Working with the public means often enforcing rules. That can be one of the hardest parts of the job, especially when those rules involve disappointing kids at a water park.

Unfortunately, some guests seem to think that employees are simply saying no because they are unreasonable, meaning they want the rules to be changed just for them.

In this case, a theme park employee had to tell a family that one of the kids was below the posted height requirement. Usually they would understand that this was for the safety of the child and move on, but not this time.

The employee and a coworker found themselves on the receiving end of their wrath, but that was not all; one of them decided she wasn’t going to give up.

Keep reading to see how things transpired.

Getting angry isn’t going to change the height requirement.

I work at a water ride at a world famous theme park. Like all thrill rides, we have a minimum height requirement in order to ride, which is in place for safety reasons.

Also like all theme parks, this leads to “wonderful” parents getting angry at us employees, even though it’s something that’s out of our control.

(Contrary to popular belief, ride manufacturers are the ones who set the height requirements, not the parks themselves. We’re just the ones stuck with enforcing it).

So, anyway, I was working Grouper (the person at the end of the line that asks you how many people are in your party, and then tells you which row to go to) with a coworker.

But it wasn’t going to be as straightforward as usual.

We start filling the next boat, and the first family in line has a kid that looks short, so I ask him to come over to the height stick to check.

My coworker measures him and sure enough, he’s under the height requirement. Not just barely, either, but by a good few inches.

This kid’s family wasn’t going to have it.

All of them, like it was instinct or something, start dog-pilling my coworker with rude comments.

One older woman, presumably the kid’s grandmother (who will be henceforth known as “Karen” for the rest of this story because I like being cliche), is the loudest and rudest out of all of them.

The altercation was far from over, though.

Thankfully, our supervisor was standing nearby so she took over for my coworker so we could fill our boats while she settled things with them.

Well, “settled” is kinda a loose term here.

After the family gets even angrier because our supervisor told them the same thing we told them (he’s not tall enough to ride, sorry) all of them besides Karen decide to ride the ride, while Karen waits with the kid.

That would be the end of it, right? Lol nope.

My supervisor tries to defuse the situation by offering a child swap (where Karen can ride after the rest of the family gets off, without having to wait in line again) but that just won’t do.

“I don’t care about that!!! I WANTED to ride with HIM!!! This is UNACCEPTABLE!!! Why are you doing this to him?!?!?”

It was an absurd situation, way out of proportion.

She’s legit screaming right in my supervisor’s face in front of a huge line of other guests, causing a huge, childish scene.

She must’ve gone on for about 10 minutes, during which she used all the cliched, height-requirement-hating-parent lines:

“He’s with me!!! Why can’t I just hold onto him?!?” Because that’s not how it works.

“He’s 4 years old! That should be good enough!!!” It’s a height requirement, not an age requirement, genius.

She kept going.

“You don’t understand because you’re not a mother!!!” Putting aside how she could possibly know whether or not my supervisor is a mother (she’s not, but still), I didn’t know you actually had to have kids in order to be neglectful about their safety.

The old classic “You’ve just ruined our vacation!!!” Riiiiiiggggghhht, and having your grandkid go flying out of the boat and getting seriously injured wouldn’t have ruined your vacation?

And my personal favorite: “We should’ve gone to insert rival theme park across town here instead! And after this, we WILL be going there from now on!”

That’s not a solution, ma’am.

That rival theme park across town? Yeah, several of their most popular rides have a height requirement that’s even higher than ours. They’re not gonna let him on those, either.

I know from firsthand experience: I have a pass to that rival theme park, and I saw an equally bad parent scream at an employee at the front of one of their rides before because their little kid clearly wasn’t tall enough.

Eventually, my supervisor took Karen over to a more private area because of the scene she was making, and after she wasn’t getting through to her, she sent her to customer services.

Little did Karen know, the supervisor then went to call customer services and explained the situation to them.

So I don’t know how they’re gonna handle it, but I sincerely hope they don’t coddle her for being mad at a very strict park policy that we get in serious trouble for not following.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman who volunteered to help promote a church event for free, then was surprised to find she had to still pay admission to get in.

What did Reddit think?

Yikes!

Someone shares their experience.

Yup.

Someone suggests what to say and how to say it.

Another reader chimes in.

This could work.

It’s hard for employees to argue when the answer is simply “no” while clients think there is room for interpretation.

The boy wasn’t just slightly below minimum height but several inches shorter than required. This means there was no possibility of making an exception. Still, one family member spent several minutes yelling at the staff like they were just being mean and not following safety rules.

This makes the situation uncomfortable for everyone nearby, by the way. Just bad vibes all around.

Still, the supervisor tried offering solutions, including the child-swap option that would allow everyone to enjoy the ride. But that wasn’t good enough for the lady, who kept complaining until she had to be asked to leave.

This is not how policies and safety measures work, ma’am.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a middle schooler who was totally frazzled after being left to babysit alone for 3-plus hours, and swears she’s never doing it again.