I scolded girls for littering, their mom showed up and fussed at me

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So I was working at my restaurant, serving a table of regulars, on a beautiful spring day. My restaurant has a glass front, and I watched as three girls, aged between about 9-13, walked up right outside our front door and dumped several ice cream containers into our potted plants.

I stepped outside the front door and confronted them. “Ladies,” I said, “this is not a garbage can. Pick that up! There’s a garbage can not ten feet away.” And I pointed down the curb where, sure enough, a garbage can stood.

The girls scrambled to pick up the smooshed ice cream containers and plastic forks, and ran off to dump them in the garbage can. Satisfied, I went back into my restaurant.

Fast forward about 10-12 minutes. A lady walks into my restaurant, obviously perturbed. Before I can greet her, she says, “Did you yell at my daughters?”

I said, “No, ma’am, I did not. I caught them littering and made them pick it up.”

“Well, they told me you came out and screamed at them!”

One of my regulars, a very sweet older lady, piped up. “She didn’t scream at them! Don’t you get onto her! I sat here and watched them leave their trash in the flower pots.”

The mom backed down at that, seeing that there was a witness who corroborated my side of the story. I’m a little pissed that those girls would try to ‘sic’ their mother on me. It doesn’t take many brain cells to know not to dump your trash in other people’s potted plants, and they ought to have felt chastened, not running to her to go fuss at me. I’m also embarassed that the mom tried calling me out in my place of business, in front of other customers (she could’ve asked me to step aside and asked me politely what happened).

2

Kudos to you. Kids sometimes don’t know better, need to be corrected. It sounds like this mom is a jackass.

3

“Lady, if you’d done your goddamn job as a parent, I would not have had to correct your little hellions. Now de-ass this restaurant right fucking now or I’ll call the cops.”

Yeah, I know you can’t really say that…but if ya did and I saw it, I’d lead a round of applause for ya.

4

Chances are these girls know their mom, and know that a good way to get what you want is to lie to her gullible ass. I had a student like that once, and it freakin’ sucked: the mom never figured out that her kid was a habitual liar. It’s the mom’s fault for believing all the stories. Kids are little savages who are trying to figure out how to get what they want in the world, and it’s up to parents to teach them that good manners and responsibility are the most effective ways to get what they want.

5

I too applaud you taking these girls to task. Kudos to your witness backing you up, as well.

6

I don’t want to be a cynic, but do you really believe that?

7

Glad you had a customer there willing to back you up. At least the Mom backed down, though - sounds like the story she got was very different to what actually happened. Teenage girls being rude then lying to their Mom is not that uncommon.

TBH though, as the parent of a teenage girl, I’d be very sceptical as to their claims and would query them in the way you suggested, so she was still rude herself.

One of my friends will tell ANYBODY to pick up litter. She’s walked up to big groups of wannabee gangstas (though where we live some of them probably aren’t quite so wannabee) telling them off in a strong but not angry way and I’ve yet to see any of them be anything but embarrassed and apologetic.

8

I believe it, that doesn’t mean it happens all the time though. Those girls had probably never had any stranger call them on doing a bad thing in their life, and the poor unique little snowflakes were traumatized. When they told helicopter mommy she flipped out with real ultimate power and stormed in.

If it had been my kids who were caught littering, lied about being ‘yelled at’ they would have been in WAY worse trouble when the truth came out.

9

This story gave me the warm fuzzies. Not the way it started, and not the way it got going … but the way it ended. I’m so glad your sweet little old regular stood up for you. Hopefully at least one of the girls will remember this as she (they?) get older. Maybe not, maybe they’ll need more incidents like this to balance out their Gullible Ass Mother, but hey, you’re one point tipping things the other way.

If the same girls come back and do this again, you could go the Crazy route: come running out the door weeping, crying out “You killed my flowers! You killed them all! How could you? Murderers!” I guarantee they’ll remember that.

10

Yes. I’ve seen a couple of my in-laws throw angry, screaming fits to get what they want and mostly they are given just enough to shut them up and get rid of them. Occasionally they are told to get the hell out and not come back. I’m sugar and sweetness to service providers because I’ve spent many years working in customer service and, while it can take longer for me to get what I want or need, I’m almost never denied and I’ve certainly never been told to GTFO.

11

If it had been my friends and me dumping trash like that I can guarantee my mom would NOT have gone to the restaurant to bawl out the person who spoke to us. No, she would have gone thermonuclear on ME for littering.

I used to work in the kids dept. of a store and there was a display of hair stuff, lip gloss, junk jewelry and whatnot next to the register. I called it The Meltdown Rack because there was at least one glass-shattering “MOMMYIWANNIT!!!” per shift when some speshul snowfwake would get ahold of some tchotchke that she’d have to have or she’d just die. Sad part was the mommies would often just cave in rather than deal with the scene.

12

IME, it’s true. The one occasion where (my GF) crying and pretty much having a breakdown over the phone was after many, many polite communications - otherwise it would have been too easy for them to dismiss us as lunatics. The only other times where crying helped me were when they were genuine tears, in person, borne of a genuine cause - and when I was very young and vulnerable.

Fake tears? Nah.

13

Not necessarily. The mom could have been fed a line of B.S. a mile wide by the girls about how they got yelled at “for no reason.” If that’s the case though, the mom’s BS detector certainly needs a tune up.

14

If my son told me that someone screamed at him, I’d do something similar. (If he said he got yelled at for littering, I’d tell him not to litter.)

But apparently the mom was satisfied that you didn’t scream, so that’s good.

I’m not even allowed (or I don’t permit myself to) scream at my child. No one else gets that privilege, either!

15

Yeah, the mom backed down. I mean whho knows what her kids told her, so she just comes off a little reactionary, but not outta control…

16

When I worked in retail service my manager would regularly back me up with unreasonable customers and tell them frankly “Your business is not worth with unpleasantness of speaking to you. Don’t come back.”

Now, I work in an industry where there are some circumstances where there’s a legal obligation to provide service to people. Still, when people are rude or abusive they will find that their needs are met only so far as is legally mandated.
So a jerk gets “Yes, of course I’ll do that for you. First, put your request in writing, and send it in. Then wait thirty days and come on in to pick up your request. That’s… uh… Thursday, July 28th. Bring cash - it’ll be $.25 per page, and we will not release these documents without payment up front. No, we can’t accept Visa or Debit for this transaction.”

People who don’t open the exchange by heaping abuse on me will often find that the transaction goes more like “Well, sure - that’ll just take a minute. Just give me your e-mail address and I’ll get it out right away. It’ll be in PDF format, is that alright? Great! No, no charge. Have a great day.”

Once, this resulted in a formal complaint to the provincial board that oversees our industry, and when asked I frankly said that yes, I only helped this person to the extent that I legally had to, because he was extremely rude and abusive. I received no admonishment or criticism for this decision - buddy got what he was entitled to and it’s not my problem if he received it too late to suit his purpose. I am very busy in my days and so long as the law is adhered to, why should I make someone a favour when they go out of their way to be disruptive, and unreasonable, and threatening? Here’s an idea: Next time, try not to be a raging dick to the only person on the planet whose job description includes giving you what you need in this situation. (Oh, and try not to make an inept attempt to commit fraud in order to expedite your service. Regulatory bodies tend to be less than impressed by that sort of crap.)

17

I came in here assuming this was a case of littering in the park, where scolding would still be appropriate, but given that it was littering the OP’s businesses property it really is a no-brainer. +1 for the thanks about doing something to make the world a bit more civil.

18

Another vote for this working. Especially responsibility. I’ve seen many people not meet their commitments, and then wonder why they didn’t get the promotion or the honor or the appointment. Both my kids are very good at this, and it has worked very well for them.

19

The OP did good, and I’m so glad your regular spoke up for you!

If my son told me a story like that, my BS meter would be going crazy. I wouldn’t call him an outright liar (sometimes people do scream at kids for no reason), but I wouldn’t just take what he said as gospel. He’s 5. He doesn’t lie maliciously, but if he thinks that telling an untruth will get him out of something, there’s a very good chance he’ll try it.

If I were the 13-year-old girl getting in trouble for littering, I’d be horrified and so embarrassed I wouldn’t tell anybody.

20

She can say that on her very last day, preferably after she’s already taken a much better job. :slight_smile: