I was working at a factory job. I had been there a couple of years at this point. They had just hired a new batch of people.
One of the people they just hired, Ed, I knew from school. He was a strange dude. He always had an off-putting smile on his face, like he just farted and is waiting for you to smell it. He also thought being “friendly” is punching your arm, which always annoying to me. I think he wanted to be friends in school, but it just didn’t really happen. We were cordial when we met in public, though.
Anyway, Ed gets hired. He sees me and comes over to talk a bit. When he walks off my supervisor pulls me to the side and says “If that guy messes with you let me know.” Okay, Weird, right?
Later that day, he is being trained at a machine behind me. We were running different parts, and mine runs slower. He decides that means I suck or something. He walks up behind me, slaps the back of my head (hard enough my hat goes flying off) and yells “hurry up, slowpoke.” My job was working with torches, so needless to say that pissed me off. At lunch time I pulled the supervisor to the side and let him know what happened, and that It was dangerous since I am handling dangerous equipment. He tells me he will take care of it. I came back from lunch, and Ed is being escorted out of the building.
Come to find out Ed thought it would be cool to “brag” to my supervisor that he used to kick my ass in high school all the time. As far as I knew we were cool. I had no idea that he told them anything of the sort because it didn’t happen. So, when I complained, he was insta-fired. They were protecting me from my high school bully that I didn’t even know existed.
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