Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Power outages and hurricanes...yay!

Collapse
This topic is closed.
X
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Power outages and hurricanes...yay!

    I'm not sure this is the right place for it. I had typed this up for the power outage thread before this latest hack.

    Y'all are lucky you get to go home when the power goes out. We have generators that kick in within 2 seconds. They power the registers and perimeter lights for a good long while (longest I've ever seen the power out was 2 hours - not counting hurricanes since the store was closed anyway). The registers are old, so they don't always appreciate the power disruption. They'll lock up and lose an order now and again during the switch, but overall, we're still in business.

    Get this though. Of all things the generator DOESN'T cover, it's the coolers and freezers. I work in a grocery store. Most of our stock (expensive stuff, that is), is kept in a cooler or freezer. The walk-in ones that seal will stay cold for a lil, but the open-faced ones warm up VERY fast. After 15 mins of no power (that's usually all it's out for), we all team up and take giant sheets of cardboard - which are just broken down boxes- and tape them in front of the open-faced coolers and freezers to try to save as much product as possible. Then we write "SEALED - DO NOT OPEN WITHOUT MANAGEMENT". Works most of the time, but the customers get PO'd. We live in central Florida - lightning capital of the world. They're just gonna have to get used to it.

    I'm sure many of you are familiar with Hurricane Charley of 2 years ago. Friday, August 13, 2004. Holy freaking crap. I worked that day - that's when I was in the bakery. We made everything we had, and sold most of it. Living near Orlando, we thought we were in the clear and were planning on closing the store around 5-ish. So much for that. At 230, the storm turned, and we made a last-minute decision to close the store at 300. We made an announcement, and that's when mayhem broke loose. The departments immediately closed down (deli, bakery, meat/seafood, pharmacy, and produce) so we could cover all our machines (with trash bags, of all things). I know that I left around 315 when the skies were turning BLACK and the rain started coming down, and there were STILL customers in the store. They were herding them out and through the registers. I prolly should have stayed b/c I'm also a cashier, but....I didn't. Oh well. Anyhow, I left for school 2 days after Charley hit, but the entire stock crew (my brother's on it) had to clean out ALL the dairy and frozen coolers and displays, and dump them in the compactor. The day after the storm, they had tape all across the displays, and idiots would STILL try to buy it! It's like they were under a rock the night before and didn't realize that we had a category 2 hurricane (sustained winds of 115-120 in my area), and the power was knocked out for 10-12 hours. Duh! It's bad! Grr...idiot customers want this or that SO bad, but then they complain when it's bad.

    So those are my power/hurricane/idiot customer stories
    Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.

    Proverbs 22:6

  • #2
    Oh man evacuating from a hurricane down there AND having to deal with hordes of terminally stupid people would be way too much for me. That's some of the reasons why I have NO desire to move down there. This reminds me of the time I read about the two idiot semi drivers blocking both lanes of an Interstate with their semis so they could go and have an old-fashioned fistfight right in front of miles of blocked cars trying to evacuate. The exasperated cop (knowing it's kinda pointless to try to impound two semis during a hurrcane evacuation!) said "We're trying to evacuate because of a hurricane and you two are fighting in the middle of the road! Dont you know you're holding up millions of people trying to get out of here!"

    Comment


    • #3
      We didn't have time TO evacuate - we had a grand total of 3 hours warning. That, and I live 300 miles inland from where the store came ashore. Where would we go - Georgia? Living in the Orlando area, we don't deal with hurricanes often - well we didn't before Charley at least. The silver lining is that although there was some considerable damage in our area, no one was hurt. My street will never ever look the same (we had these giant gorgeous oak trees in all the yards that came down), but everyone made it OK.
      Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.

      Proverbs 22:6

      Comment


      • #4
        I still have you all beat, I went through the "Flood-O-97".
        "Magic sometimes sounds like tape." - The Amazing Johnathan

        Comment


        • #5
          At the garden centre, we once had to close at 2pm cuz of a powercut that affected the whole area... and even tho we had to chuck out every customer in the store, we still had morons coming in and going, "Why are you closing?" Or "You can still serve, surely"; "Turn the power back on" and the best one of all, "I'm going to that other garden centre down the road!" Yeah, go right ahead; their power will be out too you know. Took us nearly an hour to shift all the cretins from the store. <_<
          People who don't like cats were probably mice in an earlier life.
          My DeviantArt.

          Comment


          • #6
            I use to work at a home decorating store (national chain), and when the power would go out, we were told that we had to stay open and hand write reciepts. We did have alot of windows, but usually when the power goes out it's because there's a storm near by and the skies are dark w/ clouds. I'd think we'd want to protect the company from lawsuits from SC's who insist on going to the back of the store and could easily trip and fall on something... but no, we were forced to stay open. In the 5 years I was there, we only closed twice for snow storms, and only because every other store in our complex closed first.... grrrrrrrrr If it's nasty outside, why oh why do you need that tacky little lamp, "right now"??? Can't you wait until the tornado/blizzard has passed??<sigh>

            Comment


            • #7
              :shakes the old cane: you youngin don't know bad weather. I survive snow in hel...florida.

              I've lost my mind ages ago. If you find it, please hide it.

              Comment


              • #8
                Cuz of where I live, ie on top of a hill with a dip at the bottom, whenever there's a flood it means that I can't go to work. The dip fills up and no-one can drive in or out of the housing estate. Of course, not being able to go to work breaks my heart...
                People who don't like cats were probably mice in an earlier life.
                My DeviantArt.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Haha - where I live, there are a few "hills" (ok I'm in Florida, but we do have little hills!), nothing really floods. But we've got some nasty thunderstorms in the summer sometimes - we're having one now actually - where the sky turns an eerie green almost and the thunder immediately follows the lightning. If it lightnings at work, associates are NOT permitted in the parking lot. If it's cloud-to-ground and it's incredibly nasty outside, we're not allowed past the front doors. If idiots wanna come shopping or brave the inclement weather, we'll offer them an umbrella, but we're not gonna hold it for them haha. I think it's mainly a safety/lawsuit thing, because Publix is big on carryouts, but our safety is more important.
                  Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.

                  Proverbs 22:6

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    No hurricanes up here in PA. Other than the occasional tornado or blizzard, the weather doesn't usually get bad. We do have some flooding as well...and yes, when things go south, all the idiots seem to go shopping

                    By the way they act, you'd think we'd never, ever had snow or rain up here. I do admit though, that we did run out of several things during the back-to-back blizzards of the early 90s. Most roads were still closed though. Rather than drive, I simply wrapped chains around the wheels of my wagon, and took that to the store. Even with the chains, it was still "interesting." You haven't lived until you've tried to stop a Radio-Flyer on ice
                    Aerodynamics are for people who can't build engines. --Enzo Ferrari

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Quoth protege
                      No hurricanes up here in PA.
                      At least not since Hurricane Agnes in 1972.
                      *knocks wood*
                      http://dragcave.ath.cx/user/29478

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Lucky. We had 3 in....a month and a half I think it was? Joy.

                        The weirdest hurricane had to be Wilma last October. Hurricane = tropical system, right? Tropical = warm. A cold front came in with Wilma (weird) and the temperature dropped to the mid 50's. In Florida, we complain when it hits 70. You can imagine the "wtf?" after wilma passed through.
                        Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.

                        Proverbs 22:6

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          I've lived through enough tropical storms/hurricanes to know that when it hits, it gets cold. Very rarely its actually warm and storming. In fact a storm just came through got nice and cool outside. Well anything under 105 is cool right now

                          Most floridians complains when the temp outside is higher than 75 or lower than 60. Very thin skin folks down here
                          I've lost my mind ages ago. If you find it, please hide it.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Pennsylvania gets hurricanes, at least the eastern portion does. Back in Hurricane Floyd, my college dorm in Bethlehem was flooded out for a few days.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Quoth thegiraffe
                              The weirdest hurricane had to be Wilma last October.
                              I live in the Keys. (I told y'all...Major Tourist Destination.)

                              Wilma was OH SO FUN! [/sarcasm]

                              2.5 feet of water INSIDE my apartment. Needless to say, I now live in a new apartment, on the second and a half floor. And all my furniture is new (at least new to me). So when people complain about storms and such, unless they went through Katrina in the Gulf Coast or Andrew in Florida or something of that magnitude, I laugh at them. Wilma was the worst storm to hit the Keys in SEVENTY FREAKIN' YEARS. The only good thing about that Bedrock Bitch is that her storm surge was so strong, after she passed, she took it with her, so almost all the water that washed over a good portion of the islands was gone within 48 hours.

                              Also, I dealt with a lot of media types during that storm, as I had just started at my hotel. Most of them are cool, but there are a few that are just...complete...dicks. And yes, we were operating on emergency generators...and we STILL had people complaining about the fact that we couldn't process credit card transactions. "It's all we brought." Um, for a hurricane, you had NO CASH ON HAND? Idiots.



                              TWO DAYS TILL VACATION! (1 week without SC's!)
                              Last edited by Jester; 07-31-2006, 06:55 PM.

                              "The Customer Is Always Right...But The Bartender Decides Who Is
                              Still A Customer."

                              Comment

                              Working...