Rolling blackout mayhem... (LONG)

[Listerfiend]

I don't even know where to begin with this one...

So I'm at work today (FES at a craft store), and it is no average day. There's a brand new store that opened in our plaza, and so it was CRAZY packed with tons and tons of customers. We had 2-3 registers going at all times from about 11:00-2:30 (during which we only use one or two at the most), and the parking lot was jammed and you could see the congregation of people out front of the new store. Anyway. So it was insane.

About 12:30 there was a power surge. No big deal--lights went out, registers died, but everything was back up and running within five minutes.

At 1:45 there was another surge. And another at 1:50, after which the power immediately went out altogether. The store was running on limited supply, and it seems that there's something up with the breaker (some sections of lights were on, one of the doors wasn't working). The worst part? TWO of the registers were working. Wait--no, one and a half. One was fine; we just had to do a voice authorization for credit purchases. However, the other one could only do cash transactions. Unfortunately we found this out when checking out a bitch of a customer. We tried to use her credit card a couple different ways, tried using a check, and I ultimately told her that we'd be able to hold her items until the end of the week, whereupon she could buy them when our machines weren't being wonky. She was being such a BABY over the whole thing! "Well why won't it go through?!?!" "Ma'am, you have to understand that there's been a POWER OUTAGE. We're lucky that we even HAVE working registers." She goes on, muttering something about it being "ridiculous" and I wonder if she just wants me to snap my fingers to make the power come back on.

Oh--did I mention that I couldn't even use my register? Before the main outage I was scurrying trying to get people rung up ASAP because I was anticipating another surge or whatever, and I had just completed another transaction, however, power went out just as the receipt and EFT receipt were printing out. I had the customer sign a mock EFT, hoping I could learn the transaction number, but I wasn't able to. Long story short, my machine still had me "logged in." I wasn't able to go on another register without logging out...

So through all of this customers are freaking out, the two cashiers I have are going nuts because of all the customers, and the most I could do was to try and keep everyone corralled and divide the lines into cash only and charge purchases. Of course, though, there were a couple of people who just couldn't understand *why* we only had two machines going, and "well, why don't you ring us up?? We've been here for EVER!" And me thinking, "okay, yeah--so the other 5 registers definitely work; we're just not using them to piss you off and make you waste your time." Seriously--why do SCs think that whenever an event like this, one equivalent of retail Armageddon, happens, it's obviously the associates trying to piss off the customers? How the hell does that even make sense? Why would anyone go out of their way to make their own job HARDER? Oi...

And of course there were all of the customers saying "it's too dark in here! Can't you turn on some lights?" Because we CAN'T turn on the lights. Seriously-- if you went into a store and there was OBVIOUSLY something wrong like that, wouldn't you just walk back out and not deal with it?

SO after a while a fireman came in and told us that it was rumored that there was a rolling blackout instigated by the electric company, and they only told one store about it. However, I think this is incredibly suspect, seeing as it's fall in Ohio, and so no one's using neither heat nor a/c, and also since it was the middle of the day on a Saturday. How does this make sense at all? Ugh... So basically, we had no idea what was going on. And I don't know how things turned out, but I'll find out tomorrow...

EDIT: I came into work today and the power was still out... And for whatever reason the store was exceptionally busy (I know it's the weekend before Halloween, but if a store is in less than optimal working conditions I know I would turn around and shop elsewhere), and the customers exceedingly pissy. A lot were being plain ol' bratty. I also had about 5 or 6 customers that came in and just HAD to ask, "are you open?" which really just promtped me to WANT to say, "Actually, no--we're not open. Despite the sign on the door that says we're open but experiencing a power failure, the customers milling about, the doors being unlocked, and the transaction I'm ringing at this very moment, before your very eyes. We are definitely NOT open." I guess the power will be fixed by tomorrow, though. Even though it was nice not having to deal with irritating fluorescent lighting (luckily the registers are in front of a large row of windows, so I could easily see still with the natural lighting).

(and if this doesn't fit here, by all means move it to the right location--I couldn't figure out if it was to go in SC or general work chat. thanks)

[bean]

Warning: some electrical geek stuff.

More than likely, your store is on 3 phase commercial power. What this means is you have 3 separate feeds coming into the store. Depending how you wire each circuit breaker panel, and the circuits within, you can get 120, 208, 240, or 480 volts. Each of those "phases" delivers 120 volts, but they're out of sync a bit. A/C power in North America runs at 60 hZ.

At home, you have what's commonly called single phase (it's really 2 phase). 2 separate wires coming in delivering 120 volts, but they're 180 degrees out of sync. What that means is one wire gets 120 volts for 60 hZ, then nothing for 60 hZ. The other wire gets 120 volts while the first one is dead. Repeat, 60 times per second. If you wire something to both of those wires, you effectively get 240 volts. If you have an electric stove, oven, clothes dryer, and/or water heater at home, they're wired for 240 volts (i.e. instead of being connected to a single hot wire and a single neutral, they're connected to both hots, and probably a ground). Same with central a/c.

Commercial power is a bit more complex since you have 3 phases, but think of it as 3 extension cords. Roughly 1/3 of the place is wired to each cord.

Inside of the main breaker panel or distribution panel, each phase is divided so that every phase is somewhat "balanced" - a fairly equal load on all 3 of them. (your home is wired the same - both of them should be balanced.. otherwise you get overheated wires and eventually a fire)

Anyway, it sounds like your store lost 1 phase. Since the loads should be distributed among all phases, everything that was connected to the now-dead phase lost power. In this case, some of your lights, your doors, and registers were left without power. If you were in a store that had any 3 phase motors (refrigeration, balers, compactors, etc), the 3 phase equipment was either dead or running at a much lower speed. It's pretty rare to lose just 1 phase from the power company, but it does happen. And a lot of 3 phase equipment will get fried when it happens.

My store went through something somewhat similar - we had a huge power surge during an thunder-snow-storm (I didn't know they existed until that day either) and the main breaker for 1 phase pretty much blew up. We lost about 75% of our refrigeration (over $100k in product lost), our phones, about half of our electric doors, a lot of lights, and some registers. It took over 12 hours to get the repairs done, which is why we lost so much product - all but 3 (out of over 20) walk in coolers/freezers were dead. All but 5 display coolers (out of 40+) were dead. The only reason we didn't lose all of our refrigeration is the store had been expanded at one point, and the expansion was run off of a separate power feed (since that part used to be another store entirely), which has its own power meter, breakers, etc, and its own refrigeration system. We're damn lucky we didn't lose any equipment except for the breaker (the breaker itself is bigger than the average human head). The electricians said what probably happened was lightning hit one phase, and the breaker blew up instead of passing the surge on to the rest of the building.

The store didn't open until about noon that day instead of 8am. We also had a ton of no-shows thanks to the phones being out - a big ice storm came through the night before and the whole city was iced over, so people were trying to call to see if they should come in. Management was just grateful anybody showed up, there was no action taken against the no-shows since we had no phones.

edit: my store does have a backup diesel generator that powers lights and refrigeration - but there was no way to route power to the equipment since the main breaker on one phase was in about 1,000 pieces.

</geek>

(not an electrician, just been interested in electricity most of my life)

edit2: rolling blackouts knock out all 3 phases, not just 1, since 3 phase equipment is damaged easily when losing just 1 phase.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-phase_electric_power

[simplyanother]

So I'm at work today (FES at a craft store), and it is no average day.

I'm fully convinced that craft store customers are in a special breed of idiot. Though, I'm sure they aren't anymore moronic than MOST, it probably just seems that way to me. Because..they suck.

I love it when our lights go out and customers don't get why they are being herded to the front of the store... Or why the registers don't work (because, you know, we should just get a pen and paper and figure out their totals, because.well you know why). Or after the power comes back on..that the registers have to reset and shit. We make that take extra long, just to piss them off.

That woman who was such a brat about the machines...y'all were kind to offer to hold it until the end of the week. Too bad she was too much of a moron to realize that.

(I don't know which variety of craft store you work at...but I sympathize. And it's the special season...I'm already sick of the glitter)

[Listerfiend]

I'm fully convinced that craft store customers are in a special breed of idiot. Though, I'm sure they aren't anymore moronic than MOST, it probably just seems that way to me. Because..they suck.

I love it when our lights go out and customers don't get why they are being herded to the front of the store... Or why the registers don't work (because, you know, we should just get a pen and paper and figure out their totals, because.well you know why). Or after the power comes back on..that the registers have to reset and shit. We make that take extra long, just to piss them off.

That woman who was such a brat about the machines...y'all were kind to offer to hold it until the end of the week. Too bad she was too much of a moron to realize that.

(I don't know which variety of craft store you work at...but I sympathize. And it's the special season...I'm already sick of the glitter)

I think they are a special kind of idiot... And especially since the store is in the midst of an affluent neighborhood, I get all kinds of uppity entitlement whores who think they're better than everyone else just because they're so money.

And yeah--we've had our Xmas stuff since September. Glitter is indeed the bane of my existence now, and it is the "herpes of the craft supplies" (I forget what comedian said that--Dimitri Martin maybe?)

[Listerfiend]

Warning: some electrical geek stuff...

That was actually really informative--whatever happened makes more sense now (now if we could only figure out the "why").

And geekiness is always a good thing; hell, my dad's an electrician so I've been hearing this stuff off and on for ages.

[Andara Bledin]

Glitter is indeed the bane of my existence now, and it is the "herpes of the craft supplies" (I forget what comedian said that--Dimitri Martin maybe?)

Nekojin read that to me and I busted up laughing.

Because it's just so true!

^-.-^

[Shengirl]

Glitter is indeed the bane of my existence now, and it is the "herpes of the craft supplies" (I forget what comedian said that--Dimitri Martin maybe?)

::cracks up:: It really is 4 am, isn't it? Oh well, even nudging tiredness aside, that's genius and hilarious.

[bean]

That was actually really informative--whatever happened makes more sense now (now if we could only figure out the "why").

And geekiness is always a good thing; hell, my dad's an electrician so I've been hearing this stuff off and on for ages.

I did forget to mention 277 volt power though - you can get that from 3 phase as well if it's a specific type of 3 phase. 207, 277, and 480 are the ones you can't get from residential/small commercial power.

Actually most of the florescent lights and metal halide lights in my store run on 277. Florescent on the sales floor, metal halide in the back (you know those huge Sam's Club style lights way way way up on the ceiling? yeah, those kind of lights). Believe me, it friggin HURTS when you touch a live 208/240/277 wire. I've run into a handful of them since our remodel guys are kind of stupid and have left some bare wires near our cases ("wtf is this wire hanging out fo*ZAP* OW SHIT WTF ASSHOLE WTF GODDAMN WTF"). Our dishwasher runs on 480 volts and zapped me GOOD a couple of times too (old switches that got wet - believe me that got fixed real fast).

The "why" was probably a transformer or wire failure on the power company side.

[Imogene]

and it is the "herpes of the craft supplies"

Quick news: I gots a job again! Huzzah! At a particularly well known craft store.

Anyway, my first day, I was warned that I would be going home covered in glitter, to which my snap response was: "So, perhaps if I come in in glitter... it'll be gone by the time I leave?"

[Andara Bledin]

Anyway, my first day, I was warned that I would be going home covered in glitter, to which my snap response was: "So, perhaps if I come in in glitter... it'll be gone by the time I leave?"

You wish.

I love glitter, but it's impossible to get rid of all of the stuff once it's there. You just have to sort of wait for the last of it to fall off, leaving it's spoor wherever you happen to pass.

^-.-^