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Last night was another shitshow at work. I got called in at 1 due to the rain; everybody called out and apparently we had no shift lead after 5PM (the evening lead called at 1 to say she wouldn't be in). Two more ceiling panels fell down, both times narrowly missing customers (I was telling people to contact the health department as management and corporate wouldn't do anything on their own). Shithead had me picking up the tile with bare hands, then B tells me: "You really shouldn't be touching that stuff without gloves." (thanks for telling me in advance). We had one leak on the front end that extended across two tiles; shift lead had an idea to line a shopping cart with a large trash bag and position that under the drips (would catch water and any falling bits along the whole length). It was also obvious enough that customers wouldn't try to move it and we were using the cart that didn't move on its own anyway. Shithead: "Get rid of that, it's not going to work." Back to buckets (which didn't work even more (less?), got shoved around and I got dripped on quite a bit changing them. Got lectured by the new cash office person about using the large trash/bottle bags (apparently they cost the store too much) to cover the scan-gun screen and kiosk from water coming down from above. Me: "Talk to [Shithead], he wants me to use them. If we have tarps I'll be happy to use those, but until you can find some I'd like to keep the water and electricity from meeting."
Around 7:30, the registers started failing (freezing when a card payment is processed). Both SCO and regular lanes. I knew how to fix the SCOs and make it go through, but Shithead wasn't helping (I was dealing with two failures simultaneously, Shithead was yelling "we need the card over at [third working lane]!" while I was using it to bring up the other two (why the
doesn't he have the front end card?). At least once he did something that resulted in voiding the $100+ transaction that had just completed (he wouldn't let me see the receipt that printed so I have no idea if it was actually voided or because the system was just programmed to announce that when the Void button is pressed). It seemed as if things were just overloaded/bottlenecked as card transactions would go through every few seconds. I've dealt with similar failures, but never on this scale. Lots of fun error messages nobody had seen before.
I have no doubt that while this chaos was going on, people walked out with stuff.
Around 8PM, debit went down and stayed down for the rest of the night. EBT and credit still worked, it was something with our system. I posted signs at SCO, and repeatedly had to tell some people "Debit's not working, run it as a credit card. Do NOT enter your PIN, press the green Credit button." Some people still insisted on entering their PIN even when I was standing next to them telling them what to do (and screaming at me when it didn't work)...I was expecting them to be locked out as our system can't communicate with the bank in detail to verify a PIN...maybe they were, I have no idea. At least one person expected us to refund the ATM service fee because that was the only way for them to get cash...not happening.
9PM, the gas points (and associate discount) were not showing up on receipts. Apparently the store router died sometime during this mess. Shithead had two people working who could have fixed it given the proper information (myself and the poor shift lead), but as he knew next to nothing about technical stuff nothing got done and we had to endure the tantrums. One guy was screaming obscenities in the store because he didn't get his way (it started with swearing at me because he "didn't want to use a machine"...there's an open cashier, you don't have to use the machine), I hope he never comes back. I did hear Shithead saying "It's not just our policy, it's state law" about something.
At about 10:30 shift lead wanted me to help block; usually I hate blocking but wanted off the crazy carousel by then so agreed.
Shithead: "I thought you hated blocking and would rather ring."
Me: "It's relative. I hate ringing and this beats explaining no debit for the 45361st time. Yes, I've been keeping track."
So, 9.5 hours (or so) when I was only scheduled for 5. Only got a 30-minute break, but that was long enough for me to make a coffee run and get some food.
Around 7:30, the registers started failing (freezing when a card payment is processed). Both SCO and regular lanes. I knew how to fix the SCOs and make it go through, but Shithead wasn't helping (I was dealing with two failures simultaneously, Shithead was yelling "we need the card over at [third working lane]!" while I was using it to bring up the other two (why the
doesn't he have the front end card?). At least once he did something that resulted in voiding the $100+ transaction that had just completed (he wouldn't let me see the receipt that printed so I have no idea if it was actually voided or because the system was just programmed to announce that when the Void button is pressed). It seemed as if things were just overloaded/bottlenecked as card transactions would go through every few seconds. I've dealt with similar failures, but never on this scale. Lots of fun error messages nobody had seen before.I have no doubt that while this chaos was going on, people walked out with stuff.
Around 8PM, debit went down and stayed down for the rest of the night. EBT and credit still worked, it was something with our system. I posted signs at SCO, and repeatedly had to tell some people "Debit's not working, run it as a credit card. Do NOT enter your PIN, press the green Credit button." Some people still insisted on entering their PIN even when I was standing next to them telling them what to do (and screaming at me when it didn't work)...I was expecting them to be locked out as our system can't communicate with the bank in detail to verify a PIN...maybe they were, I have no idea. At least one person expected us to refund the ATM service fee because that was the only way for them to get cash...not happening.
9PM, the gas points (and associate discount) were not showing up on receipts. Apparently the store router died sometime during this mess. Shithead had two people working who could have fixed it given the proper information (myself and the poor shift lead), but as he knew next to nothing about technical stuff nothing got done and we had to endure the tantrums. One guy was screaming obscenities in the store because he didn't get his way (it started with swearing at me because he "didn't want to use a
machine"...there's an open cashier, you don't have to use the machine), I hope he never comes back. I did hear Shithead saying "It's not just our policy, it's state law" about something.At about 10:30 shift lead wanted me to help block; usually I hate blocking but wanted off the crazy carousel by then so agreed.
Shithead: "I thought you hated blocking and would rather ring."
Me: "It's relative. I hate ringing and this beats explaining no debit for the 45361st time. Yes, I've been keeping track."
So, 9.5 hours (or so) when I was only scheduled for 5. Only got a 30-minute break, but that was long enough for me to make a coffee run and get some food.
That's just appalling. People could be badly hurt, yet corporate can't be arsed to do anything about it? I hope those customers do call the health department, OSHA, anyone else who'd qualify. If I was the store manager and the ceiling was falling in, I would've covered everything I could with tarps, gotten everyone out and closed up the place. Of course, I'm the kind of person who puts people's lives and health over store profits, so Corporate certainly wouldn't see it my way. 
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