The Silly Season is named as such for a reason, mainly being that shellshocked retail workers need a convenient, blanket-term to describe how and why their working life goes from manageably nutty to brain-meltingly insane for the last two months of the calendar year.
And as customers who willingly dive headlong into the existential nightmare that is doing any shopping at all anywhere near Christmas, you tend to cut staff at stores a bit of slack; they’ve got a fair bit on, so the occasional bit of mildly-loose behaviour is excusable.
But still, there’s “mildly-loose behaviour” and then there’s “using a headlock takedown on a bloke because he came into the store a few ticks after closing time.”
Footage from a Coles supermarket in the Perth suburb of Belmont shows a two men wearing what appears to be store management attire physically wrestling a man in a singlet and shorts to the ground, reportedly because the guy had snuck into the store after the doors were shut to new customers.
The video was shot by Yasir Khan, who was still in the store at the time completing his shopping. The clip was reportedly taken just after the store’s 5pm closing time.
Excuse the shaky-cam footage-of-footage version of the clip, but you get the general idea nonetheless:
A spokesman for Coles told 7 News that the incident was being investigated. It remains unclear how or why the confrontation began, and what triggered it becoming physical.
Retail at Christmas. This is the yearly hell we face, pals. And somehow it’s not even December yet.
Praying 4 u, retail workin’ friends.
Source: 7 News.
