(For the past few summers, I’ve worked as a camp counselor for an arts/theatre camp in between semesters at school. The camp is based out of a school but we’re not connected to the school. For context, I am a certified EMT with extra certification in Tactical/Combat medicine. I’ve also done Krav Maga — an intense Israeli martial art — for a few years and am about to become certified as an instructor in that. The female counselor is about to finish her teaching degree and has about eight years of experience teaching and working with kids under her belt. Our campers range in age from about four to ten, and we have about 30 of them. We take them out to the playground after lunch. After about ten minutes, I notice the boys getting rougher and rougher. Then, one boy punches another in the jaw. I immediately break up the fight and check on the victim, who is the brother of the puncher.)

Me: “Are you okay?”

Victim: Yes.”

Me: “Do you need ice?”

Victim: “No.”

Me: “Do you need me to call the trainer?”

(We’re supposed to ask for liability even though I guarantee you I know more than she does. Whatever, I don’t mind.)

Victim: “No.”

(About every ten minutes for the next hour, I check on him and ask him the same questions. His response is always the same. My female counselor disciplines the brother. It’s not harsh because we’re at camp but we believe it’s fair for a punch. Turns out the victim had been stealing the brother’s hat throughout the day and he’d eventually had enough. The next day, we’re called to a meeting with my boss and the person in charge of the school’s summer program. The mother of the boys is also there. We tell them what happened.)

Mother: “I can’t believe you didn’t call the trainer. My son could’ve had a broken jaw. He came home saying his head hurt all day.”

Me: “He didn’t want me to call the trainer.”

Mother: “He said you didn’t even give him any ice.”

Me: “That is correct.”

Mother: “Don’t you think someone with medical experience should’ve seen him? Honestly, the entitlement of you all is astounding.”

Me: “Yes, I do.”

Mother: “Then why didn’t you call the trainer?”

Me: “Because…”

(I list my credentials to her.)

Me: “That, coupled with the fact that when I asked him, he said he didn’t want the trainer, made me think it wasn’t the best use of her time.”

Mother: “Well, why didn’t you stop the fight?”

Me: “I did. The second I saw the punch, I intervened.”

Mother: “Why didn’t you intervene before the fight started?”

Me: “Because I’m not psychic. I’m gonna go do my job now.”

(I walked out and back to work. The mother and boss of the school’s program wanted me fired but my boss refused. Luckily, she agreed with me and realized how dumb the mother was being.)

(My dorm has a dance held in a roller skating rink every fall/winter on a Friday. I’m sleeping one Sunday morning when I wake up to a very loud “What the f***?!” yelled right outside my dorm room. When I go outside to investigate, I see my RA talking with the room down the hall from me, and I hear this conversation:)

Students: “What do you mean, ‘what the f***’?”

Resident Advisor: “You know exactly what I mean. Why is there a shopping cart in your room?”

Students: “Oh, yeah. We’ve been meaning to ask you about that; can we take it to the dance on Friday?”

Resident Advisor: “Why?”

Students: “So we can put someone in it and sling them around on the roller skating rink.”

Resident Advisor: “First off, please don’t. But second, how would you even get it there? It’s not going to fit on the bus.”

Students: “We could just leave it there the night beforehand.”

Resident Advisor: “Again, I have to tell you that you can’t do that.”

Students: “All right, but what if we put someone in it and sling the cart into the lake?”

Resident Advisor: “As your RA, I have to advise against doing that. But, if you do, please take a video.”

(One of my coworkers is this young woman in her early 20s. She’s deaf and usually wears a hearing aid, but she can lip read and sign just fine. Her job mostly consists of unpacking and loading merchandise on the shelves so it’s rare that she has to deal with customers, and most customers seemed to understand that… except for this one time.)

Me: “Hello there. How may I help you toda—”

(The customer ignores me and directly walks towards my coworker.)

Customer: “Hey, you! Come over here and help me find [product]!”

(My coworker has her back to the customer so she doesn’t notice her yelling.)

Me: “Ma’am, I’ll be more than willing to assist you if you need anything; there’s no need to bother the other workers here. Plus, she’s—”

Customer: “No! I want her to help me; she’s lazing around the store doing absolutely nothing while you work your a**es off! These types of people need to learn a lesson! HEY! YOU!”

(She cuts me off and angrily steps towards my coworker and blocks her way.)

Customer: “I’ve been talking to you for a while now. How dare you ignore me, you b****?!” *pauses, seemingly noticing something in her ear* “You were on the phone this whole time?! I cannot f****** believe this! I am a customer and I deserve to be treated with respect!”

Me: “Ma’am—”

(I can’t believe my eyes. The crazy customer starts attempting to yank the hearing aid out of my poor coworker’s ear while the customer continues to scream, demanding proper service.)

Me: *while pushing her away* “MA’AM! FOR GOODNESS SAKE, SHE’S DEAF! Leave the store now or I’ll call the police to kick you out personally!”

Customer: *red-faced, realizing what she has done* “WELL, I DIDN’T KNOW THAT SHE WAS DEAF!”

Me: “Does that give you an excuse to violently yank something out of someone’s ear?”

(The customer left the store quickly and I contacted a few numbers to report about the case and have this woman banned from our store. My poor coworker, fortunately, didn’t have any injuries, but she got switched to work at a different department later on.)

Related:
Deaf To Reason, Part 10
Deaf To Reason, Part 9
Deaf To Reason, Part 8

I am the assistant manager at an Irish theme pub. It’s a busy Friday night and everything is going well. I decide to order pizza for myself and the rest of the staff, as we’ve all been on shift for quite a while and it’s starting to quieten down enough for us to relax slightly before we close.

Just after I get off the phone, there is a tremendous sound of smashing glass from the lower bar. I stick my head around the corner to see a huge hole now in one of our massive plate glass windows that face the street. The customers who are in the bar are all looking shocked, and some are covered in glass, so I quickly work out that somebody broke it from the outside in, so a coworker and I run out into the street to try and find the culprit.

I follow a trail of blood across the street and find a middle-aged couple, both pretty drunk. The woman has huge gashes in her arm from where it went through the window, and she is bleeding pretty heavily. I quickly send my coworker back to the bar to grab a roll of paper towels to hold the poor woman’s arm together while I ring an ambulance.

The whole time, the woman is saying she’s fine and that she just wants to go back to her hotel, despite the fact she has an arterial bleed pulsing out of her forearm. The man says nothing at all, apart from offering me a cigarette.

After a long wait, a mobile paramedic turns up and starts asking questions, not actually helping that much, while his colleague watches. All this time, I am still trying to keep this drunk woman’s arm from falling apart.

Eventually, he rings for an actual ambulance, and I suddenly feel a very insistent tap on my shoulder.

I turn, keeping my grip on the woman’s arm, to see a pizza delivery guy trying to hand me a stack of pizzas. It turns out he’d gone into the bar to drop them off, and apparently insisted on giving them to the name on the order. When the other staff had told him where I was, he’d come out to find me.

When I tell him to go back to the bar and that they will pay him from the till, he just keeps repeating the total price at me and trying to balance the pizzas on my already rather occupied arms. Finally, the other paramedic takes over holding the woman’s arm together, and I have my hands free. The pizza guy dumps the stack of pizzas into my blood-covered arms, takes some money off my coworker who has come out to help, and leaves without a word. That leaves me covered in blood, tired, not a little annoyed, and holding five large pizzas in the middle of the road at midnight on a Friday night.

We later discovered that the woman had got into an argument with her husband while walking past our pub, tried to punch him in the face, and missed, putting her fist through the window.

(I’m female and work in a betting office or bookies. Customers can get aggressive but I’m well used to it and they don’t intimidate me. I’m on my own as my coworker is out on lunch and there are two customers in line. A regular walks past the customers and slams a betting docket on the counter.)

Regular: “That’s going off.” *meaning the race is about to start*

Me: “There’s a queue.”

Regular: “I don’t care; that’s about to go off.”

Me: “And there’s still a queue.”

Regular: “B****, take the f****** bet before the race starts.”

Me: “No. The race times and odds have been posted since 9:00 am this morning. It’s now 5:00 pm. You had plenty of time to put your bet on. Get in the queue.”

Regular: “You don’t want to f****** mess with me. Take the f****** bet.”

Me: “No.”

Regular: “I will mess you up. Take the f****** bet or you will regret it.”

Me: *picking up the betting slip* “Are you really threatening me over a £2 bet at 2/1 odds? The most you could have won is £6. F*** off, and next time, get your bet in earlier. Also, the race is finished and your horse didn’t win, so you saved £2.”

Regular: “You’re going to regret this, you dumb b****.”

(He storms out and I continue on with my shift. It’s not the first time I’ve been threatened and I have a giggle about it with the remaining customers. At closing my time, just as I’m about to leave, my coworker comes in from the back room where the security cameras are.)

Coworker: “Uh [My Name], did you have a run-in with [Regular] earlier?”

Me: “Yeah! He tried to skip the queue with a tiny bet right before a race started. I told him to get in the queue and he threatened me. How did you know?”

Coworker: “Because he’s in the alley beside the building with a baseball bat.”

(My coworker ended up locking us in the shop while we called the police. The regular was arrested and barred from the shop for life. All that over a £2 bet that he wouldn’t have won anyway!)