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Where Were You When The Lights Went Out?

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  • Where Were You When The Lights Went Out?

    Had a doozie day Wednesday that I still can't quite recover from . . .

    Everything was fine starting out. Grasshopper has been on vacation this past week and our new Ass Man has been running the store (and this is his 2nd week with us - we'll call him Sheldon as he looks a bit like that guy from Big Bang Theory.)

    Anyway, most of my Wednesday deliveries had already come in. I was getting ready to go hang the end cap signs on the vendor end caps an had stopped by the back office to get the envelope from Ma so I could get those done, go do the cigarette counts and go back to pulling dates on the shelves. And this was right around 9 in the morning, so I'd been pretty busy those first two hours of my day (I start my day around 7.)

    Or at least that was the plan. Part of the lights went out, then a second or two later, the lights went out in the not only the back office, but the back room and the emergency light kicked on outside in the hallway (we have NO emergency lighting in the stock room - when it get dark, it is BLACK as in cannot see in front of you.)

    We go up front to see what's going on. Pass a shopper who was still trying to see as the announcement is made over the PA that all customers needed to bring their purchases up front immediately as the registers would shut down within 30 minutes.

    Front doors were locked - Grocery Manager is watching and letting folks out as they are ready, Sheldon was on the phone. Ma goes to see what's going on and finds out that Big Power Company has been called and has dispatched a crew to come out and that we were the only ones in the shopping center without power - everyone else had theirs on. She then goes back to hanging tags and says she'll apply them with the gun later after the lights come back on.

    I go try to hang my signs, using the flashlight app on my phone as I make my way to the back of the store (I had already taken care of the front soft drink endcap) and then made my way back to the back room to drop off the crate of signage supplies off my cart, open the back door long enough for a quick vape, then back out to the sales floor.

    We have a frozen food truck show up . . . luckily Sheldon and two stockers came back there to get the pallets unloaded. We couldn't pull up the downloaded invoices in the computer (generator doesn't power those - only backup lights) and sent him up front to get a store stamp for his paperwork in the meantime. Sent him out the door a short time later and then I return out to the floor after stopping for a pit stop at the ladies' room (and there are NO emergency lights in there, either.)

    Spent a while pulling dates . . . finished up gravy mix pouches, went to do the water and managed to get the top shelf on the cereal section (one of the largest sections we have in the store) and my chip guy texts me to say he's out back.

    Go let him in and tell him what we know by that time about the situation. We check off his products off his ticket and I keep a copy so I can put it into the computer after the lights come back on. My Little Debbie guy showed up about the same time, so I do the same thing with his delivery. Tuck both tickets away in my large notebook for safekeeping and go back to the floor.

    By this time, we have a specialist show up (aka Tattletale to the Regional Director) and everyone goes to the lunchmeat section to pull everything. We have a reefer truck en route that would be there within 30 minutes so we need to go ahead and pull, as she was finding some item were past their recommended temperature range (she has one of those handheld digital thermometers with her - neat gadget. Just press it up against an item and it can read the product temp.)

    Some of the guys had went up front and outside to round up as many shopping carts as they could find. Tina and another guy had already pulled the fresh meat items and crammed those buggies into the coolers. We started doing the same with the lunchmeat items - separating those that felt too warm from those we thought we could save.

    Truck arrived out back by the time we'd finished pulling lunch meat items, so we go to the Dairy department and start pulling. Every empty milk crate that we had was pulled out to the floor on pallets so we could start loading, as we were all but out of shopping carts. We started pulling yogurt, cultured items (sour cream and softer cheeses) and cheese items, then the biscuits and saved the milk, juice and eggs for last.

    When we ran out of milk crates, the guys were rounding up blue HBA totes for us to use and we were stacking those on floats to haul to the back so the others could get those onto the trailer.

    As to the cause of this power failure: we had by this time heard that a balloon got loose and hit a power transformer outside the store that is located behind the building.

    Helium filled balloon + electrical transformer= NOT GOOD. In fact, we're probably lucky the building didn't catch fire.

    This set off a chain reaction, causing a bunch of fuses to blow in the electrical box in the back room of the store. An emergency call had been made to Tim the Toolman (our regional maintenance guru) and he was on his way to us w/fuses and he had made it there while we were pulling the dairy.

    He got the fuses replaced and we thought the power was coming back on . . . it came back for a couple of seconds, then went back out again. Booooo . . .

    Turned out he ran into another issue and had to call for an electrician to come in. Waited a bit and a truck belonging to a local electrical company arrived on scene. Two guys showed up and helped out Tim and finally we got power restored. It was around 2 pm.

    Then Sheldon was back on the phone with Helpless Desk to get the computers back up and running . . . then had to call back to get the printers back online (I was trying to make what few signs I needed so I could get them hung and go home.) That got fixed and I managed to borrow the computer inside the front office and make my signs and get those printed.

    Tim stuck around to get a few other things fixed to keep us from losing power again and was getting ready to leave by the time I was and that was around 3.

    Tina was still there, trying to help the other guy in the market get the buggies back out to fill up the fresh meats. She had been there since 6 and was so ready to get the Hell out of Dodge . . . but she got stuck there a while longer. She later posted on FB she'd put in 12 hours (and that post was right after 6 that evening.)

    Definitely NOT a day to go through this. Wednesdays are bad enough as it is just swapping out displays and end caps and taking care of the price changes for the weekly ad.

    At least we survived mostly intact . . . well, except for maybe our sanity.
    Human Resources - the adult version of "I'm telling Mom." - Agent Anthony "Tony" DiNozzo (NCIS)

  • #2
    Yowza. I hope you didn't have to discard too much of the refrigerated food.

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    • #3
      Holy crap!

      I'd tell you how my day went, but that'd be cruel.

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      • #4
        Sounds like it was a mylar balloon (as opposed to latex). They're supposed to be non-conductive (aluminum sandwiched between 2 layers of mylar), but if high voltages find a weak spot watch out!

        If you've got no power, why would you accept a delivery of frozen food? I'd think it would be reasonable to turn them away and request a re-scheduled delivery - after all, it's already in a temperature-controlled truck, and without power your freezer is down, so you'd need to call for another reefer truck to load the stuff back into.
        Any fool can piss on the floor. It takes a talented SC to shit on the ceiling.

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