Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Friday the 13th came a week early.

Collapse
This topic is closed.
X
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Friday the 13th came a week early.

    ... ... oh boy.

    So. Today, three interesting things happened; each of escalating disaster. I was quite amazed during each one, and thought the day couldn't be more interesting.

    Backstory: Lowes-like Hardware store. It's ".. is the place," .. etc. I worked Electric, since nobody was in that department. I was there from 7:30 to 4.

    11:35 - I'm stocking some flashlights, when behind the wall in front of me, I hear a tremendous clattering of lightbulbs onto the floor. I quickly dash around the corner and see a palette jack hauling a dirty empty palette, and a slew of boxes and shattered lightbulbs on the floor all around the area.

    Apparently the palette had nudged one of the boxes on the bottom shelf, which had nudged yet more boxes, etc etc etc, and had tilted over a tall stack of bulbs in boxes just beyond the shelf. Awful damage. Helped the guy clean up, reconciled the bulbs, and went back to stacking.


    12:03 - Not ten feet from where the first incident occurred, this disaster happened.

    In the middle of the store, roughly, we have (Well ... had. ) this awesome stone fountain. It was like, .. imagine a square flowerpot, made of stone, filled with pebbles and vertically stacked horizontal slates. It was a fountain. It happened to be off at the moment.

    The guy, the same guy who did the first disaster, was trying to lift it to move it aside to stack some new merchandise in the middle of the store. Little did he know that there was still 15 gallons of water in the darn thing. It tips over, spilling its lifegiving fluid across the floor, ruining inflatables and heaters and such. Much destruction. We spent the next hour roving around the spill site, mopping and wiping and shoo'ing away customers and ensuring no old ladies tripped and slid in and through the chaos. Happened just as the head manager arrived too. Luckily he's an awesome guy, and stayed in a good mood. I think (Hope?) that cheered people up.


    I commented to the guy who started the fiascos that this was quite the welcome relief from having to do the truck, as I know diddly squat about electrical... He chuckled, and I hope his day brightened a bit. He's an awesome guy, and definitely deserves the best.



    2:09 - I think this one deserves an intermission of some sort.

    <adorable dancing penguin>

    Anyway. So a friend and I are in the back room, trying to haul a palette into the back, but the new non-youthful assistant manager is in there with the forklift putting goods away. We're trying to inch past him, as he's put a large palette of goods right in the middle of the bottleneck into the back room. Lovely. When we accomplish our task, we turn to leave, when he hear what sounds like a:
    *Thud*
    *SSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHH
    HHHHHHHHHHHHHTTSHSHSSSTHSSSTSTS

    *Rain sounds*
    Almost like a heavy mist from the produce aisle has begun to spray

    Oh boy. That can't be good. We turn around, and we see the assistant manager in the forklift with the tines all the way up in the air, trying to get a huge box onto the top shelf just below the roof. He had apparently snagged one of the pipes hanging down from the ceiling (AWFUL placement of pipes... If I had a picture, you'd groan. You'd absolutely groan and forehead-slap etc.) ... ...

    ... ... the sprinkler system had begun POURING into the stockroom. A torrential downpour of water was rapidly flooding the back room, raining down on scores of merchandise, ruining them. I have absolutely no doubt that if the head manager was a less patient individual, he would have died of a heart attack right there and then.


    So most of us took off our vests and ran into the downpour to rescue whatever merchandise we could, and to put up a tarp to protect whatever we couldn't take down. We were positively drenched. We had ladders up there and everything; everything slick with water. Nothing was dry. Anywhere. The water was leaking halfway down the store.


    About five or ten minutes later (Who could tell amidst the chaos...) the fire alarm went off. I suspected I had smelled some sort of smoke, (we had a fire some months earlier, in July or something, so the smell wasn't unfamiliar.) though I didn't quite see any fire or anything.

    So we're trying to get people out the door. An unsurprising amount of people resumed shopping and said "Hey, would ya shut that racket off? I need my concentration to shop!" "Um, good sir, that's the fire alarm. I recommend leaving the building." "Without my stuff?" "What's worth more; your stuff or your life?" *He quietly takes his stuff and leaves*

    Yeah. Spent the better part of an hour salvaging stuff from the back room.


    So that was a fun day. I'm amazed I actually enjoyed myself. Am I crazy? Probably.

    Sure beats doing the truck.
    SC: "Are you new or something?"
    Me: "Yes. Your planet is very backwards I hope you realize."

  • #2
    That guy from the first two stories might end up looking for a new job soon...
    "If we refund your money, give you a free replacement and shoot the manager, then will you be happy?" - sign seen in a restaurant

    Comment


    • #3
      Nah, he's the only guy in his department who gives a rat's behind, and he does his job extremely well. Nobody else knows the store like him. His job is secure.

      It's the guy from the third story that I'm worried about. The person is very nice, but does absolutely nothing. Just walks around, very slowly, and occasionally uses his blackberry or whatever outside. Even inside, sometimes. I have absolutely nothing against him; it's just that the store really needs good management.
      SC: "Are you new or something?"
      Me: "Yes. Your planet is very backwards I hope you realize."

      Comment


      • #4
        This reminds me of why I never wanted to drive the forklift at the store. Too many hazzards.

        A few years ago the Garden Center manager was moving product from the garden center area to the front of the store. (The whole front-end is windows) He had the forklift loaded so high that he couldn't really see where he was going and he drove right through the windows, scaring cashiers and customers alike! That section was boarded up for months before they finally fixed it.

        The spraying water incident is similar to something that happened when I worked in the Trim-a-Tree dept years ago. It was either Black Friday or the day after Christmas, I really can't recall, but I was scheduled in at an ungodly hour (5 AM). I walked into the dept to find a co-worker completely soaked, the whole area was taped off and water was standing everywhere.

        The pipes overhead had burst, spraying water in all directions. My co-worker's shift was just about over so I got to spend the day trying to salvage anything I could and helping to clean up all that water. Customers kept coming under the taped off sections only to find that what they wanted to buy was completely ruined anyway.

        Man were they pissed.
        Retail Haiku:
        Depression sets in.
        The hellhole is calling me ~
        I don't want to go.

        Comment


        • #5
          And this is a perfect example of why stores have insurance. I suspect both incidents will involve a drug test and validation of permits to drive forklifts. What a mess.
          A lion however, will only devour your corpse, whereas an SC is not sated until they have destroyed your soul. (Quote per infinitemonkies)

          Comment


          • #6
            Quoth Retail Associate View Post
            This reminds me of why I never wanted to drive the forklift at the store. Too many hazzards.
            Took over four years of me asking to get the training. It's great!

            Rapscallion

            Comment


            • #7
              I always liked driving a forklift. Haven't for years now

              Comment


              • #8
                Quoth ShadowTiger View Post
                He had apparently snagged one of the pipes hanging down from the ceiling (AWFUL placement of pipes... If I had a picture, you'd groan. You'd absolutely groan and forehead-slap etc.) ... ...
                Maybe it's not the placement of the pipes. Maybe it's the placement of the upper shelves.
                Last edited by Dips; 11-08-2009, 11:11 PM.
                The best karma is letting a jerk bash himself senseless on the wall of your polite indifference.

                The stupid is strong with this one.

                Comment


                • #9
                  No room in "the back" for anything anywhere else. :-/ It's a tiny, tiny wedge-shaped room. The forklift barely has any room to turn around, much less do what it needs to. The store was formerly a waldbaums or something.
                  SC: "Are you new or something?"
                  Me: "Yes. Your planet is very backwards I hope you realize."

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Quoth Retail Associate View Post
                    Customers kept coming under the taped off sections only to find that what they wanted to buy was completely ruined anyway.

                    Man were they pissed.
                    THIS pisses me off to no end!!!! Just WHAT do they think yellow CAUTION tape means anyway??? Its like the people who walk past a door with a FREAKING HUGE 'DO NOT ENTER!!!' sign and say they didn't see it. At a supermarket I like to shop at, a section of the freezers that line the back corner of the store quit working overnight, so there was a HUGE puddle of water, and the area was cordoned off not only with "CAUTION - DO NOT CROSS" yellow tape, but also pallets of crates so nobody COULD get back there. Of course you guessed it - a customer crawled OVER the crates to get his frozen pizza, and when told to leave the area by the store manager was all "But I just want......." even when repeatedly told the freezers were OFF, all food that was in the freezers had been removed, he was still sputtering "But I just need...." I weep for humanity sometimes.
                    The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Quoth ShadowTiger View Post
                      About five or ten minutes later (Who could tell amidst the chaos...) the fire alarm went off. I suspected I had smelled some sort of smoke, (we had a fire some months earlier, in July or something, so the smell wasn't unfamiliar.) though I didn't quite see any fire or anything.
                      From what I understand, if the sprinkler system loses pressure, fire alarms go off. I mean, it's a hazard right? You don't have any sprinklers to put the fire out.

                      Happened to my store once. The system somehow lost pressure, fire alarms went off, got everyone out of the store (hard to do because people kept shopping. One guy yelled at me because he was tired of people telling him to leave.), and then the fire department showed up.

                      I could be wrong, though.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Quoth Rapscallion View Post
                        Took over four years of me asking to get the training. It's great!

                        Rapscallion
                        I actually started the training back in the late 90's but only got through the paperwork then written test portion of it. When the actual driving was to start my manager sent me home because I would have been in overtime. Never did complete the course and I worked out in the garden center for 5 summers.

                        I've seen so many accidents on those things that I was always glad they never pushed me to do it.

                        I had a great manager who loved to drive the fork lift. She'd do that while I did all the heavy lifting. Our garden center had huge gravel pits where the gravel was probably 4-5' deep. One day she backed that thing into one of those pits and all we could do was stand there and watch it start to sink...like quick sand.

                        It's funny now!
                        Retail Haiku:
                        Depression sets in.
                        The hellhole is calling me ~
                        I don't want to go.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Quoth Rine View Post
                          From what I understand, if the sprinkler system loses pressure, fire alarms go off. I mean, it's a hazard right? You don't have any sprinklers to put the fire out.
                          Actually, since each sprinkler has a heat sensor (solder melts or volatile liquid boils and shatters the vial holding it, allowing the valve in the sprinkler head to open), it means the sprinkler system is also an array of heat sensors. If the water starts flowing, it means one of the heat sensors has detected a fire, therefore the alarm needs to go off. One flow sensor in the pipe feeding the sprinkler system can trip the alarm if any sprinkler detects a fire.

                          Of course, mechanical damage to the sprinkler system will also make the water flow, so the fire alarm is also a "clumsy forklift operator" alarm.
                          Any fool can piss on the floor. It takes a talented SC to shit on the ceiling.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Quoth ShadowTiger View Post
                            No room in "the back" for anything anywhere else. :-/ It's a tiny, tiny wedge-shaped room. The forklift barely has any room to turn around, much less do what it needs to. The store was formerly a waldbaums or something.
                            Same situation in my store, both uses were a supermarket by the first company had morons for designers. To get to soem parts of the back room that you can walk thru if moving a pallet you have to go on the sales floor because they put up shelving in all the wrong places.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Quoth wolfie View Post
                              Actually, since each sprinkler has a heat sensor (solder melts or volatile liquid boils and shatters the vial holding it, allowing the valve in the sprinkler head to open), it means the sprinkler system is also an array of heat sensors. If the water starts flowing, it means one of the heat sensors has detected a fire, therefore the alarm needs to go off. One flow sensor in the pipe feeding the sprinkler system can trip the alarm if any sprinkler detects a fire.

                              Of course, mechanical damage to the sprinkler system will also make the water flow, so the fire alarm is also a "clumsy forklift operator" alarm.
                              Or a moronic installer alarm when they used a wet pipe, which has water in it all the time as opposed to a dry pipe which has air in it until the head busts which releases water to the pipes, in a freezer. Took three burst pipes to realize WET PIPE WILL NOT WORK IN A FREEZER!

                              Comment

                              Working...
                              X