The pain, the anger, the despair; it was all there in his breaking voice. Here was a downtrodden working father at the end of a long day and a short tether, picked out by some young wannabe social media influencer for a piece of ritualistic humiliation. This confrontation between a Red Baron employee and a prankster pretending to steal his money via a phone went viral; not because the lame joke was funny, but because the father’s response spoke to a nation of working parents on the brink.
"It's not a joke to me, OK? I don't have time for this crap in my life," the man said, chastising the prankster, who kept telling him "it’s not that deep," exhibiting a lack of self-awareness or empathy. The man replied: "My life is hard enough as it is, OK?" The father, since identified only as "Walt," said he was late home, still working to make ends meet, and so missed putting his four kids to bed.
He was due to be up again at 5 a.m. to head to 10 more stores, he said. When the prankster tried to tell him "I get you," the father put him squarely in his place. You're probably making money off this.
I can't even pay my goddamn mortgage and I got four kids at home. The video has garnered millions of views online and a whole avalanche of sympathy for the Red Baron employee. The prankster’s Instagram account has gone dark.
And strangers are filling up a GoFundMe for the father, now north of $100,000 in donations, to help him out. Some might see this as a happy ending, justice delivered. The Red Baron dad didn’t get help because he was struggling.
Plenty of people stocking shelves tonight are struggling too, just as much or even more so. He got help because his struggle went viral. He got lucky, and luck is a cruel way to run a safety net, or to help workers thrive, not just survive.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
