A sickening video of workplace violence has appeared online, but it only tells half the story sparking equally disturbing reactions on YouTube.

According to witnesses a male bakery manager threw a rowdy female staffer down a set of stairs, then out of the building.

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But the video only starts after the diminutive woman returns to the building to confront the six-foot-plus manager.

She throws a bag of chips on the floor and he responds by trying to shove her out of the building again.

Then she slaps him, more bark than bite according to a witnesses, and he reacts with a brutal right arm swing that knocks her off her feet into a supporting pillar, head first.

The video has been splashed across major US media outlets and viewed 125,000 times on YouTube.

Both employees have been sacked, a statement from Panera Bread said.

But some of the 180 commenters have taken the video as a case of an eye-for-an-eye. It’s an enlightening display of how some perceive the ettiquete of man-on-woman violence.

One YouTube user said, “If you don’t want to get hurt, don’t hit people. Once you cross that line, it’s your a**”.

YouTuber ‘Dat Be Da Truft’ responded “da white man jets dont udastand da mental iti of da black hoe when she cross da line and she touch a brotha so a pimp hand wuz justifried right there!”.

But another user argued: “He’s the bloody manager an should know better, it’s not personal time he’s at work representing the company he works for. she should not have hit him but he is just as bad, now he’s out of a job because he got fired.”

According to Gawker, an onlooker said there was a lot more to the story than the 40-second video captured.

“She was yelling at a different manager than the one who hit her and was throwing some bags of chips on the ground, threatening to turn up in this b***h, etc,” a statement from a ‘tipster’ said.

“Then out of nowhere white shirt manager approaches her and immediately gets physical with her, keep in mind she’s about 5’2 at most and he was bigger than me…

“He legit threw her down a flight of stairs and out the front door for really no reason, she runs around to the other entrance to retaliate and that’s where the video starts.

“You might wanna say she hit him first, but really he had FULL CONTROL over her the entire time, was throwing her around, I think she gets one slap in that was louder than it was painful, then he half punches her once, she spins, and then he REALLY F**KING PUNCHES her.

“You can even hear me and my friend yell DON’T HIT HER just before it.

“I checked on her for a while after the cops left, she seemed ok, she kept saying he really got her in the ear mostly which I know stings like a bitch.

“She was bleeding a little, and had cuts on her hands but she seemed ok after the adrenaline wore off,” the tipster said.