Living Statue Punches Bully In The Face

Here’ something you don’t see every day: a living statue punches a bully in the face for disturbing him non-stop during the performance.

Frankly, I wouldn’t want to ever do that kind of job for a living. Sure, you’re an entertainer and there’s probably a lot of personal enjoyment in that. But by default, you have to go to public places with lots of people around when the weather is good. So you’ll always be confronted with drunks, idiots, bullies and the like. And then this is what happens:

Legally speaking, the living statue can’t really claim self-defense when he punches the bully in the face: the guy was in no way attacking him. He can’t realistically claim he was feeling threatened. So I hope he has a good lawyer when the bully presses charges (which probably makes total sense from the bully’s point of view; assholes rarely see their own actions as the cause of the problem.)

That said, I can only nod my head in understanding that the living statue felt the need to punch the bully in the face. Maybe he was having a bad day or maybe he’d already had a series of assholes pester him before Mr. Sunshine showed up. Who knows?

Was he right to throw the punch? No, I don’t think so. Not from a legal standpoint.

Is it understandable he did so? Yes, that I very much agree with.

Imagine sitting at your office at work and some idiot who doesn’t work there starts going through your papers, tapping keys at random on your keyboard while you write an email and then hit the send button before you finish it. In other words, he makes you look bad and can potentially get you fired.

You’d be pissed off.

You’d probably also want to punch the guy in the face.

Perhaps you would, perhaps not. I don’t know you so I can’t tell.

But I think everybody understands the anger and frustration the living statue felt when some douche bag got in the way of him making a living. The reason why I personally commiserate is because I used to work a lot in commercial gyms with my clients. Eventually, there was always an asshole gym-rat who’d walk over and loudly tell me I’m doing it wrong. Right there in front of my client, trying to make me look bad.

It invariably pissed me off to no end.

I would have gladly punched those meat-heads in the face, just like that living statue did. Where do they get off making a total stranger look bad at his job, at no direct gain to them? I don’t come to their place of work and make them look like idiots, so why on earth do the same to me?

The reason is simple: an asshole or a bully doesn’t need a reason that makes sense to normal people. He just does it because he likes it or because it feeds his dysfunction.

All of them are walking around with all their teeth in their mouths still because I do have the ability to restrain myself. It also wouldn’t have looked all that professional to my clients. So I always stayed polite and told the guy I was working and could he please leave me alone until I was done. While saying this calmly, I made sure my client couldn’t see my face as I gave the idiot my deadpan stare. It always did the trick but punching those guys in the face sure would have felt more satisfying.

 

If you look at your own job, I’m sure you’ll have lived through similar situations in which bullies and assholes (clients, colleagues, managers, etc.) treat you like shit at work. This video in which the living statue punches the bully in the face represents a potential outcome of those situations. So here’s some self-defense advice:

Don’t act like an asshole when other people are working, no matter how stupid you think their job is.

Not everybody will have the same amount of self-control like you or me. Annoy people long enough and eventually you’ll encounter somebody like the living statue.

You can sue him until he’s bankrupt, you can beat him up right then and there, you can do all sorts of things. But you’re the one bleeding first, or worse, lying knocked out on the street. You might also be going to trial, which win or lose will cost you lots of time and money. And all that over something that was hardly worth your time to begin with…

I say thank you when a waiter brings my drink or a cashier hands me my change because I think being polite is important. I try to treat everybody with the same level of respect I expect to receive from them. Some of them might not deserve it but when that happens, I look at it as a pragmatic issue: being respectful gets me what I want faster and easier. As soon as I get this, they are out of my life forever and become somebody else’s problem.

So far, this strategy has never failed me.