Spillages!!!

[Zinjadu]

Milk explosion!

A customer's young daughter was carrying the plastic 4-litre jug of milk I'd just rung up, and she started swinging it back and forth in her hand. You know where this is going, don't you?

Yep, on the next upswing, it slipped out of her hand, flew against the side of the next checkout, and there was a ginormous milk fountain that went all over her, the mother, and the next customer in line. Luckily, since I was behind the till, I never got a drop on me! Of course the mother started yelling, the kid was crying and the other customer was freaking out... lots of fun!

[Lehk]

M
* dropped bottle of Jagermeister (I was really sad about that one.)

http://vaderno.ytmnd.com/

[DGoddessChardonnay]

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.

I've experienced similar when trying to clean up a jar of baby food. Blech.

I'd have to say the most "fragrant" ones are either beer or pickles. Back in the register days, I've had a couple of occasions where my lane would have to be closed because someone had dropped something and it spilled all over the lane.

One night, it was a jar of pickles. Even though it was quickly cleaned up and the entire lane mopped, I could still smell it the rest of my shift. And, to me, the smell of pickles is enough to make me want to

Another time my register had to be closed off was due to some drunk guy coming in wanting to buy a 40 oz of Old English 800, which he dropped and it made a big mess. That was another odor that lingered long after the spill was cleaned up and the area mopped. Needless to say, my line moved quite quickly that evening, as most customers were so scared they'd get drunk if they had to stay there in line too long.

But if I had the choice, I'd rather smell the beer than pickles any day of the week. Funny how the sense of smell works, isn't it?

[Primer]

* an aisle-wide water flood

This just reminded me of one at the animal hospital. This is the only non-gross one...if you really want the really gross one, you will have to ask for it.

I don't remember precisely which holiday it was, but it was 1 hour before opening. The water cooler we had used a 5 gallon glass jug that we refilled at the tap in back.

This time, I managed to miss getting the spout in the holder by ......this..... much. 5 gallons of water, and shattered glass all over the lobby floor!

After that, we used plastic bottles!

[skeptic53]

Two stories:

I worked at a Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor Restaurant back in the day. Their signature dish was a huge ice cream sundae called a Zoo, intended to feed 10-20 people. It was a couple of gallons of different ice creams, sticky sauces, nuts, whipped cream, maraschino cherries, etc. It was in a huge stainless steel mixing bowl, decorated with little plastic animals, carried in a stretcher by two busboys. When a group would order one, there was a whole routine involving bells, sirens, the house lights flashing off and on, and the busboys running around the restaurant with the stretcher.

At least once a month the bowl would go flying and the ice cream would land on the carpet. At least once a year, it would land all over some poor schlub or two who were innocent by-sitters, as it were. Small potatoes as far as restaurant spills go, but it was still a real mess.

Thank gord I never had to clean it up, I worked in the kitchen.

Later I worked for a City Water Dept. Another guy and I were down in a valve pit, chipping rust and old paint off the main supply line pipe (the main main?). The water was cold, the day was warm, the pit was a deep concrete room, so there was condensation everywhere. The pipe was very slippery, the other guy lost his footing and accidentally kicked a pressure gauge, breaking it off. High pressure water fountained who knows how high, the pit was at least 15 feet deep, the water was way up above the manhole opening. We had to hand crank the valve shut with one of those really big wheels. The pipe was 4 feet in diameter, it took us 45 minutes just to close the valve. Then it was a race to get the gauge fixed and the valve back open before the principal water tower ran out and the city went dry. Not too much pressure...

[Tanasi]

I grew up in a small farming community and a lot of folks canned their vegies. When cucumber was coming in season we'd always get several pallets of various types of vinegar and was put on sale for some ridiculas price that had people making several trips to buy as limit was 4. This particular year we had half gallons of White House white vinegar in glass jars.
When setting up the displays the older stock crew usually did it, however since we were short handed the boss let a newbie stack the display. The vinegar was 6 half-gallons to a case, the newbie stacked them 6 cases high by 4 wide by 6 deep that's 432 gallons of vinegar. The newbie didn't cross stack it and the first bump brought down over half of it. We had to shut down the store to clean up. It was so strong it was hard to breath at times. Everyone had to pitch in to clean even the managers and cashiers.
While not a spill a real big mess was right before the beginning of the month we were told we were going to have whole fryers for .09 a pound, basically you could get a whole chicken for less than a 30 cents. The manager was being promoted and wanted to go out with the largest number of chickens sold. The market manager only wanted to order 20 cases the store manager ordered 50. We didn't have room for 50 cases with an empty cooler and we didn't have an empty cooler. Also we're a farming community farm folks just might raise their own chicken. Well the market manager was wrong we sold 21 cases but was left with 29 cases that weren't getting any fresher. SM idea was to freeze the chickens but we didn't have room in the freezer for more than 10 cases with all the other stuff, we couldn't make enough ice to keep them cool and SM wouldn't buy any. We were able to give away about 10 cases and nine cases went bad. For years afterwords we had customers that would buy beef and pork but not chicken from us. The SM not only didn't set the highest sales records but he did set the highest single loss record. I grew up on a farm, worked in a slaughter house, I've been shoulder deep in a cow that was calfing, I've had buddies innards blown all over me, I've changed diapers on 4 kids and that smell of 9 cases of spoiled chicken was by far the worst smell I've ever been exposed. I'm getting the dry-heaves just thinking about that.
Oh with the naplam it usually won't burn unless exposed to the catalyst or at least the stuff we used. I shan't say what real naplam is but it's some real nasty stuff.

[Jester]

Spills. Joy.

[WARNING: REALLY, REALLY LONG. EVEN FOR ME!]


Ah, spills. The bane of all of us. Amusingly, most of my more entertaining spill stories involve me as the culprit. Yes, I know. Tsk, tsk, tsk. But for you folks, I am willing to sacrifice my dignity for your entertainment.

But before I embarrass myself, I do have at least one semi-SC spill story. I say semi because I myself was a customer, and it was not where I worked.

Now, I generally am a real casual dresser: shorts, t-shirts, sandals, ball caps. You know: beach bum. But for some reason, this particular day I was dressed up in a tie and a white dress shirt. And I was at an Irish bar. Drinking Guinness. (You can all see it coming, can't you?) So there I am, minding my own business, enjoying my frosty dark Irish brew, when some a-hole in front of me, whose back is to me as he is talking to other people, bumps or elbows my beer hand right back into me and my (now formerly) white dress shirt. For those who don't know this, I can tell you...Guinness does NOT come out of white dress shirts....EVER! And this guy was an SC because he not only didn't apologize, he didn't even turn around to acknowledge that anything happened. I was, of course, furious.


Now, on to my own embarrassing tales of clumsiness.

1. I spent over a year traveling the U.S. working for a Family Chain Restaurant (think red and white stripes here kids) and I was at one location doing some sidework. Now, at this particular location, for their salads, they kept their sliced tomatoes in the reach-in cooler on a tray about 3' by 1.5'. That is a whole LOT of sliced tomoatoes! Having just finished slicing that trayload, I went to put it in a slot in the reach-in.

I missed.

Have you ever had to clean up 40 or more freshly sliced ripe red tomatoes? If not, let me highly recommend against it. Especially if it is a busy time in the restaurant. It is, how shall we say, not fun.


2. I have always twirled and spun and tossed things. Even as a kid, helping my mother put the groceries away (I was a good son), I would be tossing stuff around as I did so. No, not the eggs...I was neither that brave nor that stupid.

Anyway, one day at another red and white striped restaurant I was visiting in my travels, I was in my section, pouring my guest a beer. See, I actually took the time, if they wanted a cold frosted glass with their bottled beer, to pour said bottle into said glass. (I was a good server, too.) Oftentimes, after completing this task, I would give the bottle a nice 360 twirl in my open hand, just for the heck of it...and, let's face it, to show off. At this table, I did just that. I poured their Corona twirled the empty bottle at the end with a flourish, and both those people and the next table were duly impressed. Feeling mighty fine with myself, I started to walk over to the second table with the empty in my hand. The empty that I had just twirled so expertly in my open palm, which now was being held firmly in my closed grip.

And of course said empty promptly slipped out of said firmly closed grip and shattered on previously unmentioned hard tile floor. Both tables were startled, then laughed. I joined them as it was, honestly, funny. I took a bow, said "Thank you, thank you very much," and went off red-faced to find a broom and dust pan.


3. This was the worst. Ever. A little set up is in order here. At my hotel, we have two bars and a restaurant/bar. Whoever works the day shift in the restaurant bar gets to make the Bloody Mary mix if it is needed. We generally make it every 2-3 days or so, sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on business and demand. Now, keep in mind, we make it ourselves, and from what I hear, it is a fabulous recipe, as all my Bloody Mary drinking friends love it. I say that, because while I love the idea of a Bloody Mary, a drink that you put just about everything in, I hate tomato juice. When we mix this stuff up, we do so in gallon-sized glass olive jars--once all the olives are gone and it's been washed, of course.

So this one day, the first hour, it is quite dead, and I am diligently making up the Bloody Mary mix. Now, I don't drink this stuff, as I hate tomato juice, but the other bartenders seem to like the way I mix it, even though we all are (allegedly) following the same recipe. I get all the ingredients in the jar, close the lid, and lift it to shake it.

Apparently the bottom of the jar or my hand was wetter than I realized.

Because as I lift it by the top, I go to grasp it by the bottom with my other hand, and the bottom slips right off my hand. At this point I have a gallon of Bloody Mary mix in a heavy glass jar being held unnaturally high in my right hand and gravity is taking over. I realize quickly if this thing hits the floor, it will be disastrous, so I try to slow its fall with my one hand still holding it and aim it to the side bar, in the hopes it won't shatter. This is all going on in about half a second.

My hopes, much like the glass jar, were shattered. And there was Bloody Mary mix..... E V E R Y W H E R E . On the side bar, on the shelves below the side bar, on the trays in the side bar, on the menus in the side bar, on the floor, on the mats, on the cooler....and on yours truly. By the way, did I mention that I hate tomato juice? But there I was, from the waste down, covered in it and all the other ingredients of Bloody Mary mix.

Luckily the bar was dead, so I had no customers to deal with, but it took me AND a girl from housekeeping well over 15 minutes to clean the whole thing up. Even after wiping off my uniform with soapy water, I still looked a mess, though, and felt the urge to explain to every customer that came in why their bartender's uniform was so trashed. Most of them were amused.

Luckily, tomato juice, unlike what some customers think about water, does in fact come out in the wash.


Bloody Mary anyone? It's on me!

[Dragon_Dreamer]

I once worked for a grocery store, in Food Service. Basically, I stocked the salad/hotbar, and prepared the rotisserie chickens. I also had to clean the kitchen every night.

One day, the kitchen had been cleared of out of date stock. These had been dumped into the trash. That night, I hauled the trash bags to the compactor, and began to lift them up. I'm 5'4", and the compactor opening was at my eye level. Took a lot of work to wrestle things up there.

Well, one of the bags that night decided to rip, and apparently, it held some of the freshly dumped stock. Turkey Chili, to be exact. ROTTING turkey chili. And it spilled, all over me.

I was actually sent home early because I smelled so bad.

[Imogene]

Hmmm...

Mom & I were shopping yesterday, standing with our half filled cart, staring at racks upon racks of spices, looking for lemon zest in a bottle, when a woman drives her cart around the corner, to the sound of, "Sploosh!"
Mom & I look up to see the woman had a plant-in-a-fish-jar in her kiddy seat on the cart, and had apparently taken the corner too sharply, cause half the water was now on the floor.
Woman looked at water, then reached to grab the plant, as if to save it from the inexorable dehydration that was sure to come, instead of trying to block the aisle so no one would slip on the puddle of life-giving water.
Mom, not finding the lemon zest that was obviously hiding behind the cumin until we left, asked me to go grab a fresh lemon from the other side of the store. I did so, watching for employees as I went, in the thought that I would warn one of them that there was a wet clean up on aisle 10 (Yes, I checked the aisle number before I wandered off). However, by the time I'd grabbed and bagged a deliciously yellow lemon, I'd heard an announcement for a wet clean up on aisle 10, so I just headed to the milk to meet mom.

Anyway, I was the cause of at least one spill at McD's. Luckily, it was an easy clean up. Sweet & Sour packets, in the stock area. I had pushed a shelf way down toward the middle apparently just a bit too hard, as the sauces shelf hit the stopper, and threw the half-empty box of sweet & sour tubs onto the floor, breaking open about half of those. Got the SM, and we spent about ten minutes cleaning it all up. Finally returned to the front with whatever I had been sent to grab, and the MoD looked at me funny, said, "Didja get lost?" and had to hear the story.

Some other time, someone must've set up the coffee machine wrong, cause, all of a sudden, there's a puddle of coffee behind me. I turn around to look, and coffee is boiling out of the meter that shows us how full the carafe is. And it's still brewing more coffee! I forget what was done to fix that...
A few days later, I had just started a new pot of coffee, with an entirely empty pot, when it did the same thing. Turned out, the meter wasn't screwed on fully, so it was just dribbling right out of the pot.

[captainvegetable02]

I have a few memorable ones from several different jobs...

Grocery store: I was working the express lane one day and the customer decided to "help" me bag his groceries. At our express lanes, there was only one rack of bags at each register, which of course was behind the counter for the cashier to use. Unfortunately, the lower part of the counter the bag racks sat over were a bit TOO low (meaning the bottom of the bag just barely touched the counter) so you had to set items carefully into the bag. Now, despite the fact that the customer didn't know this, there's still no excuse for what he did. As I was putting his cash into the till, he decided to bag his items by DROPPING them all at once into the bag. One of his items just happened to be a very large, very sticky jar of strawberry jam. Naturally, it smashed when it hit the counter and ruined all of his stuff. He looked at me, sighed loudly and said, "Well, I GUESS I'll have to go pick out my stuff ALL OVER AGAIN." Naturally, my manager didn't make him pay for the stuff he ruined.

Another time I was sacking for another cashier, who apparently was in a big hurry because he kept practically throwing items down the counter to me after scanning them. We didn't have a second belt that brings the groceries to the bagger, the cashiers just had to gently push them down a sloped counter that had a metal "bumper" at the end. The customer I was sacking for purchased a huge jar of pickles, which hit the bumper when it was thrown and bounced off onto the floor, and immediately exploded. (thanks, idiot cashier!) Amazingly enough I didn't get any pickle juice on me, but the smell at that register stayed for weeks.

Target: The only one I can remember was pretty spectacular. I was standing at the end of the laundry detergent aisle talking to a coworker, when one of the large bottles of detergent decided to commit suicide. I kid you not, the bottle was on the second shelf from the top, and it basically just jumped off onto the floor where it exploded. I have no idea what caused this to occur, but no one had touched it and it wasn't hanging off the edge or anything...that bottle of Tide just decided it had had enough, I guess. It was so hilarious we didn't really even mind cleaning it up.

At my current job (a salon and beauty supply store): The other day I discovered that a customer had spilled a full jar of body glitter over in cosmetics. It wasn't a very big jar, but glitter does NOT clean up. First I had to sweep up the bulk of the mess, which basically just spread it everywhere...then I had to use cleaning spray and paper towels to try to mop up the rest of it, which also basically just spread it everywhere. There's still glitter on that place on the floor.

We had one a couple of days ago that I didn't have to clean up, but it still pissed me off. We have tons of after-Christmas clearance on tables at the front of the store, and there are some small bins full of nail polish on some of them. A couple came in, and parked their toddler in a stroller right next to one. She promptly picked up a bottle of bright blue polish and dropped it on the floor. The mother just said, "Oops, sorry," and in typical SC fashion just moved her kid out of the way without offering to help clean up or pay for it. As soon as it was cleaned up, she moved the stroller RIGHT BACK next to the table! The child dropped two more bottles before she was moved again. Of course, the mother acted like it was a huge inconvenience to have to move away from the table while the messes were being cleaned, then had the nerve to bitch about how bad the store smelled. Three kinds of nail polish plus pure acetone for clean-up is NOT a pleasant smell, and we had to listen to people complain about how nauseating it was for the rest of the day. The parents didn't pay for any of the broken bottles, either.

[Dalvenja]

What the title says. Got any good spillage stories?
He complained all the time, saying his shorts would ruined. By fizzy water? Yeah, right.

Apparently, he didn't get the memo about soda water being a stain remover.

[BookstoreEscapee]

When I worked in the bookstore one night the espresso machine in the cafe sprung a leak and there was water all over the cafe floor. They were there forever with mops and bucket and after I finished up in the cashroom I went out to help and reminded the MOD that there was a wet/dry shop vac in the electrical closet...things went a lot quicker after that. But water soaked into the display shelf in front of the machine. The shelf unit is made of particle board and soaked it up like a sponge and for days it smelled so strongly of mildew no one wanted to be near it. can we get a smiley with a mop?

[reformedwaitress]

Worst spill I ever had to deal with was all kinds of not fun. It was on a Sunday, I believe, might have been Saturday, in the middle of January, 2005. In a sport bar. Meaning playoff weekend which always equaled BUSY in our bar.

Now, on top of the regular busy we would have had, one of the late games that day was an away Falcons game(when our bar was in Atlanta), meaning we had two types of customers that day -- the ones that came in at noon for the early game and stayed till all the games were over and the ones that came in for the Falcons game and stayed til it was over. Meaning that by the time the second game started, we were standing room only and probably well over legal capcity.

So I had the front section (by the TVs), as I was going to be there all day long. Late in the second game, a group of my regulars came in and managed to snag a table in the back of the restraunt, near the door. The waitress whose section they were in was about to be cut, so she was perfectly happy to let me take her table. So I go to get them drinks and clear glasses as I go.

As I'm walking back through the crowd (seriously, shoulder to shouler, you can't see the floor) I slip and fall. Luckily, I held on to the glasses I had in my hands so I didn't break any of them, but it meant I couldn't catch myself, so I landed weird and twisted my ankle pretty bad.

What had happened? A table of SCs had spill FOUR BEERS on the floor and didn't think it was important to tell anyone so it could be cleaned up!! The managers came out and got it cleaned up before anyone else fell (cause we were all still working) and then told that table to pay and leave. I heard they raised hell, but we had cool managers.

I'm just glad it was ME that fell and not another customer!

That was a crazy night that we had numerous stories from. Someday I'll type them all up!

[Jack7957]

About 14 years ago I was working for Builders Square (KMart's answer to Home Depot and Lowes) doing a store setup. I was working in paint, loading the shelfs with Thompsons Water Seal products, getting down to the last couple of cases. Up to that point, everything was in metal cans, so I wasn't worried about using my box cutter when opening boxes. Sure enough, that last product came in 1gallon plastic containers. 4 gallons of water sealant ended up on me and the floor.

[Gawdzillers]

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

Ugh, I hate cleaning that stuff up around the house.
I hate the way it feels when you try to wipe it up.