I got into a confrontation with someone at my warehouse job last night. In there, I made a mistake of sitting on a box that was far lighter than I thought. I slipped, her water bottle tipped over and a bit poured out, and I tried then putting it back upright, but she yanked it out of my hand and began cussing me out for touching her stuff as well as sitting on the box.
I thought about apologizing at first, but then she cussed me out, as well as the nearby employee’s, then threatened me and my family w/ violence, and when I tried to explain what happened, she muted me out and threatened me more + cussed the other employees. Eventually, I decided to walk away and tell the manager the situation—but she just laughed and walked it off (her and the manager are close).
I then left for a bit, shaking angrily because I walked out before I started work. I know she’s a woman and I’m obviously not going to escalate it, but I felt like such a punk because I let her threaten me in front of everyone and I just ran away. I felt I should’ve at least stood my ground against her.
How should I have handled this, in your opinion?
15 comments
“If you threaten me or my family with violence again, I file a complaint with both HR and the police.”
I think you handled it correctly. You reported it to your manager.
Now you should document your manager’s reaction. Document everything. If this becomes a pattern, it should be pretty easy to sue the company and get a settlement for a year or two’s salary. You’re in an unsafe, hostile work environment with a manager who refuses to take it seriously.
Nothing wrong with walking away. But at the same time you dont have to let yourself get punked. I feel like if I were in that situation I probably would have laughed at her with some sort of comment that most likely would have mad her more upset. But then, seems like she gets riled up pretty easy.
As someone who was more fiery in my youth, looking back I can say it was never worth it. Walking away and dealing with it when emotions have cooled has always been the better option
That being said, I think you should “escalate” it, to HR. You have been threatened by a co-worker at work. This coworker has made you feel unsafe and has created a hostile working environment. They need to deal with this immediately, and a manager laughing it off is not good enough
You did the right thing. You’re there to make money not trouble. She overreacted but you did start this and she is friends with the manager. If she leaves you alone I would leave her alone. It not right but it’s definitely not worth the hassle if it could affect your job IMO.
Yeah, I don’t care if I would’ve gotten fired. I would’ve verbally laid into that bitch and the shit manager.
I’m not the right person to ask, but due to my upbringing by a narcissistic abusive mom, I feel like nearly everything is worth fighting for because if I didn’t she would just walk all over me. Now, for me, it’s not about if I will or won’t fight back, it’s about how I do it. Am I truly angry, or am I just annoyed. The severity of what the other person is doing is also a factor in how I respond.
Case in point. I worked in a food production warehouse a few years ago. I spent all day walking around (usually clocked 10-15k steps a day) and lifting heavy objects. I had a piece of shit team lead who would force us to stay hours late each day to inventory palates of frozen food because he was a horny mofo that would let the girls leave early all the time. So instead of keeping them around to help finish our daily projects, he’d just push all their work onto us.
One day, I finally reached my breaking point after a particularly brutal shift and told him “No, I’m not going to do that”. We came very close to swinging at each other and I could tell that he had never once been put in a position where someone told him no. Double so since his first reaction was to get physical. To make matters worse for him and better for me, part of the reason why he acted like this all the time was because our company mainly hired people through a temp agency. So if they spoke up, they’d be dropped and sent back to the temp agency to find another place of employment. I was fortunately one of the few full time employees and in a position where should they fire me, they’d be fucked. So I weighed all of this before choosing to argue against him. I ended up not getting in trouble for it, though I did have a talk with our manager. The lead became a nicer person after that. When I finally quit my job a few months later, they hired 5 people to replace me, which really showed how badly they were relying on me and proved my point that the lead was abusing his position by forcing more work on me.
Make clear notes of all these incidents. Time, date, what happened, who said what, everything you can remember. Note what you did about it, like speaking with manager X and Y time and Z was recommended as a resolution.
For the most part this lady sounds unstable because that’s a huge overreaction when you didn’t even damage her stuff (nor did you hide it from her or even really move it). Do what you can to avoid her, but if it keeps happening, keep taking it to your manager and ask them “how are you doing to resolve this”. If they try to dismiss your concerns, that’s where your notes come in (as in, you’d has happened X time so it is clearly an issue that needs a resolution).
Whatever you do, don’t escalate on your own with this lady. She’s not going to respond well and it’ll just be more upsetting for you. It needs to come from someone who can fire her or, if it’s bad enough, from a lawyer to your boss or your boss’s boss.
>Eventually, I decided to walk away and tell the manager the situation—but she just laughed and walked it off (her and the manager are close).
You did the right thing, and unfortunately. in this case, it seems you won’t get far with just the manager, so your next step – assuming this coworker acts this way often, – should be to go to the higher-ups about the issue.
Walking away shows you have self control which is needed in this world. The fact that you had to question if u should fight back shows that you think before u act which is great. Trust me when it’s that time to fight back there won’t be any question if it was worth it
Report and document, the manager being connected to her doesnt help so document everything.
I never confront when it comes to anything, also never say anything to them to escalate, if you never open your mouth you cant be blamed for anything (other than your original actions)
Only start fights you plan to end.
Hr immediately, and call cops. File complaint on both of them
Like Top G!
Never let anyone yell at you for some bullshit..as soon as a threat was made is when id had really turned it up. I’d have taken her cup and threw that shit as far as I could them tell her to roll by the house to get smoked. And the manager..I’d have chapped her ass real quick.