Spillages!!!

[Lace Neil Singer]

What the title says. Got any good spillage stories?

I got one that happened at my shift today; was thinking all the rest of the shift "This is one for Customers suck!" Basically, this guy had 6 bottles of fizzy flavoured water all standing up on the belt; when it started to move, one fell off and hit the floor, explodiing instantly. The guy demanded a cloth to clean up with; I only had one so I buzzed for a cleaner and more cloths. He complained all the time, saying his shorts would ruined. By fizzy water? Yeah, right. Anyways, once the cleaner and the cloths arrived, he pointed his finger at me, saying "You can tell your boss that I'm sending him the cleaning bill." I replied, "I can't do that; you'll have to go to customer's services to sort something like that out." I mean, for one thing, all he has to do is chuck the shorts in the wash and they'd be fine. They don't need professional cleaning. For another, I'm just the cashier. Why bug me about it? He got another bottle of water, and the other customers who got splashed didn't make half as much fuss as he did.

[One-Fang]

He wants to clean off ... the water?!

I didn't realise water was a staining product that needed to be immediately removed. Can anyone suggest what else I should hook my washing machine up to, as the city water supply is obviously very bad for my clothing?

[Lehk]

the beer C**t

this SC, known only as The Beer C**t was the dumbest person i ever worked with.

first she picked up a box pf beer by the inside flap and of course the glue came undone dropping glass beer bottles all over the floor breaking a few.

i clean up the mess while she waits. i finish and she goes to pick up another box of the same beer ... BY THE FLAPS and this ime the glue breaks quicker and it just falls back into the shelfing unit.

she lpooks at me

BC: well how the hell ami supposed to pick it up?

Lehk: by the handles cut into the ends of the box... just like every other 12 pack on the shelf

(yes i actually said that)

[Dreamstalker]

I bet she thought the "windows" (handles) were only there to view the product inside...

[Gurndigarn]

I ran an arcade that had a no-drinks policy. Partly because of frequent spills on the carpet, which, should our company actually keep up with regular cleaning, is still difficult to avoid staining-- and especially since a spilled coke in the wrong place can turn a $25,000 game into a trash removal headache. And yes, it's happened.

So... this lady's got a kid and a wagon. And a drink. I ask her to take the drink out. She does, then comes back in. Silly me, I should have watched to make sure it stayed out, instead of finding out when, as we're shepherding people out at closing time, it spills out of her wagon.

Her response? "Oooopsie!" Just like a four-year-old.

[Brighid45]

This is a production-crew stupidity story . . . Long ago at my workplace we used to mix batches of product in 25-gallon rolling bins. Each bin had a screw-in plug in the sloped bottom. To put the plug in, you had to tilt the bin on its side and screw it in. (Yeah yeah, I know--sounds lecherous as all get out. )

Now some people on the crew had a bad habit of setting the plugs inside the bin once the bin was washed. This meant the plug simply sat in its little hole without being fastened in nice and tight. Bad, bad, very bad habit. The production manager would foam at the mouth and his neck veins would distend alarmingly if he found a plug set inside a bin. Didn't matter; at the end of a long and tiring day, the last thing anyone wanted to do was tilt the bin over and put in the damn plug. It was just another annoying detail to deal with.

One morning the mixing crew had made up a bin full of cocktail sauce--the first of many for that day's work. The Central Scrutinizer was making a last few careful stirs to get all the traces of unmixed ketchup at the bottom of the batch when the bin made a funny little sound--sort of a *gloop!*--and cocktail came pouring out of the plughole. The blade of the mixing paddle had dislodged the plug.

I had to help clean it up, which was a bitch--but watching 25 gallons of fresh cocktail sauce spread like lava all over the production floor while employees screamed and ran around like headless chickens . . . coolness.

[Kogarashi]

Nothing compared to some of the others, but....

Had a lady come through my line with a 2-year-old in one of those kiddy-carts they have at Wal-Mart (with the blue attachment that seats two 1-8 year olds). The kid had a 20-oz. orange soda that the mom handed to me briefly to ring up. She gives it back to the kid, who's sitting there happily holding his orangey treat; not drinking it or anything, not even misbehaving. Now, I'm in Connecticut, and it's quite humid here right now. The soda's cold. This means the outside has gotten quite sweaty. Just as the mom was finishing up paying, the bottle slips out of the boy's hands and hits the floor--only a drop of 2 feet, really, if that--and explodes in a gushy orange shower. Got the lady's shoes and left a veritable lake on the waxed floor as orange soda frothed out of the bottle.

We mopped it up as best as we could with paper towels while one of the CSMs ran to get a mop. At least the mom was good-natured about it and actually helped with cleaning.

[Kika]

Mine aren't as bad as everyone else's, but kind of odd.

I work in a store that sells "fragrant body care" so you'd think the majority of our spills are lotions, etc.

Nope. Every weekend that I've worked (which is all but one weekend since March), some idiot has to buy a blizzard at the DQ in the mall, bring it in my store and dump it on my floor.

I just think it's weird that I've cleaned more ice cream than lotion so far.

[Rapscallion]

Being in a warehouse, we tend to get large spills. Ours often involve the delightful substances such as honey, jam, syrup, agave syrup etc. These are usually contained in glass jars.

Yech.

Rapscallion

[batmoody]

I have a couple that come to mind.
Years ago while working in the deli, the manager had changed the oil in one of the fryers, but never removed the old oil from the vat underneath (or told any of us that it was there....). So, I have no idea that there is a full vat of oil under the fryer when I go to clean it that night. So I turn the knob to empty the oil (from the top), so I can scrub out the fryer. I walked away to start working on something else.

Well, the vat underneath is only big enough to hold one fryer full of oil, so with that already being full (thanks boss! ), plus the load of new oil I just released, it overflowed and went EVERYWHERE! I was so pissed. That was one of the worst nights ever! I cried like a baby.

The best spillage ever was also caused by me. I was in the checkstand, and rang up an 18ct pack of eggs. Well, I let go to soon, or it slipped or something and they fell to the floor. But not in one collective splat. All 18 spilled out like one after the other in really quick succession. It was actually kinda cool. Hearing them splat splat splat splat hitting the ground.
And the front end got really quiet as it happened. It was just a really cool sound. I would do it again if it weren't so messy......

[AFpheonix]

The best spill we had in recent memory involved some tussionex. If anyone's ever had to take this stuff, they can tell you that it's about the color and consistency of snot. It smells nasty too, but hey, if it stops a bad cough...

Anyhoo, we have to really shake this up well before we pour it into a smaller bottle, and unbenownst to the filling tech, another tech loosened the lid on it and walked away (why, I don't know, she's not really the practical joke kind of gal). The first tech picked up the bottle and began to shake, and totally baptized herself with this stuff. It was in her hair, on her clothes, everywhere!

We did what all good coworkers do: pointed and laughed

[JustADude]

Not mine technically, but I heard about it from an old guy stationed on the airbase with my father. Two words really describe it perfectly: Napalm leak.

It seems that someone (who was, if the guy was telling the truth, drunk on duty) managed to spill a load of napalm canisters down a rocky hillside. Somehow the tanks ruptured without igniting, and covered a grassy area with delicious jellied gasoline.

[Acolyte]

Ouch.

My worst one was closing a Wal-Mart McDonalds back in Whitehorse. Since we're so understaffed, we only run the store with 3 staff-a SM who does drive-thru (Which is always slow) and two other lackies for kitchen and window. Anyways, I was closing with a new guy, and trying to get out ASAP. I'd just finished all the dishes in the back when the SM tasks the new guy to go get some shake mix and fill up the ice cream.
Yeah, you know where this is going.
I was just finishing putting everything away, so close to leaving, when I hear *ThumpSPLATgushgushgush*'Awwww, S**T!'. I just sighed, died a little inside, and grabbed the mops.
Took us 40 minutes to clean that crap up.

[MadMike]

Being in a warehouse, we tend to get large spills. Ours often involve the delightful substances such as honey, jam, syrup, agave syrup etc. These are usually contained in glass jars.

I know what that's like, although on a much smaller scale.

Someone knocked a jar of honey onto the floor once, and it left a thick, sticky mess, complete with bits of glass embedded in it. The only way we were able to get it loose was with really hot water. I think we ended up having to change out the water a couple times because it wouldn't stay hot enough to loosen the mess.

Another time, one of my coworkers knocked a bottle of dye onto the floor, and of course the dye just happened to be black. It looked a lot worse than it actually was. IIRC, a little bit of bleach cleaned it up quite nicely.

[Lace Neil Singer]

He wants to clean off ... the water?!

I didn't realise water was a staining product that needed to be immediately removed. Can anyone suggest what else I should hook my washing machine up to, as the city water supply is obviously very bad for my clothing?

Exactly. I mean, I could understand his fuss if it were say, red wine or pasta sauce or something that could stain, but water?!