The Great Cleanup

[Crossbow]

Antifreeze? Yuk. Worst I ever had was working in a grocery store we managed to have one of the outside delivery people mis-handle a pallet jack. We had just opened and the dairy we were getting our supplies from had sent one of their people to assist with the stocking of everything. He was moving too quickly and his pallet load of eggs clipped one full of milk gallons. It's been over 20 years and I still occasionally have nightmares about stacks of milk crates falling over.

For the next 6 hours, I stocked, he mopped. A lot....

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Almost ten years ago, we were getting ready to unload a truck one night. Somebody had pulled some household chemicals from backstock and put them on a flatbed, and a co-worker was on the forklift bringing them down.

The opening in our mezzanine gate is not wide enough to fit a flatbed through, and this is just one of many design flaws in our store. You have to actually lift it over the gate. Anyhow, co-worker misjudged the flatbed's position in relation to the gate, put the forklift in reverse, and hit the gas harder than he should have. The flatbed wheels banged into the gate and the stuff on the flatbed came tumbling about 15 feet to the ground.

So now we had a rapidly-expanding pond of glass cleaner, fabric softener, kitchen cleaner with bleach, toilet bowl cleaner, and so forth on the floor where we would be putting the conveyor belt to unload the truck. My unload crew and I go scrambling for the torn bags of cat litter we used to clean up liquid spills, and to grab more off the salesfloor to requisition for spill cleanup, and pick up all the empty and half-empty containers and set them aside.

Except for one person--the guy on the forklift, who just kept his fanny parked in the seat and barked orders at us to hurry up.

Then, after we finished the truck that night, came the wonderful task of getting together all the damaged containers, making a list of each individual SKU and the quantity of each that had been spilled, and then tossing the containers in the trash compactor. It amounted to over $200 worth of product destroyed. When we finished I noted that forklift guy's carelessness was the reason for the lost product, and that he didn't help us clean up his mess. Then I had all my co-workers back there with me sign it, except for forklift guy.

And I came to find out later management still tried to pin the blame for that on me, until other people working that night set them straight.

Another time forklift guy took out a fluorescent light while diddling around the forklift, sending shards of glass onto the conveyor belt as we were unloading a truck one night. From that point forward he always wondered why I'd move so quickly, running if necessary, to get on the forklift before he could get settled in that seat.

Forklift guy is now the electronics specialist at the swamp.

[Hawaiian Eskimo]

So now we had a rapidly-expanding pond of glass cleaner, fabric softener, kitchen cleaner with bleach, toilet bowl cleaner, and so forth on the floor where we would be putting the conveyor belt to unload the truck. My unload crew and I go scrambling for the torn bags of cat litter we used to clean up liquid spills, and to grab more off the salesfloor to requisition for spill cleanup, and pick up all the empty and half-empty containers and set them aside.

I'd've gotten the hell out of there. The possibility of ammonia based cleaners being in that mix of crap seems... extremely high.

(For the (hopefully few) people that don't know, ammonia + bleach = chlorine gas, which is Very Bad™)

[EricKei]

manglement

"Manglement"? I may have to borrow that one in the future ^_^

[Ironclad Alibi]

Speaking of spilling things ...

Warehouse #1

Warehouse #2

Warehouse #3

[Teefies2]

Anybody remember Jamesway? Store #1 in Chautauqua Mall, Lakewood NY. And we were a 'test store' which meant any stupid idea home office came up with we had to try it first. If it caused enough damage/chaos/confusion then it would be mandated to all the others. If it actually made things better it was quickly covered up and forgotten.

OMG I had almost been fortunate enough to forget Jamesway! My first retail job while still in high school. However, I will say that working there taught me A LOT about working with the public.

[Spork4pedro]

I had to deal with a similar spillage when I worked at BevMo a few years ago. A young boy (8ish or so) kept wondering around while his mother shopped and decided to run down the French wine aisle with both arms extended. He knocked over the bottom shelves of BOTH SIDES of the aisle so roughly about 200 bottles of (pricey) French wine.

This was the first time I had ever seen my manger make a customer pay for a spillage. And the mother had the gall to complain about it!

[Anakah]

Oh man... That sucks. I bet that cost a hell of a lot of money... What a bitch. She's lucky that shit didn't drop on her kid. What a mess... Sorry you got stuck with that shit. Raises for everybody!

[wolfie]

One day, I came in and was immediately routed to the back, where a large box of cheep wine had tumbled from the top shelf.

By any chance, was the brand of wine involved "Baby Duck"?

Gallon jugs of antifreeze probably weigh 5 pounds each.

A (U.S.) quart is a bit less than a litre. A litre of water at 4 degrees celsius is 1 kilogram, or 2.2 pounds. Antifreeze is more dense than water. Try somewhere in the neighbourhood of 10 pounds each.

I'd've gotten the hell out of there. The possibility of ammonia based cleaners being in that mix of crap seems... extremely high.

(For the (hopefully few) people that don't know, ammonia + bleach = chlorine gas, which is Very Bad™)

Actually, it's bleach + anything alkaline = chlorine gas.

[EricKei]

Antifreeze is more dense than water. Try somewhere in the neighbourhood of 10 pounds each.

Assuming it's pure antifreeze and not 50/50 cut with water. For comparison, a gallon jug of milk weighs a little over eight pounds. ... What? So we were bored at the registers one day >_>

[dalesys]

....a gallon jug of milk weighs a little over eight pounds...

Old Thule of Rhumb: A pint's a pound, the whole world 'round.

The fluid ounce has drifted a little from the weight ounce, but they're still very close. Most common liquids are between 0.5 to 2.0 times as dense as water, so so that or the 1 liter = 1 kilogram rules will get you well within an order of magnitude.

Also almost all woods, stones, liquids and metals have densities between 0.1 and 10.
dsys, HSD.

[EricKei]

dsys, HSD.

Hentai Solution Developer?

[Der Cute]

Many moons ago I worked at a gas station. That shift was graveyard, into early morning (read: coffee ciggys coffee ciggys gas fill up coffee)
Guy came in after putting the handle in the tank and had the trigger holder? on max flow. He got some coffee and was trying to wake up. Customer came in and said...there's gas flowing out of his car over there...

OH SHIT. We stopped that pump, and started cleaning. The issue was that the pumps were on a hill, higher than the store. And we had rain/runoff ditches surrounding the property. We got out the big float/hose shaped thing to corral the pond of gas. I had to yell at the other person helping me: STOP THE GAS FROM GETTING IN THE DITCH. He finally did and listened to me. DM shows up in the morning after this, and pats us on the back - EPA would have given us a hella fine for letting any gas into the ditch.

Took us a long time to clean that up. Needed absorbent stuff and time to let some of it evaporate. Plus the report...yargh.
This memory just tells me: don't let the chemicals get into a ditch, the feds don't like it.

[Pojodan]

By any chance, was the brand of wine involved "Baby Duck"?

Oof, this was 14 years ago, I don't recall the finer details, I'm affraid.

[BrenDAnn]

One of my co-workers did a mini version of this with fruit punch the other day. She tried carrying two 12 bottle cases of juice (in glass bottles of course) to the back room to put away, and the bottom one fell. I was on break in the back room at the time and heard the crash and shattering sound, and immediately looked to see what happened. Three bottles of fruit punch shattered to pieces, and a large, expanding pool of juice on the floor. THAT was a fun clean up!