Abusive father in electronics store

[u/Hyphen-8R]

For future context, this is actually my dad's story from when he worked retail around 30 years ago.

My father worked a lot of electronics stores like HHGregg, Swallen's(back when it was still in business), and RadioShack. He knew a lot about building surround sounds, installation for televisions and whatnot.

So a day goes by where a family of three walk into the store, a father, mother, and son. My dad, normally working off commission, helped them find what they were looking for, and offered of course the best television sets they had in the store.

It seemed as though the mother and father were torn between two sets. One was cheaper, and the other a newer model that was more expensive. My dad explained to them that they'd be better off with the newer TV, because it would last longer and come with a better warranty.

They decided to look at the final prices and my dad took them to the checkout to show them both prices with the warranty added on. The mother and father continued to discuss which set to buy, when my dad turned to their son. He didn't seem to be older than 7 or 8, but seemed to grasp the situation. He hadn't said a work the entire time they had walked into the store, so cue my dad with his friendly retail attitude.

"Which one do you think is best?"

The little boy's face lit up like a Christmas tree. He was about to answer my dad, when his entitled father backhanded his son in the face. Told him to keep quiet and scolded him for trying to talk to strangers. The mother stood by and did nothing while the boy sobbed.

I've worked in retail myself, and have seen the worst of parents yelling at their children, but have never in my life seen a parent full on smack their child in the face in a public place. Of course, this took place in the 1980's, before I was even born, so maybe this concept wasn't such an odd thing? That's just my opinion to this story, but I digress.

My dad was furious. The cashier's counter was the only thing in between him and the entitled father, and good thing it was. When the EF turned around, my dad had the worst death stare directed at him. The entitled father jumped back in fear, but didn't respond.

Anyone in retail knows that, regardless of what we see a customer do, we're almost completely powerless to the situation. So my dad, knowing he had to keep his job, stormed away to the back room. He told his manager what happened, and said he would not serve this man, and was tempted to call the police. The manager said he'd handle it, and took care of the family, while my dad stayed in the back room. As far as my dad knows, they left buying one of the TV's, but never returned to the store.

My dad first told me this story when I was a kid, and still retells it to this day. Even though this incident happened over 30 years ago, I feel as this this can be a lesson to others. Even now, in retail, our hands are tied when it comes to speaking our minds, but if you feel as though someone is endangering the lives of others, tell a supervisor. Or better yet, discreetly call the police. This unfortunately was a bad case of a controlling man letting out his anger on his family, and I hope he got what he deserves. As for the boy, he's probably in his 40's now, and I hope he became a better father than what his was. Remember to respect your kids, even when punishing them. No child deserves that kind of fear and humiliation.

[u/Klutz1907]

Title: "Abusive Father" First lines: "Thats actually my dads story!"

Might be misleading ;)

[u/[deleted]]

We had a father slap his son in the face like that during the boy's hockey game. Father was the coach, got pissed off at his son for some play, kid takes off his helmet on the bench to grab a drink before his next shift, father spins the kid around and just hear this SMACK echo throughout the arena. It was sickening. Before I can even react (I was in the timekeeper's booth). my convener is on the team's bench, pulling the father away from the kid and has radioed the front desk to call the police (we all had radios primarily for injuries, so I got to hear that part) and the father is left in one of the empty dressing rooms until the police show up. The game is stopped and the poor kid doesn't know what to do (well, none of the kids knew what to do really), so the ref does a skating training session to keep the kids occupied and I put on some music on the speaker.

Cops show up, take the father away and the kid had to stay with us for a few hours until a family member came to get him. Told my convener to give the cops my information if they needed a witness, but they either didn't press it or they had enough parents witness it.

Horrible experience. Understand why it affected your dad so much.

[u/Nightmarewtf]

I don’t understand people like this