Vagrant Story

The area where I work has a fairly high homeless population, who will often hang around in the area, looking for people to pay for a meal for them. I will try to help out on occasion, but there are limits.

On this day, I get called back into the back office to find my boss — who is kind of a coward — a man in a suit, and an older man who I recognize as a vagrant I had to kick out of the store a while ago.

Boss: “[My Name], did you kick this man out two weeks ago?”

Me: “Yes, because—”

Vagrant: “You can’t treat people like that!”

He starts literally spitting in my face.

Vagrant: “I’m gonna have your job for this!”

I raise my own voice.

Me: “You were in the women’s restroom, giving yourself a bath from the sink!”

Utter silence falls, as my boss is basically cringing behind his desk, looking between us, and the man in the suit, who I’m guessing is a lawyer, is giving the vagrant man a look of disgust.

Vagrant: “Y-you don’t know about… Times are hard; I’ve got to do what I can and—”

Me: “Not in the women’s restroom where anyone can walk in, and not when there is a gym right across the parking lot that has publicly-available showers.”

At that point, the man in the suit picked up his bag from against the wall and just walked out, with the vagrant shouting at him as he followed. My boss continued to sit there, staring at me for a bit, before he actually pulled out a write-up sheet. After a few more moments of me just staring at him, he put it away and just waved me off to go back to work.