Fun in power outage land

Becks · #1 07-22-2006, 03:50 PM

Yesterday, in the middle of my shift, we had a thunderstorm. Soon afterwards, the electricity went out, and the store was running on the generator, meaning more than half the lights are out, and most, if not all, of the refrigeration is off.

Of course, none of this keeps the store from closing, or the customers from coming in. After about half an hour, they have cartboys posted by the enterance, telling customers that there is a power outage, can't buy anything from dairy, deli, hot foods or frozen, blah blah blah. OF COURSE, the registers still work...maybe cash only, maybe CCs and debits can go through, but I wasn't sure.

When I went outside for a smokey treat, I saw more than one customer get out of their car, walk towards the store and ask, "Why are the lights out?" Well, sir/ma'am, there WAS a thunderstorm, and the main transformer in {nearby town} blew.

Winning question of the night, and heard many more times than just once, btw..."Why are the lights out? It's sunny out!"

One winner came in, and after hearing that most of the perishables would be unavailable for his buying pleasure said, "That ridiculous!!!!! When the power goes out at home, things are still good after the power's been out for 20 hours!!!!!!!"

I heard him (not that it was hard to, he was talking rather loudly), and said, "Well, sir, we'd rather be safe than sorry, since a lot of our perishable items are not in enclosed cases." "I think you're being TOO safe!!!!!!!" "Well, sir, that is your opinion, but we'd really rather not take the chance of customers buying items that might not be at their best, so we're making these items unavailable for health reasons." On and on he goes, and I manage to run away and hide when he looks away for a second.

Our customers can be some of the biggest losers, I swear.

AmericanZero8503 · #2 07-22-2006, 06:18 PM

Our generator got struck by lightning about a year back. So when the power goes out we shut down. We gather up all the customers and hold them till the power comes back on or the storm moves through whatever comes first. But that means while the power is out, I don't have to do a damn thing except shut down the POS computer which is on battery back up. I love power outages a lot. I get paid to do nothing.

chainedbarista · #3 07-22-2006, 06:21 PM

20 hours? i wouldn't care to test the accuracy of that statement; ours might or might not last eight, and some things at that stage will find their way to the trash, rather than my stomach.

no, sir, we can't sell it because we don't want you taking it, eating it, then claiming food poisoning, suing us and making a general mess of things. good day to you!

Myra · #4 07-22-2006, 07:47 PM

Oh man I bet that was a barrel of fun. I remember once when the power went out at the grocery store I worked at. The generators worked on half the coolers, including the storage coolers, so we only had to empty one half and were able to sell most of our perishables.

BUT one thing that wasn't on the backup generators was the electric meat saws. So we couldn't do cuts for the day if there was a bone in it. We were making due with regular knives. Obviously, we couldn't do t-bone steaks because a regular knife, no matter how sharp, just wasn't going to go through bone. And yet, customers just didn't seem to understand that we had no means to cut up any more bone-in meat. THE LIGHTS ARE OFF PEOPLE!

Ah, common sense elludes them, I suppose.

Rapscallion · #5 07-22-2006, 07:57 PM

I always used a hand saw for that. Didn't you have any of those? Easy enough to use, and even better when the power was out...

Rapscallion

Susie Derkins · #6 07-22-2006, 08:16 PM

Quote:

Quoth BeckySunshine

One winner came in, and after hearing that most of the perishables would be unavailable for his buying pleasure said, "That ridiculous!!!!! When the power goes out at home, things are still good after the power's been out for 20 hours!!!!!!!"

"Oh! Well, in that case sir, try the milk."

karma_gypsy · #7 07-22-2006, 11:02 PM

Quote:

Quoth BeckySunshine

"I think you're being TOO safe!!!!!!!" "Well, sir, that is your opinion, but we'd really rather not take the chance of customers buying items that might not be at their best, so we're making these items unavailable for health reasons."

It doesn't even occur to him that, those coolers get warm fairly fast, especially when you have 20 or so people opening them in a small period of time? Oy . . .

Speaking of outages, we had one earlier today ourselves. A good half the city was out. I don't work in grocery, so we had no food to worry about, but we do use computers for everything. They hooked up a generator to get the printers running again, but the outage only lasted 45 minutes . . . sucky, I was rootin' for it to go longer, perhaps they would have sent us home early . . .

Crosshair · #8 07-22-2006, 11:57 PM

Generaly here, when the power goes out in the summer, it is time to bring out that stash of fireworks left over from the 4th. It's kinda funny in a way. I've never been at the store when we lost power though.

DGoddessChardonnay · #9 07-23-2006, 12:32 AM

Quote:

Quoth Susie Derkins

"Oh! Well, in that case sir, try the milk."

Better yet, offer him a Klondike Bar that's been out of the freezer and turned into milk.

Irving Patrick Freleigh · #10 07-23-2006, 01:35 AM

Last week, we had a nasty thunderstorm the resuleted in a lot of trees and power lines going down. I had no power for over three hours.

I had to go looking for a fast-food place to get something to eat for my shift at work that night. I didn't want to take a chance opening the fridge or freezer, but evidently Becky Sunshine's SCs don't care what is healthy and what isn't as long as they get what they want when they want it.