June 2024 by Jennifer Long
I transport patients to their appointments. My next pickup was about a mile from the post office and I stopped to wait until I recieve the call to go get them. Anytime I'm waiting in that area, I wait at the post office because it's the only place I feel mostly safe in that area. I park off to the side by the dirt road in the parking lot, under the shade of the tree, and out of the way of pedestrians. I bother nobody and I'm never in anybody way. There's always an empty parking lot, so I'm not taking up a needed space. Nobody has ever approached me for being there until today. Your employee was leaving to go home, I'm at my car when he startled me but walking up from behind me demanding to know what I'm doing out there. It took me a second to get my heart rate back to normal and by that time, he was already talking again saying that I've been out there for half an hour and he needs to know when I'm going to leave. (All this was said with an attitude... not nicely, or asking if I needed help, just when are you leaving?? Like he was trying to assert some dominance over me. A superiority complex.) I told him I was waiting for my patient to be ready to be picked up, then he interrupted to ask what I meant by that. Apparently I didn't answer fast enough, though he barely took a breath before demanding what I did for work. I told him I'm in a public parking lot waiting for someone. He demanded to know when and where my next trip was, asked several times, when I'd finally had enough of his attitude and told him I was done being interrogated and that he's being intrusive. He then decided to threaten me by saying he was an employee and a cop drives by everyday in about 15 minutes. So I said I'd talk to the cop if the cop had an issue with me being there but I was done talking to him. He said again, a few times, when are you leaving, I again told him i didn't know exactly, and he told me that this public post office was not a public place and that I need to leave "his parking lot" like he owned it. That I needed to wait down the street and he didn't need to say more than that, then he walked away and got in his car. His whole demeanor was insulting and rude. When I told him his questions were becoming intrusive and I wasn't comfortable speaking to him, he doubled down on them. His entitlement that I needed to listen to him simply because he was hired somewhere was troubling. Like it gave him some rights to control anyone around him. He worked today, May 29th. I know he was leaving at 4:08pm in a black car with stickers on the back. Whoever this employee is, needs to have a discussion on how to treat people in general. He shouldn't come up behind people and start demanding answers, he should come from in front and maybe ask if they're okay... see if they needed anything before he left. You work in a public place, where you should be building a good image for your company, not tormenting people outside the building or making them uncomfortable.
