Wins All Around
This happened a couple of months ago. Back story, I’m a youth worker and part of my job involves taking clients to a bowling alley.
I do this a few times a week, sometimes more than once a day, and usually at odd times, so the place is basically my second office and we have a good relationship with the proprietors.
During the quiet hours, they only have two staff working; one in the office/front-desk/cafe and one behind the scenes.
It means that often there’s a bit of standing around waiting when the front of house staff member is in a different area. Myself and the other weekday regulars (mostly senior bowlers) are used to it.
It actually works well for me because part of what I’m doing there is teaching my clients social skills and coping strategies, so having to occupy yourself and be patient and polite is a good teaching moment.
My client and I have finished bowling, and we’re sitting at the cafe eating and talking quietly when a man approaches the unattended cafe and immediately starts huffing and pacing restlessly.
I side-eye him, but keep talking to the kid. A minute later he comes and looms over our table and says “EXCUSE ME” in an aggressive tone.
Now I’ve got my calm neutral face on but inside I’ve started gibbering because the kids can get pretty protective of us, and they are fighters.
“Yes?” I enquired politely, keeping one eye on the kid, one hand on my phone, and a vapid smile on my face. “How ’bout you do your job?” He leaned down over the table.
His breath was as unpleasant as the rest of him.
I was surprised, because sitting at a bowling alley eating curly fries with a 15-year-old at 10 am on a Tuesday WAS my job, and I was doing it well, thank you very much!
I was also alarmed because said 15-year-old has become very still and very tense. Not good. I moved back in my seat and resumed the vapid smiling.
“Oh, sorry, I don’t work here. Sometimes you have to wait a minute for someone to see you and come over, but otherwise maybe try the front desk?”
“Well you’re dressed like you work ‘ere!” He leaned over more and jabbed (JABBED! HE JABBED ME!) my chest. The staff at this bowling alley wear black trousers and violently orange polo shirts, that match the violently orange walls.
Awful. I was wearing baggy hippy pants, my purple tee, and a sparkly sequinned backpack. And a lanyard with the word “staff” printed on it.
I held up the company ID card at the end of the lanyard, which identified me as an employee of the non-profit I work for.
“No, sorry, I work for [company name]. We’re customers here. Now if you don’t mind, you’re being very rude.” [me, trying to role model, terrified] I smiled my best ‘everything is fine’ smile to the kid eyeing the cutlery bucket.
“Don’t talk to me like that you little witch! I want three cold ones and some freaking wings.” He actually smacked the table with his hand.
I looked over to the main area. Oh goody, he has friends. I leaned back as far as I could (the wall was behind me, tables either side, and him blocking my exit).
The kid stood up. Bad. Staff member spotted us and started rushing over. Good.
We had a time for a few rounds of “I want to speak to your manager” “I don’t work here though, please let me out” before the actual manager of the bowling alley reached us.
He pulled the guy away so I could get up, but dude wants to speak to my manager and won’t let up. Manager says “I am the manager here.” Dude: “You’re her manager?” Manager:”…no, she doesn’t work here…”
Dude, to me: “I want to speak to your manager NOW” At this point I figured, why not, handed him one of our company business cards, and said, “Ask for [my manager’s name]”.
He turned away to dial the number and I grabbed the kid and whispered “now watch him make an idiot of himself”. Kid laughs and relaxes a bit and the three of us stand in a row and watch this dummy call my actual manager and complain that I wouldn’t serve him chicken wings.
My manager actually took the complaint on an official form and made me sign it when I got back to the office as a joke.
Meanwhile, dude is banned, the bowling alley gave the kid a huge pile of free arcade tokens in apology, and I was able to get him to give me back the knife he took before I dropped him home.
Wins all round.