I thought I was SO fired

[Dave1982]

A while back I posted a long rant about the register "upgrades" my store received, including a section about the new and "improved" UPC scanners. I don't recall if I mentioned it at the time, but one problem with them is that they aren't very secure on their bases. I've knocked them over several times.

Well today I whacked my scanner good. It flew right off the edge of the counter and though I made a grab for it, hit my customer's son (6 or 7) square in the chest.



It was a moment of pure horror. In a split second I could just see the woman screaming for a manager, and myself out of a job.

Very fortunately, he just brushed it off. I apologized profusely to both him and his mother, who took it in stride. No complaint to the manager, so I dodged a bullet there.

Of course, a co-worker who witnessed it thought it was hugely funny.

[Parts_Drone]

A girl who worked in shipping at one of our stores once threw a light bulb at a charge customer who was hanging around the back shipping area being a jerk about some order that took too long are something. She got a mere slap on the wrist. So if your manager would fire you for something that is really their fault in the first place (scanner not secured) you must be either new or work in a place where they aren't bleeding employees left and right like where I work.

[Becks]

Customers who throw fits for very little to no reason should take lessons from that woman on how you SHOULD behave.

[Dave1982]

if your manager would fire you for something that is really their fault in the first place (scanner not secured) you must be either new or work in a place where they aren't bleeding employees left and right like where I work.

I'm not new there, and of course I doubt I really would have been fired. That's just what went through my mind in the split second following the accident. Wasn't a fun moment.

[RammsteinGirl]

You wouldn't of been fired.. it was just an accident, you didn't intentionally throw the scanner at the boy.

[laurenjeannie]

I am continually in crowd situations working, a lot of the time it's small children who are closest to me, and I fall over them continually, luckily I've never managed to hurt a kid although I have sustained injuries to myself when trying to avoid running into a kid. I always feel stupid to when I'm the one falling over, I look so klutzy.

[SCSlave]

<<that's the look I got on my face when I read your story. haha

The Store is lucky that woman isn't 'sue happy'. God knows if it were anyone else, they'd have been sued. And, not it's not your fault in the least. It's the stores fault...they really need to secure those things...because if they're that unstable, it will happen again, and they will be sued.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

A while back I had a couple come in looking for some patio furniture. Thing was, it had already gone on clearance and some of the items were gone, never to come in again.

So they bought some chairs, a table, and an umbrella base. Because the umbrella that matched the base wasn't what they wanted, they decided to instead try one of our cheapy replacement umbrellas, but first they wanted to make sure it would fit in the base. This required me to remove the display umbrella from the base.

So I walked over, picked the umbrella up out of the base...and had the thing tip backwards and whack the wife square on the head.



It knocked her a little silly. I began apologizing profusely, and fortunately they took it well. The wife told me "Accidents happen, and I should've known better than to stand behind you as you were taking that umbrella out."

[Dreamstalker]

My store has one of those scanners. Hella easy to accidentally send flying (I'm so tempted to glue the stand to the counter)...and for a period of about an hour every afternoon if it does scan it will scan wrong. I'm suspecting that has something to do with the noticeable lack of sunshades on the upper part of the front windows (sun reflecting off the counter in just the right way to mess with the scanner).

[Morrigan]

Hey all, I haven't posted in forever, but this thread reminded me of an incident that happened when I was still a newbie:

I was on the express lane with huge lineups on all sides. In the line behind me there was a little boy, maybe four years old, who was weaving in and out of the adults and hollering at the top of his lungs. His father was trying to get through the crowd and collar him, but the kid kept ducking around people.

I was doing my best to ignore all the ruckus when the little guy came barrelling into my legs from behind. He started bashing the keyboard of my till with both hands, still screaming all the while, and I had visions of him somehow hitting some button that would pop the drawer open; his forehead was right at cash-drawer level, and there was a lovely corner of metal counter right behind him to bounce off of if he got hit. His father was still trying to get to him, but no one would get out of the way. So I grabbed the kid in a bearhug, pinned his arms, got myself between him and anything sharp, and just held on to him for the minute or so it took for his dad to get through and pick him up.

There really wasn't anything else I could have done, but I thought the same thing as the OP: I am so fired... The thought that I had laid hands on a customer's child without their permission just terrified me. Luckily the father was perfectly rational, and apparently dealt with this all the time; he thanked me instead of going ballistic and packed the kid out to the car to calm down.