I Didn’t Like Him, But I Respected Him
I worked at a ski resort when I was younger, fitting boots and sizing skis, etc. My first year I worked at basically the Walmart of rentals, the cheapest option and the biggest store. So the week of Christmas, there are lines out the door every single day. I remember seeing my two-week paycheck after the two weeks around Xmas and I worked 119 hours.
It was absolute insanity. For another reference, the closest town had a permanent residency of fewer than 10,000 people, but during Christmas, it jumped up to 70,000 people trying to enjoy their vacation in the same spot. So, one of these days it’s business as usual, a quarter mile line out the door, non-stop craziness.
I’m at the bench closest to the door helping a lady when this kid walks up to my bench. I asked if I could help him and he said he had reserved rentals online and he wanted to pick them up. I said this is our store name if that’s where you reserved you’ll need to get in the back of the line and we’ll help you as soon as we can.
This 13-year-old kid said something inappropriate in front of the customer I was helping. I told him that quite literally every piece of equipment in our store was reserved, every single person in front of you has a reservation as well and we have to help everyone. He started insulting me personally, saying I was stupid and that he was going to report us to anyone he could because we weren’t letting him skip hundreds of people doing the exact same thing he was doing.
I think what angered him most is that I’m 6’3” tall and big. He was maybe 5’0” tall and 54 kg (120 lbs) so when he called me stupid, I literally laughed in his face. I was at no point threatened by this child, and at first, it was funny. The first lady left, I’m ignoring/laughing at this kid and asking the next person to come up and he starts yelling cuss words at me because I’m not helping him.
Up until this point, my manager had been a complete jerk and I was not a fan of him. But he’d had enough of the Christmas rush as well, and this kid was a perfect person to let off some steam on. I went and got my manager and told him this kid was personally attacking me and yelling cuss words in front of customers, so he walks up to the kid and says, “I’m sorry for the confusion, what’s your name so I can take a look at your reservation?”
And the kid lights up, thinking he finally beat the system and got in front of everyone for throwing a fit. My manager goes and finds his reservation—it’s digital, but I’m pretty sure he printed it off for the added dramatic effect—comes back and says, “ I found it.”
He proceeds to rip it in half in front of his face and says, “Don’t ever treat someone that’s trying to help you like that, you are never allowed in our store again, and with every other store in town also being completely 100% booked on equipment, good luck skiing this week.”
I still didn’t like the guy, but I respected him one point more for the rest of the season for standing up for me.
Story credit: Reddit / GingerWon