Kate Hackett
I’m too much of a goody-goody to ever get banned from anywhere, so I read this list with my jaw on the FLOOR.
Over on AskReddit, people shared the answer to u/PsycheAsHell‘s question, “People Who’ve Been Banned From Somewhere for Life, What Happened?” Which one do you think is the best story?
1. Banned from work
I was banned from a bar I worked at the same night I got fired.
The owner’s wife had a friend, who was having her bachelorette party at the bar. The bar had hired me because they had already been in LOTS of legal trouble for overserving and other bad things.
I saw the man sitting at the bar, wearing his winter jacket indoors where everyone else was wearing their “desperate-for-a-lay” skimpy clothes. I noticed the badge that he wore on his belt, mostly hidden. I was doing my job the way I was supposed to.
I cut off a super intoxicated man after he threw up all over the place. Turns out, he was part of the little party the owner’s wife’s friend was having. She screamed at me in front of staff and customers. She fired me and banned me from the bar for life. I smiled and left, knowing what would happen.
As they already had multiple warnings, they were one warning away from being shut down. Guess what happened? Yup, psycho washed off the X’s I had put on the drunkard’s hands and told the waitress to serve him anyway. Cop busted them for intentional overserve, they lost their liquor license AGAIN and got a huge huge fine. That was the last day they were open. They had to sell the place.
That lifetime ban? Well, the bar died that night, so turns out it was for the life of the bar, not my life. I was back in there as soon as the new owners had their grand opening.
2. Diner
My uncle got us banned from a Mom & Pop’s diner in the ’90s. The unintended but totally foreseeable consequence of doing their “eat a 72-ounce steak in under an hour” six godd*** times in two weeks. I know for a fact he does not regret it.
3. Local bookstore
In college, at the local college book store, I attempted to sell some books back to the store. After hearing what the buyback value was, a guy behind me said he’d pay $20 more for my books (he was taking the same course the next semester sand the store’s mark up would by 100%). The bookstore owner warned me if I sold to this other dude, I’d be banned for life. I told him money makes the world go round and took my extra twenty.
4. Prison Workplace
The prison I used to work at.
I had tried numerous times to receive therapy to treat PTSD I gained while working the job. Thanks to the HR department taking their vacation, I was not able to get it and the administrative assistant warden told me, quite literally, “Officers don’t need therapy and if they do then they aren’t cut out to be officers,” and refused to help me find help.
When they learned (somehow) that I had sought therapy on my own, they attempted to place me on “indefinite administrative leave” citing “officer has conducted themselves in a manner unfitting their position.”
So yeah. I sued them and quit and they banned me for life… from their prison.
Okay.
5. Cafe
I’m banned from a cafe in a town in North Wales; neither of which I’d been to prior to this experience. I walked in and the guy behind the counter said, “You! I’ve told you before! You’re banned!” I said, confusedly “I’ve never been here before,” but he just pointed at the door, so I turned around and left. Almost 30 years ago.
6. Target
My college roommate got permabanned from Target for putting “Wet Floor” signs next to the ’50 Shades of Grey’ display.
7. Holiday resort
Went to a holiday resort, got my whole family banned for life.
Went to the kids play room, did not properly clean up the Legos.
Manager, instead of cleaning up Legos, reviewed the security footage of all kids entering the play room and discovered me, then reviewed the front desk footage for the last week until he saw the family. Then looked at the check in records to discover which condo we were in. They phoned our condo mid-dinner and demanded us to the front desk right now.
At the front desk, the manager explained what I did and pointed to a sign listing many rules about the playroom. Mum told me off and sent me to clean the Legos. I said to the manager, “Sorry, I forgot,” and went to clean up the Legos. Something about this pissed the guy off. He said not to, because we are now banned and had to leave. Mum seemed to think that was unreasonable, and refused to leave without a refund.
The manager became unhinged and threatened to call the police, then started accusing me of killing a duck. Mum looked at me in fright. I said, “No way, you know I would not do that.” She questioned the man for further details. He said I threw a stone and hit a flying duck, which fell into the lake, so there is no body. She expressed doubt about the story. He then started making up some other weird accusations.
We got out of their the next day. I never forgot to clean up Legos again in my life.
8. School Library
Got banned from my high school library (while I was in school still, mind you). Used the computer there to email Mom that I didn’t have practice that night and would need a ride home. Librarian didn’t like that because I wasn’t doing research. She ordered me to stop. I told her, “No, I need to make sure mom knows about today,” and finished sending the email. She screamed at me the whole way while I was walking out about how I am never allowed back. I basically told her, “Good, wasn’t planning on coming back here again anyways.”27518Wild story?
9. Late Show with David Letterman
I was banned for life from attending ‘Late Night with David Letterman’ because I canceled my reservation. I guess it was hard to find people for the audience in freaking New York City? The intern (I assume) whom I talked to was very serious: “You should know if you cancel you will never be allowed back. Ever!” Somehow I got over it.
10. John Lewis Department Store
Got banned from a John Lewis (kinda upscale retail gaff in the U.K.) for browsing items. The jobsworth of a guard came up and told me to leave since I was, and I quote, “Just picking stuff up and putting them back again.” Like, no s*** Sherlock, that’s how browsing in a physical store works. So now I’m banned from John Lewis.
11. Forever 21
I had just paid for a dress in Forever 21 and noticed one of the seams was ripped as the cashier was bagging it up. I pointed it out and asked if I could just exchange it for one that wasn’t damaged.
The cashier hit a button on the register to print my receipt and slid it across the counter to me with a nasty smile as she recited their strict return policy. I can’t remember the bulls*** reason she gave, but she refused to exchange the item.
It had been a long week. I didn’t even think before I reached out and swiped all these little containers filled with cheap items off her counter. Thousands of keychains, nail files, thongs, earrings and a bunch of other items flew across the floor. The cashier immediately lost her mind and started screaming about how long it was going to take her to sort them all out.
I was already at my car when mall security caught up with me to let me know I was banned from the store.
12. Minecraft server
Got banned from a Minecraft server.
I spent a lot of time making this really cool castle, but I guess I built it in some kind of common area where you aren’t supposed to build. It wasn’t marked and there were no messages telling me this. Well, the admin saw it overnight and deleted the whole thing. I was livid… so the next time I logged on I built this giant 3-D “F*** you” out of blocks. Right as I’m finished, the admin’s player character comes flying out of the sky over to me and says,
“Hibernatepaths, I saw what you did.”
I said, “It’s ok, I wanted you to see.”
Then I got permabanned. I laughed my a** off for a good long time.
13. Bar Fight Ban
Got into a drunken punch-up at a bar like a decade ago. Ended up getting banned for the bar which shut down like a year later. The fight was over the stupidest s*** too. Some girl came over to me for like five minutes to bum a smoke and have a chat about some random inane bulls***, didn’t even flirt with her and spent most of the time texting a friend. Ten minutes later inside the pub, her drunken boyfriend comes up to me cursing up a storm about how I was supposedly trying to steal his girl. I tell him I did no such thing but he doesn’t believe me and keeps getting up in my face. So I tell him to just f*** off. He gets even angrier and shoves me in the chest. I clock him a few times in the face and he just flops over onto the floor and doesn’t get back up. It hardly took any effort at all since he was both p***-drunk and way smaller than me. Chaos then erupts as all his douchebag friends who were outside during the fight come back into the bar looking to pick a fight with anyone and everyone. Bouncers intervene, the bartenders intervene, the f***ing janitor intervenes, the cops are called, etc. Bad night for pretty much everyone involved.
14. Local liquor store
The local liquor store in my old neighborhood never had a “ding-dong” that went off as people came in and out of the store. I would crawl into the store mission impossible style and steal nudie magazines from the front counter where you would normally find candy bars and such. The day I got caught, a quarter had rolled off the counter and onto the floor where I was and the owner came around the corner to pick it up and picked me up by my shirt and threw me out. He never said I was banned, but I never went back due to being embarrassed as hell….
15. A subreddit
I got banned from r/maliciouscompliance, which is annoying because I like that sub.
What happened is, someone posted an outrageously over-the-top fake story. I mean there was zero question it was made up. It was pretty clearly done as a joke, but the sub has a rule against posting fake stories (a rule I completely agree with, I might add). The guy who posted that story got banned.
There were a lot of comments from people calling it out as fake. Thing is, r/maliciouscompliance also has a rule that says not to do that. If you think it’s fake, you’re supposed to report it to a mod. I don’t agree so much with that one, but I can understand the reasoning behind it. All those commentors also got banned.
My comment was something along the lines of, “Hey, I remember that! Frank was waving that broom around like a lightsaber when he faced down the customer!” I was in fact saying it was true, and adding in even more ridiculous over-the-toppedness, to boot.
Well, despite the fact that my comment broke no rules – I never said it was false; quite the opposite! – I was banned. For a few months a new rule was added to the sub’s description, something like “no malicious compliance with the rules in r/maliciouscompliance,” and I like to think I was the cause of that. But it wasn’t there when I did it.
That extra rule is gone now, I think, but I’m still banned.
16. Brookstone
I got banned from Brookstone for falling asleep in the massage chair.
17. Taco Bell
I got banned from a Taco Bell because the cashier was a major douchebag and bully at my high school. I went there because he couldn’t act out there at work so it felt like a bit of revenge for his behavior. I would purposefully spend a decade ordering to annoy him but only if nobody else was in line. Eventually managers banned me for purposefully slowing things down even though I was maybe one of five customers that went there regularly.
18. Local library
Not me but a friend was banned from our local library because she was playing around and ended up knocking over all the bookshelves.
19. Roller Rink
There was a roller rink in town that posted on social media that they were having a deal on handmade pizzas and a pitcher of soda to try and drum up business. The picture clearly showed a DiGiorno pizza and I commented saying that it was. My comment was deleted, and then I went back to say, “You deleted my comment saying that this is a DiGiorno pizza.”
Lead image: Giphy
