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3 Tales of Bad Parenting (Featuring Blood! Bodily Harm! And Broken iPads!)

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  • 3 Tales of Bad Parenting (Featuring Blood! Bodily Harm! And Broken iPads!)

    So as you may or may not know I no longer work for Aid of Rite. I am now contracted through Generic Temp Agency to work for Big Red U.S. Wireless Company as a greeter. I get paid a nice chunk of cash to stand for 8 hours per day at the entrance holding an iPad and say hi to people.

    Anyway, to business.

    Blood!

    I have a podium I tend to lean on at work with a few tablets on display. Customers like to touch the tablets and the podium itself for whatever reason. It was nearly the end of my shift and I noticed that there was red stuff smeared all over the podium. I had seen a customer leaning against the podium a few minutes before and I knew for a fact that the podium was clean. Customer did not have a drink or food in their hands. So I flipped my shit and cleaned up the blood. As a side note I need to have a nice chat with my manager about not having gloves to clean up blood with.

    Bodily Harm!

    Woman comes in the other day with her kids after visiting Cinnamon Bun Store. Kids were hyped up on sugar and were running around the store doing what kids hyped up on sugar do best: Destroy stuff! Mama was not paying much attention to them except to swear and curse at the kids. The younger boy was bored so he started peppering me with questions about what I do. I answered them best as could but I was keeping track of customers. Kid runs away then comes back 5 minutes later pretending to be tickle monster. Kid tickles me, then runs away. Then kid comes back few minutes after that and punches me. First punch hits my iPad, second one gets me in the stomach. It hurt. Mama saw the punch in the stomach and yelled at the kid before leaving the store in a rush.

    Broken iPads!

    If you go into almost any store that sells cell phones and tablets, they are attached to tables by a stretchy cord that has an alarm system attached to it. Pull on the alarm and the alarm goes off and its loud and embarrassing.

    So mom and kids come into the store. Kids make a beeline for the iPads and sit on the floor with them. As they are pulling on the cords, they are also pulling on the shelf, which is not bolted to the wall. Coworker Beanpole was nearby, turns around, sees kids sitting on the floor and sees the shelf just about ready to fall on the kids. Just as he's about to tell them not to do that:

    BANG BANG BANG CRASHbreebreebreebreebreebreebreebree

    The display fell on top of them. Store goes quiet except for the alarms. Kids are sitting there with looks of "oh SHIT" on their faces, thankfully unharmed. Mom yells at the kids and the kids stay next to mom for the rest of the time she's in the store without a peep. One of the iPads got cracked but the others were unharmed.
    Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.-Winston Churchill

  • #2
    maybe its just me, and the fact that I'm old, and was actually taught as a child you do not misbehave in public, and disciplined if I did. But I'm so sick of being either at work, or out shopping, and seeing kids who are all over the place, and the parents either do nothing, or very little.

    We had someone in last night, mom, grandma and two little girls. who were running all over the place, touching everything, and just being bored kids. I can't say I blame them, since its no fun waiting for the adults to try clothes on. But....when your kids are doing things they shouldn't be, and are not listening when you tell them to stop, how about taking some action? Take them out, or go over rather than just yelling across the store to quit it?

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    • #3
      I'm so tired of kids running wild.

      I'm a parent. I get that having to be firm and no-nonsense and actually parent isn't always fun. and it's tiring and stressful.

      But, after all the work, I have 2 kids who don't usually embarrass me in the store. Bonus is that they are older now, so if they begin to act up, I can just embarrass THEM (usually, by giving an ass-chewing) which then pisses them off and they get sulky and refuse to talk to me. So again, well behaved LOL

      Seriously, though, when they were little, they started parroting the phrase "this is a store, not a playground" at other people's children, because I said it so often.

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      • #4
        My friend has 4 kids, the three youngest she had in 4 years. She's also from the old school of discipline, like I was. We always joke about it, and her phrase is "i would scruff them out by the ear the minute they began to act up"

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        • #5
          With mine, I only had to say "Do you want me to get involved?" and they would get reeeeaaaalllllyyyy quiet. Because when mommy got involved, it meant time out, confiscated toy/book/whatever or being frog-marched out of the store or restaurant and staying home for a while before coming along again. No second chances either.

          Good behaviour makes everything so much more enjoyable for everyone, including the kids.
          It's not the years in you life that count, it's the life in your years! - Quote from the office coffee cup.

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          • #6
            Wewt! Hat trick!

            Two things I'm amazed at: neither mom went all RAEG on you/the store, and... ipads sound delicate. >.>
            Supporting the idiots charged with protecting your personal information.

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            • #7
              I hope Mommy had to pay for the damaged equipment!

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              • #8
                Quoth eltf177 View Post
                I hope Mommy had to pay for the damaged equipment!
                Sadly this probably didn't happen. Because that would be Bad Customer Service. Or something.
                Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study hard. Be evil.

                "I never said I wasn't a horrible person."--Me, almost daily

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                • #9
                  Quoth Catwoman2965 View Post
                  I'm old, and was actually taught as a child you do not misbehave in public, and disciplined if I did.
                  My late husband remembered the LAST time he acted up in public:

                  His mother scooched down, so she was eye-to-eye with him, and said, "If you don't stop that right now, I'm going to pull down your pants and spank your bare bottom in public."

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                  • #10
                    Quoth Irving Patrick Freleigh View Post
                    Sadly this probably didn't happen. Because that would be Bad Customer Service. Or something.
                    Ding ding ding! Mom paid nothing for the ipad.

                    Edited to add: iPads are not as delicate as iPhones to be fair. I have seen a -surprising- amount of iPhones brought in with screens shattered to hell and back. This one hit the shelf below the display in just the right way to crack the screen. The other ipads on display were unharmed.
                    Last edited by ralerin; 08-22-2014, 01:54 AM.
                    Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.-Winston Churchill

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                    • #11
                      My parents never took any crap from either me or my three brothers in shops. We were told that either we could behave ourselves and the trip would take no time at all, or we could misbehave and the trip would take even longer, with no treat at the end. Only GOOOD kids got treats so if say I behaved and my brothers didn't, I would get my treat and they'd get nothing to further hammer the point home.

                      Seriously, all my mum had to do was give the Venomous Pinch to the shoulder, the hissed, "Lace Neil Singer, you WILL behave RIGHT NOW or else we go to the Ladies" and the Evil Parental Stare and I'd quit messing around. Why the Ladies? Well, it was a handy place to administer the telling off of a lifetime. XD
                      People who don't like cats were probably mice in an earlier life.
                      My DeviantArt.

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                      • #12
                        While I don't recall any specific out-of-the-house incidents, my immediate and extended family believed very much in keeping us kids in line and teaching us how to behave ourselves, starting at home. As a result, incidents where the belt/switch came out were few and far between.
                        "For a musician, the SNES sound engine is like using Crayola Crayons. Nobuo Uematsu used Crayola Crayons to paint the Sistine Chapel." - Jeremy Jahns (re: "Dancing Mad")
                        "The difference between an amateur and a master is that the master has failed way more times." - JoCat
                        "Thinking is difficult, therefore let the herd pronounce judgment!" ~ Carl Jung
                        "There's burning bridges, and then there's the lake just to fill it with gasoline." - Wiccy, reddit
                        "Retail is a cruel master, and could very well be the most educational time of many people's lives, in its own twisted way." - me
                        "Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down...tell you she's hurtin' 'fore she keens...makes her a home." - Capt. Malcolm Reynolds, "Serenity" (2005)
                        Acts of Gord – Read it, Learn it, Love it!
                        "Our psychic powers only work if the customer has a mind to read." - me

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                        • #13
                          Someone's kid punches me, and they better get out. I don't even know what I would have done, but it would been unpleasant. I can say this, I would remember them, and if I ever saw them in the store again I'd do whatever I could to get them banned.

                          My parents are not big shoppers, I barely have any memories of shopping as a little kid. I know not everyone has these options, but I had a Grandma and several close friends of the family that I could be left with if it was going to be too long of a trip. I don't remember being in trouble in a store. But to be honest, my mom is a big get in and out person. She will take a separate car than whoever she's with so she isn't stuck with window shoppers.
                          Replace anger management with stupidity management.

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                          • #14
                            My 5-year-old loves shopping and always has, and since we have no family around here and my husband works long hours, I usually have to take him with me.

                            He knows very well that he is not to touch anything unless he asks permission first. And he would never dream of hitting someone, ESPECIALLY an adult.

                            The one time we had to wait in a cell phone store, he asked to play with the iPad on display, I asked the employee, who said sure, and he was instructed to stand by the shelf and not lift the iPad up while he played Angry Birds.

                            So they're not all bad, some of us try! That kid that punched you, though...honestly, even as a parent who has been popped a few times (accidentally) the natural instinct is to strike back without thinking and you really have to control yourself to not do that. I might have walloped the kid across the head on instinct.
                            https://www.facebook.com/authorpatriciacorrell/

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                            • #15
                              Quoth ralerin View Post
                              Ding ding ding! Mom paid nothing for the ipad.
                              Why is it this is exactly what I expected to hear?

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