Blackouts.

[Sir Spaniard the 12th]

While I was working, during the nightshift, we had a power failure for whatever reason.... The whole area was completely black, except for the cars drivng past. and our SAFETY LIGHTS. Apparently, those were enough for one car to drive into our area, pick up the pump, and wonder why it wouldn't work. The fact that there were no lights in the WHOLE SUBURB, and the doors wouldn't open, weren't proof enough.

Anyone else have stories where customers still tried, despite the fact there was nothing you could do?

[Lace Neil Singer]

Once at the garden centre, we had a power cut at around 2pm. Cuz this was back in the good old days before the world and his wife had mobiles, the only person who had one was the boss; he rang up the electricity people and they told him that the power cut would affect the whole area, and last for at least 3 hours.

So the boss had no choice but to ask us to get all the customers out cuz he had to close the shop. I was told to give all the pets extra food and the fish guys were told to do likewise with the fish. Now, this is where the fun begins. Most normal people would, and did, realise that if there was no power in the shop, it couldn't stay open. However, some people refused point blank to leave and had to be practically shoved out the door by the boss and his son.

The IM was off sick, btw... thank goodness. He would have been a total liability. Here are some of the retarded questions posed by some of the customers:

"Why is the power off?"

"Why don't you turn the power back on?"

"Why are you closing?"

"Why can't you serve me?"

I also, at a time when I was trying to fill up all the pets' water containers, had this moron bug me:

Me: The heroine
SC: Dumb ass

SC: Why are you closing?
Me: (inwardly sighing) Cuz the power's off and won't be back on for at least 3 hours.
SC: No reason to close. I need to get some garden stuff.
Me: The tills run on electricity and we can't open them with the power off. So we have no choice but to close.
SC: That isn't good enough, I'm going to the garden centre down the road.
Me: (thinking but not saying) Good luck, asswipe; their power will be out too!

Yeah, we're deliberately booting you out cuz of course the boss loves paying employees money with no returns! Yep, we all got paid for sitting at home for the rest of the afternoon; that was one good thing. But after having to shift all the idiots from the shop, we flipping well deserved it.

[Kogarashi]

I went through two power outages at Wal-Mart during my time as a cashier. With Wal-Mart, when the power goes out the registers still run for a bit because of a backup generator. That way, we can finish up the transaction we're on and get that customer at least out of the store.

For one of the power outages, I was just coming back from my break when it happened (thunderstorm), and got roped into helping the grocery section move and seal off the perishables that weren't behind doors and would thus spoil if left out too long. We had just barely gotten the last item out of the coolers and into a safer area when the power came back up. ::grumble:: That meant we had to spend the next while putting all the stuff back, while customers grumped about it.

The other time, the power outage was longer due to some transformer fault in the area or something like that. It was a bright, sunny day (so the skylights in the store actually offered decent lighting), and I was on register when it happened. I explained the situation to my line and finished out the current transaction, despite angry looks from some of the other customers who stormed out. I then got roped into taking the abandoned carts and putting the items away. We still had customers trying to come into the store despite the fact that most of the doors weren't open. One front set of doors had been pushed open by management so that customers could exit. If I recall correctly, we got to go home after that because the store manager found out how long the outage was going to last.

[toolbert]

I've only had to go through one power outage when I worked at the Warner Bros store. It was a freak power outage in the mall (come to find out one of the new store's construction crews cut the line to stores in our area). All of us busted our bums to get the people out of the store and there were those stragglers who couldn't understand that it's mall policy to get the people out of the store so they wouldn't injure themselves. After we finally got the last guy out, myself and the SM tried to get the gate down since we had to do it manually. We got it down to about halfway and then all of a sudden buzz, blip, boom...power's back on. I wasn't pleased to say the least

[Ringtail Z28]

We went through quite a few when I worked at Target. There was a generator but much like all of the equipment it was piece of crap.

Customers would actually get stupider, which really shouldn't be suprising. They'd say stupid things like...
"Can't you do anything about this?"
Me thinking: right, I'll use the psychic powers I use to read your mind to create electricity

SC: "Can't you just do it all on paper?"
My Supervisor: "Nah, who's got that kind of energy?"

[Becks]

I'm not sure if I mentioned this when I did my own post about our recent power outage, because I heard about this the next day. Anyhoo...

Some of the customers we had on Friday night were indescribable!!!!!!! They wanted to know why the power was still out, even after the dark clouds had gone away, and the sun was peeking out. (I guess it never occurred to them that maybe a transformer had gone out...stupid people!!!!!) One of my coworkers in the deli told me that even after the power went out, a man asked him, "Soooooo...will you still be able to take care of my order?" Sure, we'll use what little electricity that we're getting from the generator to power ONE slicer for two seconds so you have half a slice of cold cuts. (I was being sarcastic there.)