Kids: The Good, the Bad, and the One's I yell at...

[Hobbs]

Ok, so, I've posted a few stories indicating that me and kids don't mix so well. It's not (entirely) my fault. Mostly, it's bad mood+sucky parents or other such factors. Anywho... got a couple of nice and bad stories involving kids I thought I'd share.

A Memorable B-Day

This poor boy...I go in to work around 5 on Saturday and see two cop cruisers parked in front. Now, I dunno about you, but that's not what I want to see when I go in to work. I tentatively walk in and ask the Door Agent what happened. He explains that a little boy got left behind, we haven't been able to find his parents for hours. So the cops got called. They eventually take the boy to CPS (Child Protective Services) and the parents show up 6 HOURS LATER!!! To make it worse, the boy's 5th B-day was Sunday: Happy b-day kid, hope you wished for new parents...sigh

No more Mr. Nice Guy

So, kinda bad for me, but the kids kinda deserved it too. I'd been working all day trying to recover the men's dept., and I wasn't being very successful. So, that was kinda annoying, plus, I kept having to tell kids not to do stuff they shouldn't, because I'm one of the few who does.

These kids were playing in the cart corral, and I told them to stop. I walk away, and not a minute later as I walk back, I see them playing in it again.

me: Excuse me! WHAT did I just say?
kids:

I'm sorry, but not that sorry. I mean, I did warn them. They just happened to be the last straw on this poor camel's back...

Helper

One night, a ways back...I was at CS, again. There's a little girl that keeps playing around the 'island,' but her mom is close by so I don't really mind. She starts talking to me, and is peeking from behind the countertop (crouching, she wasn't that little). Later on, I'm putting hangars up, and I spill a few. So what does little girl do? She picks up hangars and hangs them. She was such an helping me clean up my register, too. And we kept doing a little 'hide-and-seek' thing from the register. I'd been having a crummy day, but that just made me

[Whyme]

A Memorable B-Day

This poor boy...I go in to work around 5 on Saturday and see two cop cruisers parked in front. Now, I dunno about you, but that's not what I want to see when I go in to work. I tentatively walk in and ask the Door Agent what happened. He explains that a little boy got left behind, we haven't been able to find his parents for hours. So the cops got called. They eventually take the boy to CPS (Child Protective Services) and the parents show up 6 HOURS LATER!!! To make it worse, the boy's 5th B-day was Sunday: Happy b-day kid, hope you wished for new parents...sigh

This absolutely breaks my heart My own son would be hysterical if he couldn't me for a few minutes, never mind hours! I'm definitely curious what the parent's excuse was for showing up 6 hours later!

For the most part, kids are okay at my store. The only real problem we had was a 9 year old caught stealing 50 bucks worth of Pokeman cards. He was alone at the store, parents didn't answer the phone when called, so he was led out in handcuffs. It was pitiful.

[South Texan]

He explains that a little boy got left behind, we haven't been able to find his parents for hours. So the cops got called. They eventually take the boy to CPS (Child Protective Services) and the parents show up 6 HOURS LATER!!!

You have to follow up and tell us what their "excuse" was and what happened to them.

Was it something like they separated to do shopping at other locations thinking the other parent had the son only to realize their error several hours later OR is it that they left him to play in the toy section while they went to a bar/Motel 6?

[RetailSlave]

We had an incident a couple of months ago where a girl maybe in her early teens came up to the Service Desk and asked us to page her mom..she couldn't find her in the store and was getting scared. We paged...no one came. She tried calling her mom on one of our cell phones (store phones don't call out except for the manager phones) and couldn't reach her. The girl was close to going into hysterics when another woman came up who was a friend of the girl's mom. She tried calling the mom and found out the cow had left her child at our store alone and had gone on to shop at Kroger all the way across town!!!
The mom asked the friend to please take her girl to the Kroger store to meet her. Why the hell would you leave a young girl alone in a store and not tell her you were leaving?? Anything could have happened to her and the poor kid was scared to death. I was halfway tempted to call CPS on her and would have if I had had her info.

[Hobbs]

You have to follow up and tell us what their "excuse" was and what happened to them.

Was it something like they separated to do shopping at other locations thinking the other parent had the son only to realize their error several hours later OR is it that they left him to play in the toy section while they went to a bar/Motel 6?

The excuse was that they hadn't noticed he'd gone to the store with them, and later, that they didn't realize he wasn't at home....

[Whyme]

The excuse was that they hadn't noticed he'd gone to the store with them, and later, that they didn't realize he wasn't at home....

For 6 hours??????

Who doesn't notice their kid is way too quiet for 6 hours??

[Primer]

The excuse was that they hadn't noticed he'd gone to the store with them, and later, that they didn't realize he wasn't at home....

How many kids did they have that they did not notice one with them, or later, one missing???

ETA: I have 6 dogs and 3 cats, but I always count heads when they go in and/or out, and if one is missing, I know it immediately!

[Chromatix]

The excuse was that they hadn't noticed he'd gone to the store with them, and later, that they didn't realize he wasn't at home....

FAIL. Sorry, but that's a *really* lame excuse.

If they were planning to leave him at home, presumably without supervision, that's just as bad as not noticing he's in the car with you, or leaving him at the store deliberately.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

How many kids did they have that they did not notice one with them, or later, one missing???

ETA: I have 6 dogs and 3 cats, but I always count heads when they go in and/or out, and if one is missing, I know it immediately!

Sounds kinda like the movie "Home Alone" only in reverse, doesn't it?

Poor kid . . . I remember once getting lost at JCP when I was shopping with my aunt. I turned around and couldn't find her and I immediately became hysterical (I was maybe 6 at the time.) Luckily enough for me, I could remember both her first and last name and it wasn't no time after she was paged to the desk, she came flying up, worried sick.

I didn't want to go shopping again with her after that. It's bad enough keeping up with my Mom in the WM . . . I can't tell you how many times I've roamed around that store looking for her . . . and getting madder every second b/c she'll never be where she says she'll be.

The one reason I miss having cell phones . . .

[raw456]

It is becoming a sad reality that kids can be left alone for so long with no one noticing. But how can you not know where your child is 6 hours!!! I hope the authorities throw the book at these parents. That poor kid will always associate his birthday with being abandoned.

I remember my parents always drumming into me that if we got seperated in a shopping centre, I was to find someone at the front of the store to help me, of if possible go back to our car.

I was about 5 when I got lost in a busy shopping centre in an unfamiliar town. luckily, i found my way back to the car. A passing security guard saw me and I was able to give him my name and he had the licence plate paged over the PA. My parents were frantic when they realised I was not there and had been tearing the shopping centre apart looking for me. My dad was actually heading back to the car to look for me when he was paged.

I hope I never become the kind of parent that can "misplace" their children so casually...

[crashhelmet]

The excuse was that they hadn't noticed he'd gone to the store with them, and later, that they didn't realize he wasn't at home....

Not to make this even more depressing, but wasn't that the excuse used by the parents that left their child in the car to die a while back?

In a similar story, no death involved in this one, I had one of my students not picked up by his parents after his martial arts class. He was 8 at the time. They were almost always runnign late, so i didnt' think much of it at first. After a half hour, I let him call their cell phones and no one answered. I let him help out with the teenager class and a few of the private lessons we taught. Finally, almost 3 hours of not being able to get in contact with them, his aunt busts down the door yelling "Oh my God! We forgot about you!"

First off, how the hell do you forget about an 8 year old? Secondly, You don't tell a friggin kid that's already got self-esteem issues (and I can really understand why now) that you forgot about him.

Their excuse was they were in the little casino next door to our dojo and lost track of time. The even sadder thing is, his mother was still in there. His mom apologized to us the next day and we told her that if she pulls this crap again, we will call the police.

CH

[mharbourgirl]

And here I never had kids because I figured I couldn't afford it, not because I didn't want to. So it's like a kick in the gut when other people have kids and don't give a friggin' shit about them. Why the hell did you bother if you're so self-centered you don't actually care about anything or anyone but yourself?

What the fuck is WRONG with people????

[wagegoth]

For 6 hours??????

Who doesn't notice their kid is way too quiet for 6 hours??

My kids get a quiet for more than fifteen minutes I start wondering what they're up to, and that's when they're home with me. My kids are 13 and 10, and I still turn around to check that they're keeping up with me when we shop together.

[karma_gypsy]

If they were planning to leave him at home, presumably without supervision, that's just as bad as not noticing he's in the car with you, or leaving him at the store deliberately.

Exactly. He was only 5 years old. That's too young to possibly just leave at home while you go shopping ...

And here I never had kids because I figured I couldn't afford it, not because I didn't want to. So it's like a kick in the gut when other people have kids and don't give a friggin' shit about them. Why the hell did you bother if you're so self-centered you don't actually care about anything or anyone but yourself?

I feel the same way. My husband and I can't have children and our income probably isn't secure enough to adopt (we're not ready yet anyway). And then you have these people who abuse their children or simply don't care and yet they keep pumping them out ...

[Jay 2K Winger]

No more Mr. Nice Guy

So, kinda bad for me, but the kids kinda deserved it too. I'd been working all day trying to recover the men's dept., and I wasn't being very successful. So, that was kinda annoying, plus, I kept having to tell kids not to do stuff they shouldn't, because I'm one of the few who does.

These kids were playing in the cart corral, and I told them to stop. I walk away, and not a minute later as I walk back, I see them playing in it again.

me: Excuse me! WHAT did I just say?
kids:

I'm sorry, but not that sorry. I mean, I did warn them. They just happened to be the last straw on this poor camel's back...

I've done something like this once before at my job.

Like a lot of retail places, we've banned "heelies" (those sneakers with the wheels in the heels) from the store, but, alas, we don't really enforce the rule that much any more. It doesn't help that the "sign" we posted is smaller than a 3x5 card and printed real small.

When we did enforce it, I would often tell the kids as they came in, "Please don't ride the heelies in the store."

So this dad and his two kids are leaving after getting food at the food court. The kids ride their heelies up to the door.

J2K: "Please don't ride the heelies in the store."

The kids look at me, then to their dad, who nods to me. I check their receipt, they start to leave, and the kids start riding the heelies again.

J2K: (loud and stern) "What did I just finish telling you?"

The kids stop, shocked, and look at their dad again, who gives them a stern look, and shakes his head, and apologizes to me on their behalf as they leave.