Wet Floor Walkers

[LillFilly]

The same day I had to argue with the guy in the fire lane (see Fire Lane WTF Story), and had 2-other incidents, I was pretty much at the end of my rope. So, I decided to stay inside for a bit and chatted with the cleaning guy as he did the floors. He was working on the busiest section of the mall, an area with a lot of food places, so I decided to stand at the head of where he was mopping, between 'wet floor' signs, to direct people to go around him because PEOPLE JUST WERE NOT PAYING ATTENTION! I directed a group of women around, and one lady went around just enough to get around me then kept going straight...over...the...wet...floor. She almost had to step over the cleaner's mop! I yelled after her, but she didn't even lift her head.

Multiply people like this X 10. Oh, let's not forget the hecklers laughing at me from their seats at one of the eateries (sweet revenge, they got kicked out of a store about an hour later and we had the pleasure of escorting them off-property )

I finally lost my cool when a couple of men coming from behind me specifically went around the wet floor signs and far to my right, and I thought good, they read them. Nope. They decided they wanted to be in the store across from the wet floor and just walked. I'd had it. I just threw up my hands and shouted at them: "DUDES, ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?" They gave me deer-in-the-headlight looks and quickly hopped across the floor into the store, then wouldn't raise their heads again.

[Iseeyouthere]

Wet floors are a magnet for SC.

"Sucky thoughts... Sucky thoughts... Sucky thoughts... OOOOOH WET FLOOR!"
*stomp stomp stomp stomp*
"Sucky thoughts... Sucky thoughts... Sucky thoughts... "

Trust me, I know all to well, having to mop floors several times because everyone and their dog comes walking in after I mop.
Althought... something positive. Little kids often come help me while I mopped the floor, because I was using a speacil mop bucket. I would soak the mop and they would push down the lever to squeeze the water out.

[underemployeed]

I learned this at the C - Store, I have no idea how to use a wet floor sign. Because I put them up according to company policy BEFORE mopping. I had a woman tell me how dare I put up a wet floor sign when the floor was dry, she couldn't accept that with mop in hand I was about to make the floor wet.

Then you have my moron CW who liked to keep the Wet floor signs out of the way. so she would push them into corners when the floor was still wet. She was afraid people would trip over them while in the middle of the large open floor plan. Instead, accident reports of people falling on wet floors because the sign couldn't be seen (ok they probably would ahve ignored it anyways but considering even I had trouble spoting the signs while looking where they went)

[Thatgirl71]

We get those people ALL the time, I love the ones that when we have a spill (food, or chemical) they will walk right through them even with the sign right there stating "please be careful we have a spill". I usually will look right at them and say, "really, do you NOT see the mess?".

SC's well, they suck!

[Nayeli_Sabia]

I can relate. I got to try and keep people from walking infront of a mortar(cannon) that we where prepping for a demo. There where anouncements over the loud speaker even! I still had to physicaly put myself in front of people, who either got CBF or deer in the headlights as i would not let them pass. IT'S A FREAKING WORKING MORTAR. IT COULD KILL YOU.

[barainga]

About 12 years ago I was working at Mal-Wart and it was snowing/raining mix outside.. so of course people were dragging in slush all day. Common sense would say entrance areas are wet! Since we know customers do not possess common sense we had lots of signs out saying 'Wet Floor', we had 3 guys with mops trying to keep it cleaned up, and two huge fans trying to dry it. An old lady slipped and I think broke her hip or some other injury. Her daughter instantly went on rant mode yelling how she was going to sue the store and the 3 guys trying to keep it clean.

Turns out they had no claim what so ever... as the old lady was supposed to have a walker and they didnt want to get it out of the trunk because they didnt want to get rained/snowed on. Some where in the enusing rant the customer actually said this, in front of about 30 other people who all said, without being asked, they would be more than happy to testify to that effect because it was obvious how hard we were working trying to keep the floor as safe as possible... I love nice people.

[Duncan MacLeod]

About 12 years ago I was working at Mal-Wart and it was snowing/raining mix outside.. so of course people were dragging in slush all day. Common sense would say entrance areas are wet! Since we know customers do not possess common sense we had lots of signs out saying 'Wet Floor', we had 3 guys with mops trying to keep it cleaned up, and two huge fans trying to dry it. An old lady slipped and I think broke her hip or some other injury. Her daughter instantly went on rant mode yelling how she was going to sue the store and the 3 guys trying to keep it clean.

Turns out they had no claim what so ever... as the old lady was supposed to have a walker and they didnt want to get it out of the trunk because they didnt want to get rained/snowed on. Some where in the enusing rant the customer actually said this, in front of about 30 other people who all said, without being asked, they would be more than happy to testify to that effect because it was obvious how hard we were working trying to keep the floor as safe as possible... I love nice people.

Pwnage! Should have more respect and care for their elders

[BrenDAnn]

I can totally sympathize. I swear, a nice clean, wet floor is a magnet for customers. Then you get the ones who DELIBERATELY stand there and squeak their shoes back and forth in the aisle that i JUST mopped. What's funny is on the days when I'm mopping every five minutes, and people come in and worry about tracking up the floor. I always tell them, tracking it up isn't a big deal--just don't fall down and hurt yourself!

[truthless86]

The ones I always "loved" was when I was working at a Wal-Mart years back, where the night maintenance people would rope off sections of floor put down fresh wax. The ropes were at chest height, with lots and lots of bright yellow & orange signs saying "Waxing in progress". Yet we'd still get at least half a dozen idiots a night ducking under the rope, wander into the middle of the wax, look at us from beyond the rope and ask "Is this section closed?"
"No, we just randomly rope off sections of floor, clear it out and leave buckets and mops in the middle of it all just because the fumes make us happy"

[Gizmo]

I had similar at a wedding the other day: The cake was on a table at the front of the room between the two tables like this

There wasn't a lot of room at the front and the floor wasn't flat. So As the Maid of Honour I asked everyone to not walk around the top of the tables because of the cake.

So after hearing this and showing approval.. half a dozen people still walked around the top of the tables causing the cake to rock. /facepalm. Luckily there wasn't any accident and the cake did make it to the cutting stage!

[MidoriDelSol]

Same type of thing would happen when I worked at large rat's play house. We had a dinning area that you needed to walk up a ramp to get up and down from. It contained maybe 8 tables, so towards the end of the night we would rope it off and clean it so it would be done. People would deliberately ignore the blockade and go eat up there. I had absolutely no trouble going up to them and ask them to move. You're not going to ignore my blockade and get away with it.

[Clover]

OH this drives me up a wall, particularly if I've just mopped and cleaned the floors and they have muddy or dirty shoes and go tromping right through and getting the floors filthy again so I have to clean them up again! How rude can you be? Or like this one lady who ignored the wet floor signs when I was mopping, walking on the wet floor in high heels, and she slipped. I was close enough that I grabbed her upper arm, dropping my mop, and helped her get her balance again. She thanked me and when I pointed out the signs, said she was sorry about coming over here anyway but she needed to get something real quick (an often-used excuse) when an older woman who I'm guessing was her mother or something comes up and goes off on me about how dare I touch that woman and tell her not to walk wherever she wants to walk and she was going to sue me and have me arrested for assault and blah blah blah-ignoring the protests of the woman who I'd just helped, who kept saying it wasn't my fault and I was helping her and all, but the older lady kept going off on me until I flatly told her that I had caught the other woman when she was falling and probably saved her from a nasty head injury, as she was falling straight toward the edge of the grocery cooler (the area where we have cheeses and all with the open front, not the freezer-it has that lower area that sticks out, which could easily crack a skull) and asked if she would rather have had the other woman get hurt instead of being caught. She huffed and ended up leaving, and I never saw her again.

Another time we had one of the lights (the long thin tube ones) explode, so there was glass and such spread over a wide area. I got several of the caution cones and put them around the entire area that the glass had spread to and started cleaning up. Firstly one of my managers complained that I had too many of the signs (I'd surrounded the area completely to make sure there were no gaps wide enough for anyone to push a cart through, as they seemed to think that as long as they can fit, it's okay) so he took several of them away, leaving wide gaps, and of course people went walking right through where there was glass, ignoring me telling them to go around, which there was room to do. The one that horrified me the most though was a barefoot toddler who's mother clearly wasn't watching him heading straight towards the glass-I dashed from my register and scooped him up just before he stepped into a huge pile of the glass, which would have undoubtedly cut his feet to ribbons. Did his mother thank me for saving her child? No, of course not, I got my head bitten off for daring to touch her little angel. Ingrate. I would say that I wished I hadn't bothered, but not only did the store not need the lawsuit that would undoubtedly have occurred, but the boy was just a toddler too young to know better and I would have felt horrible if he'd gotten hurt.

Sometimes I wish I was as soulless as many of these idiot SC's seem to be.

[Kristev]

Mopping up is just the worst. The consumers at my store downright insist on barging through the floors I'm mopping. Then they get angry with me if I try to stop them, or even warn them. And mismanagement doesn't have my back on the matter at all. "All about consumer service", you know?

No wonder I believe these consumers should all be served to a great white.

[Caractacus_Potts]

I learned this at the C - Store, I have no idea how to use a wet floor sign. Because I put them up according to company policy BEFORE mopping. I had a woman tell me how dare I put up a wet floor sign when the floor was dry, she couldn't accept that with mop in hand I was about to make the floor wet.

There was a story on notalwaysright.com about a worker who put out wet floor signs as they were going to mop the floor. A woman comes in the store, reads the sign and starts flailing about like she's about to fall. Before she can throw herself to the floor...

Worker: Ma'am, I haven't mopped that section of floor yet.
Woman: (suddenly stops acting like she's on an ice rink covered in oil wearing Teflon slippers) Oh.

[Clover]

There was a story on notalwaysright.com about a worker who put out wet floor signs as they were going to mop the floor. A woman comes in the store, reads the sign and starts flailing about like she's about to fall. Before she can throw herself to the floor...

Worker: Ma'am, I haven't mopped that section of floor yet.
Woman: (suddenly stops acting like she's on an ice rink covered in oil wearing Teflon slippers) Oh.

Pffft! Okay, that would have been hilarious to see.

The idiot probably just thought she could act like she'd fallen and hurt herself so she could either get free stuff from you guys, or that she could sue them for allowing her to fall on her poor little tushy (regardless of the signs) and get her next house payment from that. Morons.