When you work in a customer-facing role, you can expect to deal with some difficult people from time to time. Being hospitalized by one of them, however, should never be a concern…
The incident occurred at around dawn on Sunday, January 3: a 44-year-old man working at an unspecified convenience store in Kagoshima Prefecture was on a late-night shift when a seemingly ordinary customer walked in. The customer, 54-year-old Yoshiyuki Muta, made his purchase at the register, was handed his bag of goods, and left the store.
Now, all would be fine and dandy if it ended there, but sometimes people can’t leave well enough alone. Muta, apparently irked by the quality of the service he had received, called the clerk outside and demanded an apology for his lack of smile when serving him. Things escalated to the point where Muta reportedly forced the clerk into dogeza kneeling position and began kicking him.
The clerk’s injuries were so severe that he needed to be taken to hospital for damage done to his kidneys.
Muta was promptly arrested, and is to be charged with assault and extortion. Many Japanese net users expressed shock and disgust over the incident, while others seemed content with making a few tongue-in-cheek comments:
“Too bad McD’s doesn’t do their Smiles for Free anymore.”
“Someone should put a sign reading ‘Smiles: ¥500’ at the register.”
“This is the sort of guy who would say ‘What’re you laughing at?!’ if the clerk had smiled.”
The employee will, thankfully, recover from his injuries, but it’s hard to say whether Muta has learned that beating people up will get him anything but smiles.
Source: Asahi Shimbun, Kinisoku
Top image: Wikipedia/Kuha455405 (used for illustrative purposes only)