What A Complete A**-perger

(I stock shelves for a grocery store. I have Asperger’s syndrome, a high-functioning type of autistic spectrum disorder. My manager is fairly new, but he has taken a disliking to me and often treats me poorly compared to my coworkers. This happens one day while I’m stocking pasta sauce.)

Customer: “Excuse me. Do you have any more of this sauce in the back room?”

(She’s holding a jar of an uncommon variety of sauce that we have recently discontinued. I know for a fact that we do not have any more in the back room because we just received our sauce shipment the other day, and none of it was of this variety.)

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am, but that sauce is actually discontinued and is on clearance.”

Customer: “That’s bulls***! I know you have more back there! Go and get me some, now!”

Me: “I cannot do that, ma’am, as we don’t have any more.”

Customer: “LIAR!”

(Without any warning, she SLAMS the jar of sauce onto the ground at her feet, causing it to shatter. As if on cue, the manager comes over.)

Manager: “Is something wrong?”

Customer: “Fire this brat! Now! He threw this jar at me!”

Manager: “Is this true?”

Me: “No, sir! She threw that jar herself!”

Customer: “You liar! I saw you throw that at me!”

Me: “That’s not true! I—“

Manager: “Enough. I’m sorry, [My Name], but I simply will not tolerate this behavior, so I have to let you go. Go pack up your things and leave the store. I am very disgusted with your behavior.”

(I sheepishly punched out and left, but I wasn’t about to let myself be fired on such bogus grounds. As soon as I got home, I got on the phone with HR and explained the entire situation to them. Three days later, I got a call from the district manager offering me my job back. As it turns out, the whole incident was the latest conspiracy by my now ex-manager to get me fired because he didn’t want to work with someone on the autistic spectrum. The customer turned out to be his wife, and the whole scheme was planned out well in advance. One thing that he, quite foolishly, forgot to take into account was the security footage, which clearly showed his wife throwing down the jar of pasta sauce, contrary to what they claimed to have happened. He was fired almost immediately, and both he and his wife are now banned from setting foot in any of the company’s stores. I’m still working there to this day, and just recently got a promotion to assistant department manager.)