Spillages!!!

[CritterGirl]

Well, I'm not really sure how much of a doozie this one is, because I was too scared to go and check it out myself.

I work at a pet store, and yes, we do have little clean-up stations at the end of every few isles, in case someone's leashed companion has an accident. We haven't been open even a month, but I've been told that not all customers take advantage of them. Anyway, our poor stocking guy for the day walks up to me as I'm feeding some fish, with this utterly scared look on his face. I asked what happened, and he tells me he just had to clean something up. Something on the floor that he couldn't identify. Not even sure if it came from somebody's pet, or what. He actually came to me 3 different times within 2 hours, just to chill out and get away from whatever it was, because it happened several times. I really felt sorry for him. But I'll admit if it was that bad, I really wasn't about to go willingly inspect it.

[LostMyMind]

Something on the floor that he couldn't identify. Not even sure if it came from somebody's pet, or what.

He probably never seen that much crap before. I've seen some piles from dogs, that you have to think " how....what....no way that came out of that small dog."

[repsac]

many come to mind, though, the best would have to be:

Lowe's, while mopping the floor. Many LARGE yellow signs saying "wet floor" scattered about. Customer walks past one, takes two steps and I hear "SLIP THUD! moannnnnn" Without even looking up, I said. "Floor's wet." I expected a complaint or suit about that one, but I think that guy was too sheepish to admit what he did.

Once, while working at Fred's, I remember stocking the grocery ailse. Turning I picked up a box of texas pete hot sauce. The bottom came out of the box and I broke around 12 bottles of hot sauce. You can STILL smell that stuff around the store.

It think the funniest I've ever watched, was at a Wal-Mart years ago. This employee had to mix paint for a customer. Really funny color too. BRIGHT red. Well, the customer asks for the paint and the guy starts mixing it. I happened to be wandering by at the time when I overhear a loud THWOMP and rattle. The guy (associate) says quote "I've got a bad feeling about this..." not long after that, there's a loud BOOM and the can in the shaker exploded. That paint went everywhere. It blew across the poor associate, down my leg and the box I was carrying, heck, it even painted the ceiling.

Best I can figure is either the can wasn't secured, or it crushed.

[friendofjimmyk]

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

That would be waaaaaaaaayyyyyy to obvious and easy...

[friendofjimmyk]

Working in restaurants for so long, I have several but one that sticks out in my mind because it was one of those I-was-almost-done-about-ready-to-leave-and-it-happened incidents...

The last bar I worked at had Margarita and Peach Bellini machine that had to be emptied every night and walked back to the walk-in cooler. It was always the last thing I did because if the machines were really full - it was really heavy thing to carry on the long walk back to the cooler...it wore me out!

Well, I was walking back with both the bellini and margarita mix - one was full to capacity and the other was partially full....I made it into the cooler. Set them down on the floor (they had to be put on a shelf) I lifted the half-full one no problem...the full one...slipped forward out of my hands and ALL OVER THE COOLER FLOOR. Not only was it a long clean up - but it was cold too!!!

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I've had a couple instances of jars of pickle relish being smashed--one by a customer who just walked away, and another by a co-irker who just walked away. I got to clean up the stinky mess both times.

ANother time I dropped a plastic bottle of italian dressing and it broke--that was another fragrant mess to clean up. The smell lingered for a long time.

And another time--as a matter of fact, this happened on Christmas Eve one year--some lady dropped a jar of mayonnaise in our parking lot and it smashed. I came out with a broom and dustpan and picked up the mess in one big glob, and it stayed in one big glob when I was trying to dump it in the compactor.

[Dips]

I work in an office, so you would think spillage wouldn't happen...

Let's just say that leaving any moisture anywhere the water cooler jug will touch the base of the cooler can create a very slow siphon. The siphon is so slow that if you set up the cooler jug on, say, a Friday, you won't notice anything amiss until Monday morning when you find your shoes make a weird squishing noise on the carpet and the water cooler jug is mysteriously empty.

Oh, and toner can make a spectacular mess. Spectacular.

[XCashier]

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.

We had much the same problem at the Vitamin Store at our mall. Apart from the sheer incongruity of people perusing vitamins and health food while chowing down on Dairy Queen, we also had an awful lot of dried hot fudge/"ice cream" sludge to scrub off the floors and shelves. Yuck!

[Qwakkeddup]

My first paycheck job was BK. In a store that trained Managers.
OH, SH*T. Nothing will stay the same throughout the week.
Storage room reorginazation had me putting the Mustard, Ketchup, and Mayo all on the top of an 8ft shelving unit. Came back the next day and one of the cashiers had to get a new can of mustard. She even used the ladder, but the plastic jug was just too big for one hand and it slipped out. It hit bottom first, the lid popped off, and it + mustard repainted the ceiling! The Manger in training chewed her out good, then less than 10 minuts later, did the same thing with ketchup. The entire mess was left for me the next morning. With a new map for the store room of course.

[WHShit]

I was on my way up to the front tills because the line was getting long and my coworker, Claire, was alone. I was almost there when I see that the lady Claire was serving had a bag with a milk carton in it. I saw the milk leaking onto the carpet. It looked like it has been leaking for a long time as it was EVERYWHERE!

I tell the lady that her milk is leaking, and she panicks...I mean panicks. Starts yelling to get her towells and a bag to put the milk in. I run to the bathroom and grab some hand towels and run back out only to see that the lady has gone. AND that she has left her milk carton on the floor, still leaking all over. She has also tred in the spilled milk and now it is all over the floor going out the door.

Claire couldn't clean it up as she was alone and had a line of customers...not so happy ones, might I add. So, I try to clean it up and when I lift the bag, it all comes out. What a mess! As I am trying to mop it up off the carpet, so other customers do not step in it and it does not soak in and smell, people are kicking into me and huffing cause I am in their way.

I had a woman say "can't you wait til later to do that"? My answer: "no, because by then it will have soaked, started to spoil and smell, and that would be even more UNPLEASANT for customers".

The nerve of that bitch and of the customer that complained!

[repsac]

Re reading all this, I was reminded of some more that I've been at the heart of. Yes, most of these are my fault.

I've been cold cocked by 2 liter bottles in the past. Both times, I was standing on a ladder cleaning, only to knock one bottle over and have it hit on its cap. Naturally it spews out the bottom and rockets back up, hitting me on the way past. Leaves quite a mess to clean up.


One however, sticks in my mind. It's a comedy of errors, to say the least and has a ton of backstory. I hope this doesn't run too long.

When I worked at Moore's, the company had a strange policy around X-mas. Display tables were put in the ailses so that a customer had to go through the dept just to get from point a to point b. Now, it goes without saying that for us, this was annoying and one of those "Ok, is corporate even thinking these things through before they send them to us?" types of deals. Still, we did it just the same.

One year, after having moved umpteen tables, the other ASM (I was one of two) looks at me and groans. Up next was the Men's table. Now this table was covered in all kinds of colognes and stuff. Jovan Musk, (which smells very bad), Aspen, and Stetson, to name a few. Looking at all this we debated what to do and opted to just move the table with everything on it. Since the Jovan bottle was sitting up on the table, I said quote. "I better move this, I'd hate for it to break." (famous last words no?) Picking up the table, we waddled it out into the aisle. Just as we were putting it down, there's a loud CRASH! and I'm covered in cologne. Not Jovan it turns out, but aspen. A full bottle of it.

The one bottle of aspen we had, had disloged itself, turned end over end and landed smack on the Jovan bottle. The aspen bottle exploded, covering me and the table in cologne while the Jovan bottle was only scratched. I thought, that it would all end there. I was wrong.

SO very wrong.

A few days later, this man walks over to the table. Reaching out he picks up a large box of Stetson cologne. Easily 5 ounces worth. He gets the bottle up high enough to open (why must they always open the cologne?) it to sniff. Well, the bottom gave out, the stetson dropped and yet again, more cologone was scattered across the table.

I left working there about a year later, and you know what? It still smelled like stetson in the store.

[ladylabyrinth]

OK, here's a not-so-bad one, but very traumatizing for a girl just in college at the time:

I had started working for a very well known coffee shop (think of astral bodies and terms for paper currency and you know where I was) stationed in a mall. This mall was set up so the main thoroughfare was one big circle, actual measurement was over a mile in circumference. The district manager had gotten the bright idea that we should start delivering orders to mall employees. Do you see where this is going?

So one day, this trendy clothing store (you know, the ones that are more like clubs than clothing stores? loud, LOUD, bad pop music thumping out bass, lots of sparkly lights, etc?) on the opposite side of the mall calls in with an order for 5-6 large frozen coffee beverages. The drinks are made, I load 'em up on my tray and take about 10 steps into the mall (lucky for me it wasn't on the other side of the mall), when the tray overbalances and the whole thing comes crashing down. Frozen coffee drinks everywhere. Being the sensitive soul I am, I burst into tears and ran back into the store and refused to pick up another delivery tray for about 3 months.

[Discourtesy Clerk]

My store's a spill magnet. Some highlights of things I've had to clean up:

* an aisle-wide water flood
* entire broken bag of dry cat food
* chocolate milk AND eggs
* jar of salsa + toe blood, in a running checkout lane
* two broken bottles of wine
* flour
* baby puke
* crap
* various smashed grapes, blueberries, raspberries, cherries, and the occasional peach
* dirty diapers
* copious amounts of soda
* coffee in every form imaginable
* dropped bottle of Jagermeister (I was really sad about that one.)
* garbage juice...on my pants
* iced coffee...on my shirt

I didn't think "courtesy clerk" meant "janitor" when I applied, but I learned very quickly.

[Zombi]

Ooh...blood...I had one of those the other day. I didn't notice when he first came through, but his wife pointed out to him "Hey, you're bleeding!". So I gave him some tissues, but he's managed to bleed on a couple of the bags of stuff and on my scales in the meantime. So I get them out of the way, then ask the next customer if he'd mind waiting a minute while I get the blood off my counter (thank god for that spray bottle of disinfectant). I don't know if I got any on me while I was picking up the bags of vegetables, but I was too scared to lick my fingers to open the carrier bags after that. I really wanted to go and wash my hands, but the line is about 7 people deep at this point, and there's no time. It was a bit scary, because we all know exactly what kind of diseases are blood-borne, and you never know who has what.

We've had two major spills since I've worked there. The first was when the boys on the floor decided to make a nice display of the pasta sauce jars. You all see where this is going, don't you? That's right. Someone sideswiped it with a trolley, and we heard the "SMASH!" up at the front end.
The second...well, I don't know if this counts, but somebody dropped a packet of frozen squid under one of the freezers and didn't tell anyone. Do you know what happens to frozen squid when you leave it under a freezer? Yes kids, it thaws. I saw one of the floor boys rushing past the checkouts and out the door with something in his hands - and then the smell hit. Dear god, the stench! And it's the sort of smell that lingers, too. I know the miasma theory of disease was disproved over a hundred years ago, but yeesh.

[Lace Neil Singer]

dropped bottle of Jagermeister

NOOOOOOOO!!!!