People have bad days, nay, even straight-up awful days. It may be difficult to even begin to understand what they are going through when they’re busy screaming their face off at you.

Although you can’t get into everyone’s head, you could try to be understanding or even find out what’s bothering the person so much that they snap at others and try to help them.

Today’s story is a recounting by a Redditor about how his barber snapped at him, making a huge scene and even getting physical, with quite a sad conclusion.

More info: Reddit

Perhaps getting petty revenge isn’t always the way to go, especially if you don’t know what the other person is going through

Image credits: Thgusstavo Santana (not the actual image)

The poster took it online to vent and share how he maliciously complied with his barber yelling at him, thinking that he wasn’t going to pay for his haircut

Image credits: u/Ancient_Educator_76

Image credits: Lukas (not the actual image)

When he came up to pay, the barber slapped the cash out of his hand and directed him to the credit card machine, all while yelling

Image credits: u/Ancient_Educator_76

Image credits: Karolina Grabowska (not the actual image)

The poster got his satisfaction by miming putting bills into the credit card machine, really mocking the barber, which made him snap even further

Image credits: u/Ancient_Educator_76

The poster removed himself from the situation, wondering what to do about the entire thing, deciding to call the place a little later

Image credits: u/Ancient_Educator_76

When he called, he was met with profuse apologies and an explanation that the raging barber had recently lost a loved one, which made the poster rethink the situation

In short, the original poster (OP) of this story, Ancient_Educator_76, had an unfortunate experience in his favorite barbershop.

He got his haircut and then another barber did his son’s hair. When he finished up, OP was checking his son’s new haircut out, cash in hand, when the hairdresser started berating him that he must pay and he must do it at the credit card machine.

The barber was shouting, he even slapped money out of OP’s hand pretty hard, which didn’t stop after the poster mimed inserting the cash into the credit card machine, just to get that malicious compliance and rub it in.

The barber then snapped even harder, shouting more, at which point the poster removed himself from the scene – not without leaving an $8 tip for each of the barbers, classy.

Not long after, an update to the post came. It was a definite shift in tone, OP having called the barbershop to talk about what had happened.

The person on the phone was super apologetic and explained that the barber, who is an older man, had been going through a difficult time, having lost his Oma.

In this context Oma would be the man’s wife or mother, the term referring to an older woman or grandmother, among people of German ancestry.

After that, OP just let it go, likely dropping any ideas of pressing charges or anything like that. He now understood the significance of the situation, touchingly accepting personal responsibility as well, saying that there were signs that he should have noticed and have been more considerate in the heat of the moment.

We here at Bored Panda reached out to the poster of this story, Mr. Ancient_Educator_76 himself, for a quick comment, and he graciously responded!

According to him, the barbers at the shop have been nothing short of class acts except for this incident. OP feels bad for the older gentleman.

“I’ve learned a lesson I should have already known. Don’t judge a book, or a situation by its cover. Look deeper. Act after thinking,” he adds, explaining the lesson he came away with after this.

On a more humorous note, the poster used to work for Great Clips as a sign flipper. Don’t go there, he implies – “they could use a little more oomph.”

The original poster’s realization is definitely a poignant one. As we talked about in the intro, it’s really difficult to get into other people’s heads on a daily basis, especially if you’re not close to them.

But I bet that you’ve had that realization at least once in your life – that strange feeling that every single person around you is leading a life just as complex as yours, with the very same depth and vividity.

Image credits: Tim Mossholder (not the actual image)

There’s actually a term for it – sonder. It was coined in 2012 by John Koenig, the creator of The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, which strives to create words for emotions that lack words, and it goes as follows:

“the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.”

That is certainly a mouthful, but, in full, it helps illustrate the complexity of the feeling.

Now that we have the flowery definition, what can we do?

According to a BBC Future article, being kind to strangers is good for us!

Psychologist Sandi Mann said that although, during experiments, she was met with a large amount of suspicion from people she tried to be kind and “pay it forward” to, it hasn’t stopped her from trying to be good whatsoever.

It also turns out that people who are kind and give to others are far happier in the long run than those who keep to themselves. Such behavior may also have the added benefit of reducing stress, not to mention the increased social opportunities for making friends, being noticed and regarded in a positive way.

If you’d like to be more considerate and kinder in your daily life, you could start by trying to smile more at people outside, rather than having a permanent frown on your face or being nicer to cashiers and other service workers.

The original post collected 2.1k upvotes in the malicious compliance community with 150 comments. At the start, people were in total support of OP and upset at the barber, voicing their feelings. After the update, we can see that the sentiment in the comments changed and people were much more lukewarm about the situation, being far more understanding.

Share your own opinions below!

The community went through the same motions as the poster, from being upset at the barber to realizing that people may be acting out because of many, many reasons

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