Retail workers are told the customer is always right, but sometimes the line has to be drawn.

So, what would you do if you watched a customer scream at an autistic coworker who was clearly overwhelmed and struggling to communicate? Would you step in and start helping the customer? Or would you draw a line and refuse to provide her with service?

In the following story, one retail employee deals with this exact situation, and the entire store refuses to help the woman. Here’s what happened.

A customer yelled at an autistic employee and it’s, without a doubt, the angriest that I’ve ever been in a retail setting.

Today, a customer yelled at an autistic employee. Nobody served her out of sheer anger.

I work for a big-name department store. We have a girl who works with us who’s on the spectrum. She’s a very bright girl and the hardest worker you’ll ever meet, but she sometimes needs to take a few minutes to herself as she can become quite overstimulated, which often results in her going mute.

Today, she was helping a customer find an item when she lost her ability to speak. She was taken out back while another associate handled the customer.

After a few minutes, she walked back onto the floor, a little nervous, but ready to work again.

The poor girl didn’t know how to react.

As she walked out, the customer started yelling at her for “abandoning her,” calling her the worst associate she’s ever seen and hurling obscenities.

The whole time, the girl just stood there, very clearly overwhelmed by the situation but unable to express it. Eventually, she started to violently pull at her own hair and yelled at the customer to leave her alone before running out back again, where she had an anxiety attack.

None of the cashiers wanted to serve her out of sheer anger for how mean she was to her. She eventually left the store empty-handed.

She called the manager later that day, and when he questioned us on what happened, all he had to say was: “As far as I’m concerned, she doesn’t exist,” and reminded us that we all have the right to refuse service, and that was more than an acceptable reason to do so.

Wow! That woman sounds like a terrible human being.

Let’s check out how the readers over at Reddit would’ve handled it.

This person thinks security should’ve walked her out.

Here’s someone on the spectrum.

For this person, the manager was a hero.

This is an interesting observation.

You never know what someone has going on.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.