(My brother is three years younger than me and started at my secondary school this year, aged eleven. He almost immediately starts getting bullied by a kid in his class, who happens to be the brother of a girl in my year. The bully is easily the smallest child in my brother’s class and is constantly angry, fighting constantly, and seems to be bullying several kids, not just my brother. I witnessed him come up behind his sister and demand money from her; then, he kicked her in the knees so she fell to the ground before kicking her again. He also made lots of nasty comments that made his sister cry. The school does nothing because the bully always starts fights when teachers aren’t looking and then claims self-defense, getting away with it because he’s smaller than them. I offer to help my brother constantly by letting him hang out with my friends or by going to stand near his class in breaks — I’m a school prefect/monitor so could intervene — but my brother has autism and is already struggling socially so he doesn’t want to be with my friends or for me to be near his. Until one day…)

Brother: *crying and running over* “Help! Help! Please help!”

Me: “Is it [Bully]?”

Brother: “Yeah, he got me and now another boy, too.”

Me: “Okay, stay here.” *to my friends* “Look after him, please!”

(I run down to the area where the younger kids have break and see [Bully] immediately. He’s sat on another kid’s neck with his knees on either side of his throat and is just landing punches on his face. As I run closer, I can see the boy underneath is going purple and is pulling at [Bully]’s knees, obviously unable to breathe.)

Me: *still running over* “Hey! Get off him!”

([Bully] doesn’t respond and as I get close, the boy underneath goes limp, still being punched. I grab the scruff of [Bully]’s collar, intending to pull him off the other child and to his feet. I’m only 5’3” and female but I still tower over this tiny child and my panicked grab of his collar results in more than the intended force. Instead of pulling him to his feet, I throw him back where he crashes into a pillar and crumples. I freeze, horrified that now I may have hurt someone; I’m a nerdy girl who’s never been in trouble before. A teacher who knows me and the other prefects well comes running over.)

Teacher: *running over* “[My Name], just go! Run! I’ve got it.”

(I ran for it, leaving the teacher to deal with both boys. The boy who was attacked had to go to the hospital for treatment for a broken nose, broken tooth, and difficulty breathing and swallowing. The teacher knew about the bully and the school’s rule of needing a member of staff to witness and bent the truth a bit. She told them that she’d witnessed the attack on both my brother and the other boy but denied that I’d been there, saying that no one had hurt [Bully] and he’d been making it up to claim self-defense. He ended up getting a long period of isolated education, working one on one in a classroom and taking breaks by himself. It’s not totally moral for the teacher to have lied, but given [Bully]’s year of attacking people every day, it felt justified!)

I am busy ringing up a customer when someone spills coffee on the floor. They pretend it didn’t happen and walk away. A moment later, an old woman, also carrying coffee, walks by and I warn her not to slip and fall. She mishears me and starts yelling that she is not the one who spilled it.

Then she says, “See? My coffee is a different color!” and proceeds to pour her own coffee on the floor to prove it.

My partner and I go see the 7:10 showing of Maleficent and, as we rarely go to the movies due to many bad experiences in the past, we decide to make this experience nicer by purchasing an expensive tray consisting of popcorn, two drinks, and two candies. We have assigned seating and purposely choose the row behind the handicap seats as we figure most people like to sit much further back.

A family with children comes in and sits directly behind us. One of the children starts hanging all over the seats and kicking our seats. I keep looking back at them hoping the “mother” will get him to knock it off. 

This continues all the way through the end of the movie. When the movie ends, I get up and look at her and say sarcastically, “Great job controlling your child.” She tells me to turn around — signs of a s***ty parent there. 

I wish I had gotten a manager when the child first started up.

(I am on break when this happens but my manager tells me about this. She and a coworker are working in the backroom, organizing and labelling boxes. A child opens the door and throws a mug at them.)

Mother Of Child: “Did the mug break?”

Manager: “No, but—”

Mother Of Child: “Oh, good. We don’t have to pay for it, then. Come along, [Child].”

The coworker in this story is basically the exact opposite of intimidating. He stands right at six feet tall and is maybe 170 pounds. He’s also incredibly baby-faced and has a somewhat timid personality around new people. With all this being said, it hasn’t been uncommon for ruder customers to notice this and try to take advantage of it but nothing has ever gone too over-the-top… that is, until this incident.

I’m minding my section of the store when I hear a loud crash followed by a string of profanity. I pop out from my aisle to find out what’s going on and, from a distance, I can see a display case has been turned over and this meek coworker is being accosted by a rather burly, biker-looking type of man who stands a head taller and looks to be about 100 pounds heavier. While I can’t hear what’s being said from as far back as I am, the biker guy is right in my coworker’s face and is being rather animated with his “discussion.”

Suddenly, the biker guy violently grabs my coworker by the collar. Before I can even begin to rush over or radio for help, my coworker, in the swiftest motion I’ve ever seen, grabs the biker guy by the arm, steps into him, and executes an absolutely perfect shoulder throw takedown, sending the guy to the floor, hard.

By this time, security has intervened anyway and, as you might expect, the biker guy begins screaming in pain and yelling about “assault” and how he’s going to sue, etc. Security tries to get him up and take him to the office to hold him until the police arrive, but every time they try to move him he just screams louder. Finally, the police come to arrest the guy, but even they can’t get the guy off the ground and it’s determined an ambulance needs to be called.

After what seems like forever since all this began, medics come and cart the biker guy off with him still cursing everyone and promising to sue, get everyone fired, and close the store down. The officers split up, with some following the biker guy to the hospital to get his statement and the others going with my coworker and the managers to the office to review camera footage. The officers at the store quickly determine that my coworker likely won’t face any charges, as he obviously acted in self-defense, but management still has to place him on suspension until everything is totally resolved, as is protocol in situations where police are called.

Fast forward a bit: my coworker comes back to work. We find out through his stories that the whole incident started when my coworker told the biker guy that we’d sold out of an extremely popular sale item and wouldn’t be getting more in. The biker guy apparently threatened to “beat the s***” out of my coworker when he wouldn’t check the stock room for more when, obviously, there wouldn’t be any more in stock. The biker guy also did try to sue, but got laughed at by his lawyers who threw out the case when the security footage was played.

We also find out that my coworker declined to press any sort of countersuit. Reason being, it so happens that the biker guy wasn’t faking his pain! When he crash-landed from being thrown, it shattered his hip and cracked two ribs. My coworker says the punishment to the guy’s ego — spending six weeks or more in a body cast coupled with endless taunting from his biker buddies for losing a fight to a guy half his size — is more of a victory than any financial punishment.