There are a few stories I held back from the original Record Store Tales because I didn’t want to get anyone into any trouble. In this case, 24 years have gone by so I think it’s too late for this story to do any damage. I was 21 years old, and as green as spinach.
When I first started, one of the earliest lessons I was taught was “Do as I say, not as I do.” That came in handy the one time I witnessed a customer get physically hit by staff!
He was a kid. He didn’t get hit hard. It was a light smack on the brim of the hat. And it was still shocking.
This kid came in wanting to return a CD. I was still in training. The guy behind the counter wasn’t too happy about the condition it was in. He concluded the kid was trying to rip us off. There was a bit of an argument about it. The kid threatened to go downtown to “Mister Disc” from then on, and that’s when he got smacked in the head and called “Junior”!
“Do as I say, not as I do,” indeed! So I never hit any customers! The kid never came back, but could you imagine if that happened in 2018? You’d have vigils and boycotts and Twitter going into overdrive. In 1994, you just had an embarrassed kid leaving with his tail between his legs.
mikeladano.com 
You never hit any, but I am sure you wanted to. I know I would occasionally want to slap a few customers.
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Yep in my dreams! There was one guy, I would love to have stepped on his foot. The Barefoot DJ. He said he couldn’t wear shoes because he has a foot disease. I wish I could have stomped on his toe and said THAT’S WHY YOU WEAR SHOES!
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I recall a concert back in the day, it was free show where this drunken dude kept touching the singers shoes and eventually the singer got so mad that he kicked the guy in the head in full force. The guy fell but he was so drunk that no one cared. I never forgot that and stopped following that band too. This was back in the 80’s.
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I don’t know where people get that idea that they can touch whoever they want — even when drunk. I don’t like when someone puts their arm around me, which you do get a lot, but I suck it up in my case.
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Even back then the store was very lucky the kid or his family didn’t sue.
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He didn’t look like the kind of kid who would have gone home crying to mommy, this one.
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I’ve seen some of the hardest looking kids go crying to their parents when they think they’ve been wronged by an adult.
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True. You remind me of Kevin Kirby. I’ll have to write about that guy.
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I’m intrigued, I’ll have to read about this guy.
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Long story short: he was a bully. He picked on me and other kids. One day I picked on him instead. Gave him his own medicine. He cried to his mommy who then called the school about me. And HE was the bully.
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That sometimes happened to me as a kid.
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Imagine if it was caught on someone’s cellphone! the internet would be outraged for at least a half of a day.
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Yeah! Friggin’ social media.
I was really afraid of telling this story. I used to hold it in reserve as an example of the kind of things I was holding back to protect the guilty. But then after a few years I realised I don’t owe them anything. Everybody’s anonymous anyway. If somebody’s mad it’s probably because the story is true.
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Seriously though, that staffer was out of line. You keep your hands to yourself.
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