theguardian.comMost people would agree that in the middle of all that work stress, while you’re racing to meet deadlines, a little gesture of kindness goes a long way to reminding you that the world isn’t such a cut-throat place.
Well that’s what a guy on Reddit’s awesome ‘Today I Fucked Up’ (TIFU) thread thought when he politely held the door open for one of his fellow co-workers when going for a cigarette break. It turns out he was wrong, very wrong. In fact this situation couldn’t have gone much worse really.
singleblackmale.orgLets’s hand over to Enchantedblackbox to spell out exactly what happened for us:
So I’m an intern at a small web-development company. I’m here to write code but because there’s not a lot of work going I frequently leave the building to go for smoke breaks. The building we’re in has a couple of other companies in it. Some of the other people are really nice but some see others as competition and treat people accordingly.
So first week, I hold open a door for a woman who works on the floor below us. She tells me that it’s offensive for someone to hold the door open because she’s a woman, I just leave it and tell her I’d do it for anyone, she’s pretty pissed so I took the stairs instead of taking the elevator with her.
howdens.comSo a few weeks later, I’m coming in from a smoke break. I was on my phone, trying to get my auto correct to work. I walk through the door and see someone coming towards the door so as I always do, I hold it open. Now this morning I was particularly annoyed, tired and stressed. I peek up from my phone to look at who’s coming and it’s her, Mrs Door Assault. So I simply let the door go and get into the elevator. She mustn’t have been looking as she got to the door because she walks straight into it, this big ass fire door. She breaks her nose and falls backwards, just as the elevator door closes. I saw her hit the door and fall backwards because fire doors close slowly to avoid slamming.
According to my boss she was bleeding pretty bad. I feel like a total ass for the whole thing but everyone I work with thinks it’s pretty funny. I tried apologising to her a few days ago in the staff room and she ignored me completely. Still feel very bad and I no longer take my smoke breaks for fear of injuring someone.
YoutubeOn the plus side, it seems to have got him to cut down on smoking, which can only be a good thing. Every cloud has a silver lining.
