Greasy kid stuff

[Andara Bledin]

Personally, I don't have any problem with what the guy said. Then again, I'm one of those people who doesn't care for children, too, and likely would have said the same thing.

And for those who mention that it's hard to keep an eye on five kids: There were two parents. One could have stayed home with all the kids where they couldn't cause trouble while the other went out to do the shopping.

I've never understood why people will take the whole family out to go grocery shopping when that includes both parents and at least one child old enough to babysit. If I were the type to have kids, you can sure as hell bet I would avoid having them in the car with me whenever possible. Less chance of an accident caused by distracted parent (aka, me) and if there is an accident, only one person to be injured.

^-.-^

[edible_hat]

PAnd for those who mention that it's hard to keep an eye on five kids: There were two parents. One could have stayed home with all the kids where they couldn't cause trouble while the other went out to do the shopping.

The three older kids weren't any trouble at all, one parent should have kept an eye on the babies while the other gathered the food (it's a convenience store, I think they were there for lunch). All together 3 oil bottles got thrown/broken, and when the pram was moved one of the kids tried to grab some chocolate (which was out of his reach).

All up it was very low on the sucky scale, since the parents were very polite and the older kids well behaved. If there had been more suckiness, the boss probably would have made the parents pay for the oil bottles.

[blas]

Meh, I've seen an entire family go grocery shopping for a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread. There was a girl who had to be at least 12. She could have stayed home and watched the smaller ones.

As soon as I was 10 or 11 I was expected to stay home and watch my brother while mom and dad went out.

[Nayeli_Sabia]

I've never understood why people will take the whole family out to go grocery shopping when that includes both parents and at least one child old enough to babysit. If I were the type to have kids, you can sure as hell bet I would avoid having them in the car with me whenever possible. Less chance of an accident caused by distracted parent (aka, me) and if there is an accident, only one person to be injured.

There is a truth thought, that if you never take a child out into public, they will never learn how to behave in public. I have a theory that this contributes to SC. Take kids out, and expect them to behave. Expect them to behave at home too... not a perfect theory, but one I've seen work over and over again.

This reminds me of the time my brother smeared vaseline all over his head.

Instead of yelling at him, my mother started spiking his hair to look like a certain toe-headed 6ish year-old. We ended up calling him Spaceman Spiff for the rest of the day.

Ahh...I might have to remind him of that now.

When i was younger, I got into the vaseline and "painted" the wall with it. When we moved out, almost a decade later, there was still a large mark on the wall. Did you know that vaseline doesn't like to come out of walls?

[Retail Associate]

Truthfully someone bringing in 5 kids into a store needs to keep tabs on the kiddos. There's no excuse to let your spawn run amok and make messes for store employees to clean up.

I agree!

I've never understood how people can stand there, watch their little darlin' spill pop or crumble cookies on the floor, then walk away leaving it for someone else to clean up.

I've only seen one customer clean up after her own kid. The little girl had vomited about 5 feet away from my co-worker. The mother, rather then just walking away, asked my co-worker for some paper towels and cleaning fluid then cleaned the nasty mess herself.

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[Lady Heather]

Once Upon a Time...

There was a bored 3 year old girl. She was at the Food Market with her Mommy. The girl discovered that Mommy's shoping cart (when empty) was very easy to push. The little girl pushed the cart with all her might and it moved . The Girl's Mommy watched in horror as the cart moved, down the aisle, out of the aisle, and into a display of over 30 CHAMPAGNE BOTTLES.
My Mother still won't let me push the cart to this day.

[Tenshi-Hikari]

But some people don't like kids, period.

Thar be a point, there. Mind you, I wouldn't leave two twins that young anywhere near a shelf full of things that might leave a mess; my mother sure as hell didn't when me and my twin were still of that age. I understand that they are busy with so many kids and all, but a little common sense would be nice, right?

But the boss-man may have had bad experiences with large herds of kids in his time. For example, I hate most kids under the age of 10 these days because of my oh-so-lovely upstair neighbours. They have four kids and the wife is preggers again. All the kids are under the age of 6; the order, if I remember, is 5 years, 3 years, 2 years and a year; they're Laestadians, and while I really don't give a damn what people believe in or what their religion is, this bit if info is a major factor here.

They don't use birthcontrol. They don't punish their children, nor do they try to set rules or try to raise them to take in mind the other people living in this apartment-building. They leave their kids in God's care, which basically means that if the child gets hurt, it was God's divine will; if it dies, God has decided it was his/her time and has taken him/her to greener pastures; infact, if a child dies when it still is a child, that's a jackpot, because the kid is surely going to Heaven now! Might explain why they have so many kids, though... Ya gotta have a spare if one croaks for whatever reasons! (Also, a teacher in my school, a laestadian, says that homosexuality is wrong and that it's a disease, a crime against nature and actually tries to teach that in his classes. )

And now the real fun begins: The head of the family gets drunk regularly, despite the fact that they "don't drink alcohol" (Maybe he drinks mouthwash...?). The mother is a daycare teacher, so she "knows what she's doing" (And the shoemaker's children have no shoes, it seems...). The kids? The last time I saw them outside their apartment was, ohhh.... Three weeks ago or so. That's right kids: the mother doesn't let them go outside and play, which leaves the buggers only one option: they scream, shout, cry, bang the floors, run inside the house, jump on the furniture from around 8am to 11pm, and the force they use in these games makes the windows in our apartment sing. The windows. MAKE. NOISE. And they do the wave-thing. Which according to an architect is impossible, but hey! It still happens. Anyone seen pigs fly recently?

We've been hitting the ceiling with brooms so they'd understand that we can hear everything that goes on in there (including the husband shouting at his wife "Do you know what you fucking mean to me? You don't mean fucking shit to me, you fuck!" in drunken rage at 1 am after dragging himself home from the local pubs), we've told the landlord, we've asked them many times to please, please take us into account and control the kids, but these people just won't listen! I've even noticed that when my mother's car is not parked, they make more noise than normal. WTH is up with this timing-thing?

So had I been in the boss-man's shoes, I would've said the same thing.

Sorry for the slightly off-topic-ish rant, but I needed to give an example. >_>

[Geek King]

<<refering to everything, but saving space as per mods>>

You need to find a good, tough local cop with the attitude, "God has your souls, but yer ass is mine!" Call when the noise gets out of hand. Everytime. The police will lean on the apartment owners if they won't do anything. Also, have a look at your lease to see what the owner responsability is. If they are supposed to respond to complaints in a timely manor, you may be able to negotiate with them. If the rent check is threatened, the owners should get more serious about it.

Also, invest in an audio recorder and record from your apartment. If it as bad as you say, the recording will be telling to whoever you complain to.

[Reyneth]

Instead of yelling at him, my mother started spiking his hair to look like a certain toe-headed 6ish year-old. We ended up calling him Spaceman Spiff for the rest of the day.

Awww! I'm re-reading the collections now.
I totally want an orange tiger cat named Hobbes - have said that for years.

[bainsidhe]

I agree!

I've never understood how people can stand there, watch their little darlin' spill pop or crumble cookies on the floor, then walk away leaving it for someone else to clean up.
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Exactly what I was thinking. I agree the boss's comment was impolite, but it was said away from the customers themselves and, in my experience, was well within the bounds of regular employee conversation. I have heard much worse.

But are we missing part of the story? Was bossman upset because of the mess or because of the parents' reaction? Too often I see parents go "whoopsie. Sorry about that." and make no move to clean up, let alone acknoweldge their lovely wee ones' mess. That they apologized was very nice, but attitude says a lot. I tire of the "Well, it's YOUR job, isn't it?" sort of attitude.

[Saydrah]

The parents should have offered to pay for the mess- boss's comment was justified. I can't imagine bringing a child into the store, allowing it to break an item, and NOT paying for it. Doesn't matter how young they were or if they didn't know what they were doing- it's the parent's responsibility, not the store's, to pay for the damage.

[bainsidhe]

The parents should have offered to pay for the mess- boss's comment was justified. I can't imagine bringing a child into the store, allowing it to break an item, and NOT paying for it. Doesn't matter how young they were or if they didn't know what they were doing- it's the parent's responsibility, not the store's, to pay for the damage.

Sadly the "you break it you bought it" mentality is a thing of the past. Stores worry over offending their customer base to a point that is beyond common sense. It is not uncommon for someone, who just bought a fragile ceramic planter, to break it as they are checking out. Right after I tell them to be careful, it is fragile. That, or people will set things teetering on the edge of the belt, so that it plunks right over the side as soon as the belt moves. It is expected the store eats the loss. Even if little junior picks up the eggs and heaves them to the ground (yup, that was a messy cleanup), the store takes responsibility. I do wish more people would at least OFFER to pay for their mistake, even if we would tell them not to bother. But if that were the case, we wouldn't have these fun little forum discussions, now would we