I am a loser

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

It never dawned on me as a teenager that the cool thing for me to do when I got bored was to go to a store and cause trouble for the people working there. Sad face.

Tonight is a snowy night, but not as bad as it is in other parts of the country. Still, there aren't too many people out and about, and after-school activities like basketball games are generally postponed.

First, while filling stuff off the truck, I notice a couple kids playing Marco Polo in the aisles, which is funny for about five minutes but goes on far longer than that.

Then, about half an hour before I'm to leave, a couple girls come in the store. They ask the kid in electronics where the nearest electrical outlet is so they can charge their cell phones. He directs them to one over in toys.

They then proceed to not charge their phones, but produce a toilet seat and a mirror, set these items on the floor by the outlet, and then one girl turns the immediate vicinity into her personal vanity and takes one of our curling irons out of the package, plugs it in, and curls her hair while the other plays with some of the toys.

I pass them. They giggle and say "You didn't see anything." I go find the planogram supervisor and tell her on the sly "You might want to come over here and see this."

She comes around the corner, notices the girl still styling her flaxen tresses, and calls up the LP lady. She heads over to toys and suggests that curling one's hair is best done someplace other than the clearance swamp. Such as, for example, one's own home. With one's own curling iron.

They're told to leave. The girls protest "The clearance swamp sucks!" and depart.

A short while later, they return, and register their further protest by spitting repeatedly on the floor.

[Food Lady]

So they went out in the snow to go curl hair at a retail store? I don't get it.

[thehuckster]

Ah, that takes me back to the antics I had to experience on many a Friday night working at CVS. Shampoo Football was by far the worst, though.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

So....

I'm filling freight again this morning when I get the urge to pay the water bill.

I walk into the mens room and....what the....did somebody get shanked in here? There are big red splotches and blotches all over the floor, on the walls and on the mirror.

Of course, the bathroom was not a murder scene after all. The red spots were fragments of our bathroom air fresheners, which are basically cubes of scented wax like you might melt in a warmer. They're supposed to make the restroom smell like apple cinnamon, instead of the usual miasma of piss, bleach, and ass with a tiny little bit of apple cinnamon thrown in.

So we had some kids come in, probably late last night, and throw the air fresheners around the bathroom. At least it smelled nice.

[Pixilated]

Sounds like a bunch of little losers with way too much time on their hands. What do you want to bet these are the same types who whine about having "nothing to do" and blame their behaviour on that?

I was walking through the local big-box bookstore on my way to work a few weeks ago when I heard the PA system come on. "Attention, shoppers, I have just farted."

Me:

Yeah ... a bunch of kids had figured out how to use the thing and thought they'd be oh so funny. I saw them dash madly out the door into the mall hallway, followed a few minutes later by a grim-looking manager (who wasn't about to chase them at least partly because she was pregnant).

At least it was only mildly annoying. But I'm wondering: do stores normally leave their PA systems accessible like that? Don't they have passwords or something similar to prevent idiots from playing around with them?

[PepperElf]

maybe they were from Arrakis and wanted to show you respect?


heh just kidding. they sounded like 5 year olds except... most 5 year olds are better behaved

[MoonCat]

do stores normally leave their PA systems accessible like that? Don't they have passwords or something similar to prevent idiots from playing around with them?

Apparently not. Couple years ago, at a supermarket here, some idiot went behind a counter and made an announcement on the store's PA system: "All [certain ethnicity] customers must leave the store now" or words to that effect.

Yeeaahhh....that did not go over well.

Idiot claimed he was just joking. That also did not go over well.

[Gibbo]

They then proceed to not charge their phones, but produce a toilet seat and a mirror, set these items on the floor by the outlet, and then one girl turns the immediate vicinity into her personal vanity and takes one of our curling irons out of the package, plugs it in, and curls her hair while the other plays with some of the toys.

I pass them. They giggle and say "You didn't see anything." I go find the planogram supervisor and tell her on the sly "You might want to come over here and see this."

It ever ceases to amaze me as to how brazen people can be. Why would anyone do this?

They're told to leave. The girls protest "The clearance swamp sucks!" and depart.

Yeah, how dare you refuse to allow anyone to use your curling tongs instead of paying for them and taking them home first.

A short while later, they return, and register their further protest by spitting repeatedly on the floor.

I bet you learnt your lesson after that!

[Brojekk]

They returned just to spit repeatedly on the floor? That's a good way to get banned IMO.

[taxguykarl]

Yeah, how dare you refuse to allow anyone to use your curling tongs instead of paying for them and taking them home first.

A short while later, they return, and register their further protest by spitting repeatedly on the floor.

I bet you learnt your lesson after that!

Fine, next time they'll be arrested for shoplifting and tresspassing.

[Really]

Don't they have passwords or something similar to prevent idiots from playing around with them?

I know that when I worked at the Bullseye it was just a simple 2 digit number to over head page and it was the same number at every store I visited. Yet it was only certain phones that could do it and never the phones I needed when I was always the Store Operator. I still could walk into my store and get into 90% of the rooms and page overhead because I know the key codes to everything and they never change them.

[Aislin]

My chain is the one who had the racist comments made. We now have no phones on the registers to call for price checks, no phones in key areas to call for customer service and price checks, no phones except where they can be monitored. They had passwords, unfortunately they are easy to defeat. And former coworkers knew them and gave them away. Now most people don't know how to page and if you call be prepared to wait and wait for service because walk to the nearest phone could be across the store and if a phone is in use then you are sol. It is ridiculous. There is no way to call for loss prevention and carry outs. The customers complain constantly about poor customer service. Well stupidity rules and they won't even let us have radios because when we had those people would get on the frequency we used and made stupid comments and disrupted our communications, answered questions wrong just to upset business.

[Mr Hero]

In my teenage days, If I needed to pass time in a retail store, I'd head straight to the game demo section.

[Tama]

I'd go to the books and read. But that's just me.

[pzychobitch]

Apparently not. Couple years ago, at a supermarket here, some idiot went behind a counter and made an announcement on the store's PA system: "All [certain ethnicity] customers must leave the store now" or words to that effect.

Yeeaahhh....that did not go over well.

Idiot claimed he was just joking. That also did not go over well.

Wasn't that at a wal mart?