AITAH for yelling at an elderly man?

A fast food worker (18F) recently had a heated exchange with an elderly man who regularly complains about a homeless customer. While doing a coffee round, the worker witnessed the elderly man yelling at the homeless customer and decided to stand up for the latter, telling the elderly man to leave if he couldn’t treat others respectfully. After some back-and-forth, the elderly man left, and the worker is now questioning if they overreacted. Read the full story below.

‘ AITAH for yelling at an elderly man?’

I, (18 f) work later in the morning at a fast food restaurant & every morning we get a pretty good crowd of seniors. I just switched from nights to mornings so I’m not very familiar with the regulars.

There’s this one old man who comes in often according to my coworkers & he has a problem with this one homeless guy who comes in a lot to buy coffee & something small to eat.

While I was serving someone in the drive thru I could see the old man staring & giving dirty looks to the homeless man & it was started to bother me but I didn’t know what to say.

My manager asked me to do a coffee round because when she does it the old man always complains about the homeless man being in the restaurant & I’m pretty abrasive & can’t stand when people are rude to others.

When I reached his table he didn’t say anything about the homeless man but he did give me a dirty look when I reached the homeless man & gave him a refill on his coffee. A few minutes later the homeless man stood up & walked near the front to get more cream/sugar for his coffee.

The old man came storming up & started yelling at him saying “get out of here! You don’t belong in here! You’re here all the time & I’m sick of seeing you!” I slammed my hands on the counter & said “that’s enough! Just because you have different financial situations doesn’t make you better than him! He’s a paying customer & he’s minding is own business.

If you have a problem with him being here & keep giving him dirty looks or say one more rude thing then you can get out because we don’t tolerate harassment here.” Then he said something about how I should respect old people & have better customer service skills so I told him “respect is earned not given” & then the old man sat down.

When he finished his coffee he said he was never coming back so I said “okay bye have the day you deserve!” & gave him a smile while waving. I understand I should’ve spoken to him nicer because two wrongs don’t make a right but I hate my job & am sick of dealing with the disrespect that comes with working in fast food especially from people who think I should respect them just because they’re elderly. Plus the day prior I put in my two weeks notice. So am I the a**hole for yelling at him?

Here’s the feedback from the Reddit community:

AmItheAsshole-ModTeam −  Your post has been removed.

Dubiousgoober −  You did the right thing. This entitled old man thinks he can degrade a paying customer, homeless or not. It’s none of his f**king business. And when he yelled at you about respecting old men, you were respecting the older homeless man, nothing the screaming a**hole.

I hate boomers who think they are entitled to judge others. It disgusts me that these old farts don’t give compassion and empathy to the poor but expect compassion and empathy when they are in need.

TimeRecognition7932 −  YTA.  You probably exaggerated the situation in your head cause you hate it there. Then you took your frustrations out on the old guy

NotJoeyKilo −  I don’t think this actually happened

Fine-Cockroach4576 −  Bravo.

charliemmass −  NTA. He needed to be yelled at and you did that.

SnowWhiteCourtney −  NTA. The elderly generation is ridiculously entitled. They need to be reminded that they’re humans, too, from time to time. Also, your manager was probably banking on you telling that codger off.

Zorbie −  NTA, its was unprofessional to yell but you were doing a good thing.

92pjs −  honestly sometimes the most entitled people are the elderly _ ; NTA for putting him in his place.

Dajmibuzi_dzieki −  This reads like a cheesy fantasy sequence in a movie 😂

It’s hard to balance standing up for others with maintaining professionalism, especially in a frustrating job environment. Did the worker go too far, or was the elderly man out of line for being disrespectful? How would you have handled it? Share your thoughts below!