Our store isn't an amusement park or a daycare

[RetailSlave]

We had an incident at our store about a year or so ago. Girl around 13 comes up to the Service Desk, asking us to page her mother. We do several times...no sign of Mom. The girl tries calling her mom on the cell phone...no answer. By this time the poor kid is in tears and scared to death. We are about to call the police when a friend of the mom comes in and the girl runs up to her. Turns out Mom had left the store to go to another store several miles away without telling her daughter...only after a half-hour or more did she bother to call her friend to ask her to pick up her daughter at our store. Seriously...you are in such a damn hurry to get to the other store that you don't even tell your child that you are leaving or take her with you?! Wish we had gotten the police called before the friend showed up...would have loved to see mama try and talk her way out of that one.

[Lace Neil Singer]

For the last, if you catch the parents leaving the store without their kid, let them know you're calling CPS about an abandoned child. If they leave anyway without their kid, follow through.

When I used to work in the pet store, I used to take said kid to my supervisor, who'd then hide the kid in the office. When the parents returned, I'd let them have a few minutes of panic attack as they realised that their child was missing, then inform them that their child was taken to the office. Once there, they'd be chewed out majorly. XD Worked like a charm and far more effective than calling in the big guns. Of course, had anyone tried that a second time, I would have been tempted; however, no-one ever did, strangely enough.

[Zellie Crescent]

A woman once left a basket full of stuff on my fish counter and told me she was going to the restroom, after about 35 minutes I call Erin and tell her I'm bringing it up for returns. The woman came back after about 45 and she was mad that I did that and wanted to know why, I told her she was gone for almost an hour of course I was going to think she just left it.

[PepperElf]

- The mother who hands their baby a toy to CHEW on until they get to the register and hand it over to me because they had no intention of buying it.

i read something like that over at PFB. The mother was FURIOUS that the store charged her for it.

[been_there]

Ah, yes. I worked at a toy store in a mall. If it was busy enough that parents could fly under our radar, there were many, many leave-behind children.


I would always call mall security to pick up the strays, as I considered it a serious safety issue (for the store, our merchandise, and the children themselves).

I got a certain sick satisfaction when Parent of the Year would return an hour-or-so later, scan the store, panic, and run up to the counter gasping, "Have you seen a little boy in a Power Ranger tee-shirt?!?!?"

[tollbaby]

Agreed. Last time a parent handed me a slobber-covered toy that their child had been munching on because they didn't want to buy it, I scanned it through and charged them for it. She bitched and moaned, but my manager backed me up on it - merchandise was no longer fit for sale. And our store took the concept of "you broke it, you bought it" very seriously.

[Legal Eagle]

[QUOTE=jjllbb;734335]- The mother who hands their baby a toy to CHEW on until they get to the register and hand it over to me because they had no intention of buying it.

- QUOTE]

Why on earth doesn't your store have a policy that the customer in that situation has to purchase the item?

[Kristev]

I actually see a man and a little boy. They're at my job nearly every day, and they spend a great deal of time looking at everything, especially what we're playing on the display televisions.

It's as if his idea of parenting is to take his child to Wal-Mart.

[Hanzoku]

For the last, if you catch the parents leaving the store without their kid, let them know you're calling CPS about an abandoned child. If they leave anyway without their kid, follow through.

[Kristev]

Yes. I actually had to summon asset protection once, because I caught a pack of wild teenagers playing ball, with a big ball, in the toy area as I was sweeping. The store is definately not an amusement park, or a day-care. For the workers, it's more like an abusement park, and a day-scare.

[jjllbb]

My store is not a daycare center.

My store does not exist to provide you and your family with free entertainment so you don't have to pay to go out somewhere together.

And by the way, those are not testers, those are DISPLAYS. They are NOT for you to use!

I'm talking to you:

- The father and son playing catch in aisle 10.

- The family pulling down displays of scooters and encouraging their kids to race them around the store.

- The parent sitting on merchandise and talking on the phone while their little darling pulls item after item off the shelves.

- The mother who hands their baby a toy to CHEW on until they get to the register and hand it over to me because they had no intention of buying it.

- And especially, especially the parents who drop their kids off to PLAY in the store and LEAVE to do other things.

Anyone else's store treated like a free vacation resort?