Since discovering FDS and leaving my abusive ex I don't suffer fools anymore and it's translated into men taking issue with me, especially at work.

A customer at my workplace had a near meltdown because I wouldn't break policy for him. He badgered me for a good 5 minutes and when he realized I wasn't going to budge proceeded to try to badger my subordinates into breaking policy for him instead (even though I'd identified myself as their supervisor, so why he thinks that would fly I have no idea). When I shut that shit down immediately he called me a bitch so I told him to remove himself from the premises. When he refused I told him I would call law enforcement and have him forcibly removed for trespassing. He finally left at that point. He ended up calling the next day to try to apologize but I wasn't there. Showed up in person the next day to try to apologize but I refused to see him. I'm not in the business of soothing or forgiving men anymore.

I had another customer have an actual meltdown because I told him he needed to wear a mask inside the building. He got verbally abusive, tried to get me to come out from behind my counter so he could attack me, and told me to suck his dick. I responded, "Okay, what you got? A whole 3 inches?" He turned red and stormed out, punching the exit door on his way. If he ever comes back we're going inform him that he's banned from the building.

I had another customer tell me, "Don't give me attitude, I'll slap the shit out of you." because I called him out on doing something incredibly objectively rude. He said it while he powerwalked towards the door and I shouted after him, "You'll slap the shit out of me? Then come and do it, you little bitch." He kept walking, unsurprisingly. I hope he comes back so I can confront him. I will seriously walk up to him and be like, "Hi! Are you the guy who told me he'd slap the shit out of me the other day?" and then inform him he's banned from the building. Or maybe tell him he gets one free slap because if he initiates then I won't face legal repercussions for defending myself. Still undecided.

Then I had the "pleasure" of a former coworker dropping in to visit. He walked into a conversation wherein my boss was asking me to lower my voice because I tend to talk loudly and I was explaining that I'm hard of hearing. This former coworker felt the need to interject with, "What, are you retarded or something?" Thinking he was funny. I was like, "Sorry, I didn't catch that. Can you repeat it louder?" There were customers in the vicinity and he had the sense to look embarrassed, because obviously he didn't want to raise his voice and repeat what he'd said. He then accused me of having a split personality, because sometimes I'm "cool" and sometimes I'm not. I told him to look back on the energy he was bringing that I was simply responding to, because when he uses words like "retard" or tries to touch me (some time ago he'd done a creepy hand drag down my back which I'd immediately called him out on, telling him not to touch me, and he got so offended that he didn't talk to me for a month), I'm not going to respond "cooly". He got all indignant and said he'd never tried to touch me, then walked off. 🙄

My workplace is incredibly toxic and 9 out of 10 of the customers are complete trash. I've been applying to other jobs and I'm planning to go back to school next semester so I can get my dream job that ISN'T working for a company that only cares about making money. My job is unionized so I don't really risk anything by giving customers back what they give out, but even if I were to hypothetically get fired it wouldn't be a big deal. I realized that I'm in a position to not take shit anymore, especially not from random LVM, and it's been pretty liberating. And, going forward, I'm not going to work somewhere that expects me to tolerate being verbally abused by customers. I used to phrase things diplomatically and try to deescalate when customers started getting irate, but fuck that. I'm not sacrificing my dignity anymore.