Some people are unbelievable

[Ezrockspants]

I cannot believe that people can be so self-absorbed.
Do they really think that stores (and store employees) exist only to serve them, no matter what else may be happening?

[ditchdj]

This all reminds me of that scene from the remake of "Night of the Living Dead". It was when Cooper, the real arrogant asshole out of the group trapped in the house, emerges from the house at the end with an arrogant shit-eating grin on his face saying "You came back", not giving a single thought to everyone else in the house that were killed by the zombies. The surviving woman that came back had this "Hell no!" look on her face and decides to just shoot him right between the eyes.

[moekosowl]

My sympathies to all members of CS who lost friends or family members in the 9/11 or any other terrorist attacks.

[PuckishOne]

Has anyone seen the documentary about the Canadians who came to the aid of Americans stranded in Canada because of the flight restrictions after the events of 9/11? I've seen this at least twice - it was on PBS, maybe Discovery Channel, something educational like that - and it never fails to move me. Reading this thread makes me want to watch it again, to remind myself that there are good people in the world, and that, ultimately, good people are just ordinary people who make the effort to help others as they are able. I would rather weep freely at the spontaneous generosity of strangers than shed even a single tear over the cold-hearted selfishness of the idiots mentioned in this thread.

[/hijack]

[Mixed Bag]

ultimately, good people are just ordinary people who make the effort to help others as they are able. I would rather weep freely at the spontaneous generosity of strangers than shed even a single tear over the cold-hearted selfishness of the idiots mentioned in this thread.

[/hijack]

No need to apologise for THAT hijack.

[Sceptre]

I remember last year, our school had organised a trip down to London on July 8th. We were in English on the seventh and the headteacher comes in and says to the whole class "I'm sorry, but tommorows trip to London has been cancelled, because there have been terrorist attacks in the Underground". Everyone was so shocked, the teacher let us go fifteen minutes early for lunch, so I got it and followed the action in the school library. But still, a few people were bitching because they weren't getting their deposits back.

[Thrifty]

and Bob came in to complain about how he couldn't get in the store.

There was a suspected gas leak in our store one time. Employee's were getting dizzy etc., so we called the local gas company to come out. The gas company told us to evacuate everyone including employees, but first we had to get the customers out. My boyfriend was cashiering at the time so I went up to help bag and listened to the panicked shouts of "we'll be able to buy our stuff right!!" Mind you this is a thrift store so most of their items were clothing and knick-knacks.

[Ree]

Back in 1998, our area was hit with a major ice storm.

We were closed, but customers started coming to our back door, so we ended up opening without the benefit of power for lights or computers.
I was supposed to be off, but I managed to get across town on the icy streets anyway, because I knew there was a load of disaster related supplies coming in.

I was greeted at the door by the HC. She said, "What are you doing here?"
I told her that I knew a lot of people wouldn't be able to get in, so I had decided to come and help out where I could."
Instead of thanking me, of course, she said, "I hope you didn't send your ride away, because we aren't staying. There's nothing we can do here."
She left, but in the end, I did stay and started to work, because I had no way of contacting my husband. He had dropped me off, and was on his way to go check on his parents out in the country.

About 10 minutes in, I was pricing, and a customer walked in the door wanting to buy a pail of kerosene.

I had to calculate the tax in my head and make the change.
I went back to my work, and then there was another customer looking for kerosene.
Same thing, only as soon as I was done with him, there were 2 more customers. I was adding up all the stuff on paper and in my head.
Next thing we knew, there was a lineup down the warehouse.
I was working steady for about 10 minutes, doing all of it in my head.
The guys were walking them personally around the store with flashlights to get them what they needed.

I finally said, "I can't work like this. I need a calculator."
Someone brought me a solar powered calculator to use in a warehouse that had no lights.
One guy stood over me with a flashlight so I could work.

Finally, the managers realized I couldn't keep up with things as they were.
The customers were asked to back up. We set up pallets of freight to form a barrier, and put boards across to form a makeshift counter.
I ran quickly and called one of the cashiers who only lived a couple of blocks away.
She came in.

We piled all of the most requested items up and as people asked for stuff, we had stock clerks putting it in bags for us. We had the manager, the other cashier and I writing out all the sales by hand and using non-solar calculators and making change out of our cash drawer trays.

We still had people bitching about the price of the batteries. We were giving them the good ones, because we didn't know how long the power would be out, so we figured it was best to supply the long lasting ones.
One guy accused us of gouging and demanded a written receipt.
When the power came back on briefly the next day, and our store opened for regular business, he returned them and bought the cheaper ones. (I really feel bad for the cheap bastard's family!! I hope they didn't suffer when the dollar batteries ran out after a few hours of steady use.)

We had people demanding a full case of lamp oil or kerosene, even though they probably didn't need a full case. Then there were others, who, when asked, "Do you need a case, or do you just want a case?" would politely say, "I can get by with less. If you need to ration it so everybody gets some, that's OK."

I think a disaster really brings out a person's true colours.

In the end, I worked until about 3:30 that afternoon. I had to do the deposit by the light of a little pocket flashlight because we didn't have power for the alarms and didn't want to leave that much cash in the store overnight.

All I got was a quick, "Thanks" as we were leaving, and bitching from the HC because some of the stuff wasn't adding up when the power was restored and it was all put through the computer for inventory and bookkeeping purposes.

Gee, apparently I made a couple of mistakes carrying the digits in my head, or missed recording a couple of items on the paper. I guess I better go back to school.

[HYHYBT]

This is slightly more understandable since he was in a different country, but a friend of mine was hiking in Wales that week. He didn't get back until the Sunday after, and obviously, hadn't seen any TV or radio, or spoken to anyone that week. He plays CDs in his car, so was basically completely incommunicado.

This may be a silly question, and you may not even know the answer, but how did he manage to get from Wales to New York without finding out at an airport?

I was one of those who didn't know until, well, not *that* late, but late afternoon. I slept until well after noon, being an evening shift worker and on my day off, and found out there was *something* strange going on by email. From a discussion list normally about game shows, a series of messages with the subject "Now we have one WTC". Not knowing what a WTC was ("Wheel" Tournament of Champions?) I read the messages, which didn't help much because they were written as if to someone who already knew what was going on. The first just said "The north tower fell". (or possibly the south, whichever was first of course) The next said the other did too, etc, which at least got me to cnn.com to see what was going on!

As for the original subject, I haven't yet been through a major disaster, natural or otherwise. Knock on wood, my head will do. But I've seen someone go outside in a very sudden hailstorm that dropped several inches in ten minutes, several busloads go outside to see a (thankfully fictional) tornado one of them thought they'd seen, three people at once (one at each window and one at the speaker) trying to get someone to take their order because we'd closed for Thanksgiving ("But your sign says 24 hours!!), one who left very angry because I didn't know yet (and couldn't have told him if I had) why an employee had had to go to the emergency room and took her relatives with her, leaving me with no grill team. (she'd collapsed and been taken out by ambulance not five minutes before, and the other two in the kitchen were her husband and brother. Everything turned out fine, though I don't remember the details)

[LostMyMind]

bitching from the HC because some of the stuff wasn't adding up when the power was restored and it was all put through the computer for inventory and bookkeeping purposes.

Gee, apparently I made a couple of mistakes carrying the digits in my head, or missed recording a couple of items on the paper. I guess I better go back to school.

Wow, I guess HC failed math class too. Closed store = $0, open store with a few mistakes = $$$$$

[Jester]

He asked why the rest of the mall was closed, was it a holiday? I told him it was because of what had happened on the East Coast that morning. Here is his actual question - "What happened this morning?" I then had to break it to him that the WTC was gone and the Pentagon was on fire! (Not to mention the bomb threat at the state capitol) Seriously, how big was the rock he was under?

Actually, it is not that hard to picture many situations where someone might not know. I would not have known immediately myself, except for that day I was woken up by the cable repairman, as our cable was screwy/out. And when I say "woken up" I mean around 11am-noon Eastern. (I don't do mornings.) And he basically told me "The Twin Towers are gone." And I said "...!" And then commenced watching hours upon hours of CNN, and communicating with my friends via MSN Messenger.

Heck, this recent London thing with the liquid explosives on the plane, I would not have known a thing about if I had not called my mother that day from my road trip. I watched plenty of CNN that night at the hotel, but don't think I would have heard about it otherwise, as I was driving several hundred miles and only stopping to get gas (and paying at the pump, so not talking to anyone there) and eat meals...and I tend to read when I eat, and tune out the world. And in the truck, listening to CD's mostly, as I was in and out of metro areas too fast to really bother most of the time trying to find stations.

>>"If they need food that bad, point them to the Chinese Restraunt. Those guys never close. Sorry if that offended anybody but it is true around here."

I live in the Florida Keys, and even during last summer's hurricanes, the one reliable thing was that, if they had power, the local Chinese restaurants were open.

Two odd things about the whole 9/11 thing. One, for me 9/11 is a good date. See, on 9/11/02, I met my ex-fiancee, a day I still remember fondly, even though we are no longer together.

Also, in '01, for our October festival called Fantasy Fest, just six weeks after 9/11, one of my costumes was the most popular I have ever done...I dressed up as Osama bin Laden....with a U.S. cruise missile going right through me! About 12 people were offended. Thousands of others wanted photos. (If anyone is interested, I can email you photos of that particular costume.)

[Dragon_Dreamer]

On 9/11, I was still working for UPS technical support, 2 hours into a 4am shift. Our supervisors let us know what happened, and the company intranet was updated all day. We were also allowed to watch TV during our breaks.

I remember two calls vividly, though most were from people wondering what would happen to their deliveries.

One man called, with a very thick accent, and claimed to be one of our drivers, near the WTC. However, he could not provide his badge number or anything. My supervisor advised me to end the call, as the guy was probably a scammer.

The other "gentleman" SCREAMED at me because his precious package was supposed to be coming from the WTC that day, and WHY couldn't we tell him where it was or if he would get it? He hung up on me before I got a supervisor.

One thing that most people were understanding about for a few weeks after, was the fact that most of the NYC phone lines were jammed or down. The UPS programs send their billing and shipping information to daily via dialup. After 3-5 failures, the program "locks" and nothing more can be shipped until the information was sent. Those we sent to second level, so the customers could send the information on a floppy. A few complains, but most were calm.

I went home, got on my computer, and refused to leave it or go to bed all night.

[drwood]

Computer stores can't function in a blackout

Working in Toronto, Ontario, Canada we don't see much in the way of natural disasters but were hard hit by the 2003 blackouts on the Eastern side of the US and Canada. We're a retail computer store and I was helping a client transfer data when the blackout started.

I assumed it would come up relatively soon but knew that with power out even for a few hours the store would effectively be closed for the day. This client 'kept insisting upon quick service so I took the courtesy of calling him to tell him it would be delayed:

Me: Hello Mr. Dim, I'm not sure if you're in the affected area but we've just been hit by the blackout so you can expect that your computer data transfer won't be done until tomorrow morning at best.
Dim: So what's the problem?
Me: ... There's a blackout. Without power to the machines I won't be able to get any work done.
Dim: Don't the laptops have power?
Me: Yes, but we can't actually operate in this condition and the laptop battery will RUN OUT which I don't want in the middle of moving data.
Dim: <sounds very put upon> Fiiiiine. Thank you.

The best part. I finally get around to the transfer after the blackout and the dialog box shows filenames as they are being copied:
-cop gets fisted.avi
-dirty marines 3-1.avi
-twink69.avi
etc.

But what is with customers not understanding store hours too? I continually forget to lock the door right at closing time and when people come down and tell them I'm closing they always take forever. "I'll be just a minute." Uh, no you won't. Get out - I have a life that's not being at a computer store past 8PM on a Friday like you.

[Tito]

Also, one time at the call center, the fire alarm went off and the customer I was talking to demanded that I stay on the phone and finish up with his problem before I evacuated the buiilding.

I would have been like, "Sorry buddy, but seeing my life is more important to me than this phone call, I have to go". *click*

[Kiwi]

I remember a power outage at the first store I worked at

they wouldnt close the store, but handed each cashier a pad of paper and a pen, calcluator and a set of instructions... it said something like

"write down the price, barcode and description of each item"

blah blah blah.... the barcode was like 20 characters long for heavens sake, and a description of the item... are you kidding me.... a $1 candy bar took like 5 minutes to get through

they didnt even stop customers coming into the store

I didnt mind cashing people out, but for heavens sake making us write out by hand every single barcode, and item description and the price took so long was beyond retarded.... even writing two of them, or letting us write the last 5 digits of the barcode werent allowed (even if the first 15 were the same for every single freaking item!!!!)

I am so glad that I left there after 3 months