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 FoxPhoenix135 wrote:

bound for glory wrote:
Yeah. I'm thinking that there are a few folks here that are having a laugh and BS'ing.

I don't doubt the truth of what people have said... I worked in retail.

It's amazing how little popular culture discusses the realities of retail. There should be a rule for retail, "Rule #2: Someone will poop there. No exceptions." Nothing could have prepared me for the sheer amount of scatalogical horror I would encounter every week. And there's the brazen sexual perversities. God forbid you work in a place with an elevator. No, that isn't snot on the elevator buttons. Some dick just gets off screwing around by putting customers in sticky situations. Won't even talk about what happens in the cafe or the kids section. Police have been called.


The other rule is that you will always be threatened with violence for the pettiest reason available.

Yeah, WTF is up with the pooping? That's pretty gross. But the stories of smearers... OMG. I would fething quit on the spot. Retail just does not pay enough for literal gak.

And yes, I've cleaned up a sewer backup, so I know the deal. Worst night ever, BTW.

There are very few Andy Warhol fans in retail.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Yeah, WTF is up with the pooping? That's pretty gross. But the stories of smearers... OMG. I would fething quit on the spot. Retail just does not pay enough for literal gak.

And yes, I've cleaned up a sewer backup, so I know the deal. Worst night ever, BTW.

That's why you never see a plumber biting their fingernails

 JamesY wrote:
Echo and the Bunnymen said it best; people are strange.

OT: The Doors said it first...

As far as retail and restaurant work goes, if you can think of some filthy, nasty, degrading thing to do, it's already been done at a retail or restaurant location somewhere in America.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Yeah, WTF is up with the pooping? That's pretty gross. But the stories of smearers... OMG. I would fething quit on the spot. Retail just does not pay enough for literal gak.

And yes, I've cleaned up a sewer backup, so I know the deal. Worst night ever, BTW.

We used to have a regular customer who was a smearer. Remember the beginning of Encino Man, where the duo follow the trail of muddy cave paintings?

We've had to throw away hundreds of dollars of merchandise because of smearers. Also because of blood. And yes, there was a customer that combined the two and added more, but fortunately he confined his experiments to the restroom.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I oh yeah, and that regular thought it was funny to smear the door to the employee break room.

Dear God....where the feth did you work??!!

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
Dear God....where the feth did you work??!!

Walmart?

Poo stories are a sad reality of retail. Once upon a time I worked at a big box retail store. Some customers would use the sales floor as a bathroom, or just go in the sink (#1 & #2). One day, I did an inspection of the men's room and found... erm, the best term for it might be "mural", but that's really an unfair comparison, and sullies the term "mural". There was a stick figure family. And their house. And trees, and clouds, and birds. To top it off, there was a sun with a smiley face. All done in poo on the restroom walls. I would chalk it up to really disgusting children, but some of the images were high enough on the wall, that they would have had to have been drawn/smeared by an adult. Took almost 2 hours to clean up. I skipped lunch that day, just went outside to breath in fresh air until my break was over.

When I worked at hardees years ago, I went to clean the Women's bathroom stall and there was a decapitated Doe's head. Luckily not a lot of blood. just a pool. Sad to have to say THAT was the lucky part.

 conker249 wrote:
When I worked at hardees years ago, I went to clean the Women's bathroom stall and there was a decapitated Doe's head. Luckily not a lot of blood. just a pool. Sad to have to say THAT was the lucky part.

Did the Police investigate? Please tell me they investigated...

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 conker249 wrote:
When I worked at hardees years ago, I went to clean the Women's bathroom stall and there was a decapitated Doe's head. Luckily not a lot of blood. just a pool. Sad to have to say THAT was the lucky part.

Did the Police investigate? Please tell me they investigated...

Police were called, No cameras at the time. So they couldn't do anything unless some new stuff came up. Weird night, I worked from 4pm to 2am that night. Cleaned bathrooms at 10pm, Lobby closed at 12am, found the deer head right before midnight while checking to see if anyone was still inside. Cops were shocked, took pictures, statements. Other than that I never knew more about it. never happened again. It was One of the weirdest nights I had working there, outside of a Streaker, getting robbed and put into the freezer(found out later that it wasnt a "robbery" the manager on shifts friends came in to rob the place so they could split profits with him, THEN they finally put cameras in) Everything weird happens on Mids.

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
Dear God....where the feth did you work??!!

I worked in a book store in a world-famous upscale mall. We used to joke that we had only the creme de la creme of customers.

We also had a lot of celebrities. My favorite celebrity story was the time the sales manager, a kindly old grandpa, identified an incognito Jenna Jameson. He had to have a signed copy of her book.

If we get into stuff that's non-gaming I have plenty of horrible experiences from working retail and food industry jobs.

While I was in college I worked as a manager at a Little Caesars and it was pretty bad.

While I was cutting up some lettuce to make a salad I got distracted by one of the other employees who needed help and when I looked away I managed to chop off a good chunk of my index finger. Basically I removed the whole side of my finger tip between the knuckle and the finger nail, the only reason I didn't remove the whole tip was that the blade hit the nail and turned so it ran along side it instead of going straight through. It started gushing blood and I had to grab some paper towels to help soak it up while I went to the ER for stitches. Meanwhile the customer came in to pick up their food and one of the kids just grabbed the salad and handed it to the customer not noticing that it had blood all over it and a chuck of skin sitting on top. That went over great with corporate.

At one point we had an invasion of mice and they were getting into everything, we'd find paw prints in the flour dust and there'd be mouse poop inside the pizza pans, the dressing bar and all over the dough racks in the walk in cooler. It took the better part of two weeks to get things under control and we did the best we could to get rid of anything they'd contaminated. However we missed one rather disgusting incident. We'd make the pizza sauce in a big 15 gallon container and it'd last a week or two depending on how busy we were and it was stored in the walk in cooler. The evening that we made the sauce I later found that it'd been left uncovered in the cooler, I yelled at my staff about keeping it closed up but didn't pay it much mind at the time. When we needed to restock the dressing bar we'd pour it out into smaller containers so it was more manageable, as we were getting down to the bottom of the pot a rather large lump slipped over the lip and we were like wtf? When we poked at it and rinsed it with some water we discovered it was a dead mouse that'd gotten into the sauce and drowned and it had been rotting away in there for well over a week. So pretty much every pizza that had been sold during that time and all of our own personal food had come from that batch of sauce. It induced a lot of vomiting from myself and the other employees that saw it.

Then there was the king of nasty incidents. One afternoon we ran out of boxes so I had to go pick some up from another store, when I arrived there nobody was at the front so I let myself into the back. I walk into the back room and the store manager was sitting hunched over their sauce pot, pants around his ankles taking a dump right into the sauce. He's like hey man I'll be done in a second. I was completely horrified. I immediately called corporate to report him, who in turn called the police and had him arrested. But that isn't even the worst of it, when they checked the store's video tapes he'd not only done it several previous times but they also found out he'd been having sex with the dough, which he'd joked about in the past, or at least we thought he had been joking about it. It turns out he wasn't joking. The location was closed immediately by the health department and I'm sure if word of that event had gotten out to the public there would have been some major lawsuits flying. I still shudder when I think about it, thankfully I'd never eaten food from that store as who knows what the hell would have been done to it.

What the feth. Seriously, what the feth.

The horror.... the horror...


These stories make me just not want to go anywhere anymore.

 Vulcan wrote:

 JamesY wrote:
Echo and the Bunnymen said it best; people are strange.

OT: The Doors said it first...

As far as retail and restaurant work goes, if you can think of some filthy, nasty, degrading thing to do, it's already been done at a retail or restaurant location somewhere in America.

Never knew that that was a cover. Cheers for that

In my store I have a list. It is a " I'm sorry I have to tell you this, but someone did it, and now I have to tell every employee" kind of list. It includes:

1. Do not microwave bake potatoes in the foil
2. Don't come to work drunk or high
3. Don't get drunk or high at work
4. No cussing like a drunken sailor in front of customers
5. No wearing pants with massive holes in your crotch.
6. If you MUST sleep with a waitress, please only do one at a time and not have them fight for your attention
7. No dry-humping your pregnant girlfriend in the outdoor dining area during lunch rush
8. No selling drugs out the back door.
9. Bathing is a daily requirement


Other than that, I've had my fair share of floor-poopers, streakers, and my personal favorite the hog confinement workers that refuse to admit they smell so bad that they can be smelled from 50 feet away with an industrial ventilation fan between us.

 Rootbeard wrote:

The horror.... the horror...


These stories make me just not want to go anywhere anymore.

Welcome to retail...

Well, now that we are expanding the scope of horror stories, I think it is time I throw in my high school work story.

Back in the day, I was a municipal lifeguard as my summer job (and winter with the one city-owned indoor pool) and that had all of the normal things you would associate with it. I chased off pedophiles, I've cleaned up tied-off, used condoms from the pool bottom and I've seen the horrors of explosive toddler diarrhea in a kiddie pool. I've also had a rescue where I had to save 6 baby ducks from a pool they could not get out of, while the momma duck watched us (which was ADORABLE).

But my crown jewel story is this:

In the office of every municipal pool, there was a binder that had the photos and basic profiles of every known sex offender in the state. It didn't say what they did, just that their various 'hobbies' made it so that they were not allowed at the pool. For the most part, it was just kind of a joke for the guards, we'd put our bosses' picture in it and all that stuff. One day, I'm on break and another guard comes into the office and asks for the binder because it turns out one of these guys was actually at the pool. I came out, confirmed it and we realized we had to call the police. Luckily, there was a police station in the same parking lot as the pool more or less, so they sent a couple of officers over to find and escort the guy out. And I will say this about the guy, I don't know what he did, but he was being a good sport about the whole police escort thing. He wasn't making a scene, he wasn't fighting the cops, he wasn't doing anything other than getting his things and trying to get out of there quietly with the cops. At this point, nobody knew what this guy's crime was, so I though it was mostly over, an embarrassing moment to be sure, but this guy was taken care of...

...and then the guy's girlfriend starts laying into the cops.

She launches into a huge screaming fit at the police. She doesn't get physical, but she gets LOUD. So loud that the police and about...oooh I'd say somewhere around 100-120 guests, guards and other members of the public could hear her yell (quoting verbatim):

"HE'S NOT A PEDOPHILE, HE ONLY RAPED A 13 YEAR OLD!"

Then, there was silence...a stunned, shocked silence. The guy looked like he wanted the death penalty on the spot, for either him or his girlfriend. And the rest of the day was surreal, like nothing was real.

Poop and pedophilia wrote:...

Oh good God, where's that topic-equalising kitten I posted

Customer buy can of bright blue gloss paint ,puts it on the rear parcel shelf of their car for the rest of the day go's shopping drives around etc. Some time in the day pics up girlfriends miniature poodle. Said poodle then go's asleep on the same parcel shelf about 30mins later the can has been buffeted around and heated enough that it decides to explode . I find all this out when im called to the customer service desk buy giggling staff members to be confronted buy one red faced couple and a half hardening bright blue poodle.

I feel like a really terrible person for laughing at that.

Its okay, I laughed too. I must be a horrible person too...

 CURNOW wrote:
Customer buy can of bright blue gloss paint ,puts it on the rear parcel shelf of their car for the rest of the day go's shopping drives around etc. Some time in the day pics up girlfriends miniature poodle. Said poodle then go's asleep on the same parcel shelf about 30mins later the can has been buffeted around and heated enough that it decides to explode . I find all this out when im called to the customer service desk buy giggling staff members to be confronted buy one red faced couple and a half hardening bright blue poodle.

Pics or it didn't happen!

Wait... why did they go to the customer service desk? For a refund? Or to complain that no one told them not to put spray paint in the back window of a hot car? Maybe they just wanted to yell at someone?

 CURNOW wrote:
Customer buy can of bright blue gloss paint ,puts it on the rear parcel shelf of their car for the rest of the day go's shopping drives around etc. Some time in the day pics up girlfriends miniature poodle. Said poodle then go's asleep on the same parcel shelf about 30mins later the can has been buffeted around and heated enough that it decides to explode . I find all this out when im called to the customer service desk buy giggling staff members to be confronted buy one red faced couple and a half hardening bright blue poodle.

Their first reaction was "Lets demand a refund!" and not "gak! Lets get to the Vets ASAP!" ?

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 CURNOW wrote:
Customer buy can of bright blue gloss paint ,puts it on the rear parcel shelf of their car for the rest of the day go's shopping drives around etc. Some time in the day pics up girlfriends miniature poodle. Said poodle then go's asleep on the same parcel shelf about 30mins later the can has been buffeted around and heated enough that it decides to explode . I find all this out when im called to the customer service desk buy giggling staff members to be confronted buy one red faced couple and a half hardening bright blue poodle.

Their first reaction was "Lets demand a refund!" and not "gak! Lets get to the Vets ASAP!" ?

Basically the reaction of EVERY retail customer in America, I gak you not.

 Frankenberry wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 CURNOW wrote:
Customer buy can of bright blue gloss paint ,puts it on the rear parcel shelf of their car for the rest of the day go's shopping drives around etc. Some time in the day pics up girlfriends miniature poodle. Said poodle then go's asleep on the same parcel shelf about 30mins later the can has been buffeted around and heated enough that it decides to explode . I find all this out when im called to the customer service desk buy giggling staff members to be confronted buy one red faced couple and a half hardening bright blue poodle.

Their first reaction was "Lets demand a refund!" and not "gak! Lets get to the Vets ASAP!" ?

Basically the reaction of EVERY retail customer in America, I gak you not.

I once had a woman try to get me to run a coupon she forgot to use on a week-old purchase while the store was filling up with smoke because the one next to us was on fire.

I don't...get people, sometimes.

Well they wanted us to pay for the vets/groomers bill and to have their car cleaned out . I politely informed them that unfortunately from the moment they completed the transaction for the paint we had no control over what happened. So it was basically their paint that they were transporting in their car that they spilt on their dog . Then gave them one of the standard reply letters that we keep behind the desk for car spillages (it a weekly issue) after about 30 mins of shouting and threats they decided they better get the dog seen to before it cured

As this seems to have shifted to stories not just about FLGS, I'm gonna move this to OT.