The Weirdest Thing Happened to me at Work Last Night

Post Reply New Topic

The weirdest thing happened to me last night at work, one of my co-workers tried to fight me, called me n----r and then threatened to kill me (needless to say he was fired in the span of a few minutes). I still don’t know how to react to the whole thing, it was just so out of the blue and absurd, but I do my best processing through writing so I thought I’d get down what happened and share it with you.

I was one of the drivers assigned to close the store which involves all the end of day cleaning and set up for the next day. Our late driver for the night, let’s just call him M-, was taken off the road and was given the job of washing dishes before leaving (and there was a hell of a lot of dishes because besides me prewashing [getting the big particles off] no one had been working on dishes the entire night so I can understand if he wasn’t thrilled about the prospect, but I digress.

I was in the back prewashing some of the last dishes and I was getting ready to help him with the dishes (only one person can wash, but the other can move the dishes from the rinse water to the sanitizer and also put them away) so we could finish them real fast and he could get out of there. As I was finishing the prewash I looked over and I noticed that M-, instead of washing the dishes, was just taking the dishes that were in the wash water and moving them from there to the rinse water and then dropping them into the sanitizer. Now, I’m a bit of a slob myself, but I take food safety and my job seriously so I told him, “Hey, you at least need to use the sponge.” And M- went bat-shit crazy.

“You got some sort of problem with me. Because if you do we can take it outside and I’ll beat you’re ass right now.” I was so stunned I didn’t know what to say, the guy had only been working there for like two weeks and I had no interactions with him at all and I wanted to say ‘I don’t even know you, why would I have a problem with you (besides you being bat-shit crazy)’ so I just went, “There’s not a problem, but you need to use a sponge.”

I don’t know what his reasoning was but M- then took off his shirt flexed in my face yelling: “All you ever do is criticize me” (Let me just clarify I’d spoken to him exactly twice that night once to tell him to wait for a double as I was leaving on a run, which he ignored, and then about the sponge and aside from that I have no memory of ever speaking to or about him except with some of the other drivers that we were happy the new hires seemed willing to actually work). “You want to fight N----r. N----r, we can go outside right now and I will kick your ass. You got something to say, say it N----r.”

I was just speechless, not just because he wanted to fight me, but because he called me n----r. It was just so absurd, I couldn’t help it, the only thing I could think was ‘I am in no way cool enough for a black guy to be calling me n-----r’ and I just busted out laughing in his face—which only upset him more. “What the f--k is wrong with you, N----r? Why the f—k are you laughing?” I wanted to tell him, ‘I’m autistic what’s you’re excuse?’ but every time he called me n----r I just couldn’t stop laughing (and I’m pretty sure I was smiling the whole time too as I’ve trained myself to make that my default expression around people I don’t know).

Not wanting to get in a fight over proper dish cleaning methods I just shook my head and walked away to find the manager and let him handle it (by which I mean fire his ass, since there was no way I was working with this guy that night or ever again), but M- followed me still trying to intimidate me (I think he was off put by the fact that I wasn’t reacting by either cowering in fright or jumping at the chance to fight him) calling me the n-word and going “We got a problem? We got a problem?” Finally I turned to him and said, “You need to back off” and he went back to the back of the store.

The other closer, Mike, was up front (so he got to see the tail end of it when M- followed me up there) and I asked him where the manager was—of course he was in the walk-in refrigerator in the back. ‘Of course he is,’ I thought and so I went back to the back past M- who turned to me again and was like “We got a problem, N----r.” I just shook my head and said “I don’t” thinking of course, ‘but you’re about to get fired’ and went into the walk-in to find Jason. Jason and I went to the office, but he had to take a customer complaint, so while he did that I went ahead and called the General Manager of our store and told him what happened stating in no uncertain terms that either M- was gone or I was gone. I gave them the details of what had happened and I stayed up front while Jason took M- to the office and spoke to him.

Apparently when Jason asked him about what had happened M- didn’t deny it in the least his only response to the question of whether he had threatened me was, “He disrespected me.” Which, if I had, the response was still ridiculous for the workplace or any place I can think of besides possibly prison or the inner city streets, but which was also ridiculous because I had spoken to him twice that night and telling someone to actually use a sponge to clean dishes instead of just dunking them in water and thinking clean thoughts at them just doesn’t seem disrespectful to me—maybe I’m wrong though. (I talked to my roommates and apparently he’d worked there the summer before I just didn’t remember him, so it’s possible he carried a grudge for a year and then when he came back he was looking for any excuse to blow up—I don’t know the guy made very little impression on me the first time around apparently).
Anyway, while he was getting fired I was up front talking about it with Mike about how weird this whole thing was. I was actually, about to help him with the dishes so he could get out of there and head home, I was the one who’d been prewashing dishes the entire night so that they were all set up and ready to go (not that anyone else took the time, or the managers sent someone before close to do a couple before they got off which is a habit that’s been pissing me off to no end recently), I still don’t understand what the hell caused him to act so irrationally and I was confused by the whole thing, asking myself, ‘Did I really do something to cause this or is he just insane?’ And of course I was also pissed off because now I had to do all the dishes, which I told to Mike and set him off laughing. “You couldn’t just wait until he was finished could you, Gabe. Now we’re not getting out of here until 1 AM.”

So M- was fired and he left the building, but instead of leaving he just stayed out in the parking lot by his car. Which did have me a little concerned, because I’m past the age where getting in fights over random BS is still fun and I really didn’t want to have to fight him, but at the same time I was ready to.

Then an order came through and I had to make another delivery and as I went by him to get to my car M- was still there making comments and he threatened to kill me which I didn’t really take seriously because, for all his bluster the guy never actually took a swing so it seemed like he had enough balls to get to the edge but not enough to take that last step (which isn’t a bad thing), but still he also seemed insane and you shouldn’t try to predict crazy so I kept an eye on my rear view mirror as I left to make sure he didn’t follow me and when I’d made my delivery I got a ballpeen hammer out of the back and put it in the passenger seat, just in case he was still there when I got back and actually did try something.

As I was driving back I still couldn’t really believe this was happening and I faced a real possibility of fighting (and with the ballpeen hammer potentially killing) this guy because I told him to use the sponge—which any reasonable person would have done. As it happened I saw a cop car pull over in front of me and I didn’t want to involve them, because cops are scary, but then I went (and I admit I think this is somewhat racists, but is a sad truth of our nation), ‘Wait a minute, I’m white. I don’t have anything on me. I got no reason to be afraid of the cops right now. They can only make this situation better for me, because if I do get in a fight I could be going to jail.”

So I pulled over, talked to the cop for a couple minutes about what had happened, that my life had been threatened and M- had still been loitering in the parking lot when I left, and he agreed to follow me to the store to make sure he was gone. As we pulled up to the store, sure enough I saw another car leaving and it was M-‘s (so actually by stopping and talking to the cops I ended up out waiting the guy out, because I watched him pull out as I pulled up, if I had just come straight back at my normal speed, he’d have still been there). So, the cop left after saying they’d have someone come by and check on us and I went in to finish closing.

The whole thing was just so strange. I think I handled it correctly, I didn’t fight the guy (though part of me was really blasé about the whole thing I have to admit), when it became clear to me that I couldn’t reason with him I went to our manager, when I was threatened I didn’t panic I took precautions but didn’t act out of fear and when I saw a chance to avoid the confrontation completely by involving the authorities I took it. Still I don’t know what I’m supposed to be feeling about it. I’m glad I have an appointment with a psychologist soon, maybe they can help me process it, but all I feel right now is confused about how it all happened, bewildered at the extremes it went to, and kind of amused about the absurdity of the whole thing. Especially being called n-----r. Where the hell did that come from? I am in no way cool enough for a black guy to be calling me n-----r—see it’s still making me chuckle.

Has anything like this happened to any you?

Looks like M- is trying to get me fired too.

My manager let me know he was up at the store today asking for HR's number. I feel like I was in the right on this thing, but I don't interview well and I'm nervous about them coming around. This is so frustrating, all I wanted him to do was use a sponge to clean the dishes.

That co worker of yours seems to have anger problems, I would hate to work with anyone like that. I wish you the best, in getting this resolved.

When I was a teenager there was an instance somewhat like this at my workplace. It seems clear that M- "has issues". I wouldn't be too concerned about HR. I bet they've seen things like this before, and as part of due process they are obliged to get a statement from you regardless of how straightforward the situation may be. My experience has been that is just standard procedure.