I'm a mechanic.

At any given point in time, I can clock out for my lunch break and walk out of the parking lot and I am no longer an employee of my company at that time. The big-ass prybar in my toolbox also isn't company property.

I haven't had a situation yet where I've had to make use of that ability, but I have had to bring up its possibility once or twice.

And that's only because I actually value my job. If I didn't like my job there's really nothing stopping me from throwing some hands at a shitty customer other than police action, and to be honest, the cops don't really like to come around the area where I work very often.

More people need to be just a little bit more afraid of service workers. Treat us nice and we'll treat you nice. But treat us like shit and we don't really have all that far to fall if we decide you're the hill worth dying on. I've been really damn tempted to just beat the fuck out of an asshole customer before and while I've never done it, I know a lot of folks in my industry with a lot less restraint than me.