to bring me in to work.

 She was nuts.

My coworkers just got a kick out of getting paid to walk forty-five minutes to my house and chill. The ex was taken care of legally eventually and I’ve since moved.

This story is part of the Readers’-Favorite-Stories Of-2023 roundup! This is the last story of this roundup, but there are plenty more for you to enjoy in our other roundups!

Read the first story!

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15 Classic Stories From The Year It All Began At Not Always Right!

I’ve started work in a new ramen place that opened in my small little town. I love ramen, and this is the first ramen place to open locally to me, so I am very excited. I am opening the restaurant just before lunch and a group of older men are strolling past.

Older Guy #1: “I don’t believe it! Get that [Japanese slur] s*** out of our town!”

Older Guy #2: “Tell me about it! Nowhere is safe these days! These [slurs] need to go back to their own island!”

I am trying to ignore them as I open the window shutters and try to get back inside as quickly as possible. It should be noted that I am a white woman.

Older Guy #1: “What’s a nice American girl like you doing working in a place like this? You got that yellow fever, honey? Nothing a nice bit of American steak won’t cure!”

That’s it. I’ve had enough.

Me: “Keep talking like that, f***-face, and we’ll see how you love the great American justice system when I call the police and report you. Don’t think I haven’t clocked which car and license plate is yours.”

Older Guy #1: “F****** [slur]-loving b****.”

They move along, and I make a note of the license plate anyway. I talk to my manager about it, who is Japanese-American. He asks if I am okay, but I am mainly telling him to warn him about those guys.

Manager: “Ah, I’m not worried. The way I see it, if you’re pissing off racists, you’re doing something right.”

We’re gonna get along just fine.

I am handling a guest’s check-in. Nothing out of the ordinary, but I think he is a bit forceful and intimidating when he speaks to me.

Guest: “I want a late checkout, around 1 PM.”

Me: “We can accommodate that, but as you’ve booked a prepaid non-refundable reservation through a third party, I’ll have to make a new reservation for your late checkout. As per our policy, you’ll have to pay for half a day.”

Third parties suck. I explain why a new reservation would be necessary if he wanted a 1 PM checkout. I also charge half of the third party’s rate; it has to be the hotel’s rate. He is super understanding and polite about it and thanks me for my help.

I note the 1 PM checkout in three different places. I write it in my recap email (which goes to both my managers and the next front desk agent coming in, so we can all stay updated on what’s going on), in the notes within his reservation, and in housekeeping’s notes so they’ll know he’ll be there until 1 PM. 

He asks me for a corkscrew that night. Not a strange request at all. I actually bought a corkscrew for the hotel because they only had a bottle opener, so I give it to him to use. He never returns it.

The next afternoon he storms into the lobby after getting a courtesy call from the front desk around 1:30 PM regarding his late checkout and how payment would be for a full night if he didn’t check out by 2 PM. 

He reeks of alcohol and starts yelling at the front desk assistant.

Guest: “I was told that I could stay until 8 PM for a half day’s price!”

Coworker: “Uh, no, I’m certain we didn’t say that.”

Guest: “The guy who was here last night told me I could stay until 8 PM. And then he said that the manager told him it was okay over the phone.”

My coworker holds steady and doesn’t humor his lies. And when someone won’t believe your lies, what’s left for a grown-a** man to do but start screaming and making threats? So that’s exactly what he does.

He insults my coworker, sits down at the high-top table in the lobby and just stares at her maliciously, and then gets back up to scream some more. He demands to see the manager, so my coworker called her and she said they’ll be here as soon as possible.

More screaming. More insults. More threats.

Coworker: “Sir, you need to leave.”

Guest: “I’ll figure out where you live and what your full name is so I can get back at you! If you try to throw me out of here, I’ll call the cops!”

Coworker: “Good idea, let’s call the cops!”

And she does. My manager arrives and tells this guy he needs to get his stuff and get out. Of course, he refuses and wants a full refund. Nope.

The police get here, and he slips out the side door to try and get in his car. The police stop him and tell him he can’t drive while he is so drunk, and that his wife needs to drive and he would just have to come back and get his car when he is sober. Most importantly, they tell him he’ll be arrested if he comes back inside to start his s*** again.

He finally leaves, but apparently, while he was pouting while we were waiting for the police to get there, he made another prepaid non-refundable reservation through a third party, most likely as an attempt to prevent us from throwing him out.

Well, later that night I got a call from a third-party customer service representative saying that she, “had a client on the phone who says he was forced to leave the hotel for no reason and was denied a refund.” She asked if I could explain, and I did. I told her that he’d been removed by the police after drunkenly threatening the staff.

Third-Party Rep: “Well can you at least cancel and refund his reservation for tonight?”

Me: “Uh, no, I’m not authorized to cancel any prepaid non-refundable reservations.”

What part of “non-refundable” does she not understand?

Third-Party Rep: “So you’re refusing to give my client a refund?”

Me: “No ma’am, I’m saying I can’t cancel third-party reservations.”

Third-Party Rep: “I’ll tell my client that you’re refusing a refund then. Can I have your name for the record?”

Imagine the sheer audacity it takes to, after making threats and being evicted by the police, go crying to the online travel agent and asking for a refund because he was unfairly denied a room!

No, sir, you can’t stay until 8 PM without paying for it. Seems a logical conclusion to make, but with people like them, logic doesn’t enter into the equation.