The Great Cleanup

[Shalom]

Anybody remember Jamesway? Store #1 in Chautauqua Mall, Lakewood NY. And we were a 'test store' which meant any stupid idea home office came up with we had to try it first. If it caused enough damage/chaos/confusion then it would be mandated to all the others. If it actually made things better it was quickly covered up and forgotten.

Don't know about Lakewood, NY, but I used to work in Lakewood, NJ, and there was once a Jamesway there (long before my time, though). It closed down long ago, and the building was taken over by Ames Department Stores. Someone had the bright idea to take down the J____WAY and leave the rest of the letters up. Saved a few bux on the cost of a new sign...

Of course they went out of business too, and the store's been empty ever since. You can still see the _AMES___ on the wall, with the bolt-holes where the rest of the letters used to be. (Interestingly, the same guy was CEO of both chains when they went bust. I wonder...)

The only Jamesway I remember shopping in myself was in Ellenville, NY, on 209 next to the IGA. I don't think either of those stores are there anymore.

[Fire_on_High]

I'd've gotten the hell out of there. The possibility of ammonia based cleaners being in that mix of crap seems... extremely high.

(For the (hopefully few) people that don't know, ammonia + bleach = chlorine gas, which is Very Bad™)

That was my first thought..."Flee from the toxic green cloud!".

[jedimaster91]

Not nearly as epically nasty as some of these, but one of my coworkers ended up with a radioiodine capsule that wasn't closed very well. Cue radioactive iodine powder spilling all over the floor. Luckily it was I-123 and not I-131. 131 would have been a huge headache.

[Geek King]

I wasn't there for it, but one of the old hands at the print factory I worked for told me about possibly the worst non-disaster-level mess I've heard.

The factory was closed down for the Christmas weekend. The big ink containers for the presses had pumps that got left on because they took a couple of hours to warm up enough to push the ink out properly. Unfortunately, this time the pump on the black ink shorted and kicked back on sometime during the weekend. Since the presses were off, the ink backed up...and out. The whole floor for about fifty feet in all directions was six inches deep in black printer's ink. It took an entire shift of two press crews (10-12 people) to get cleaned up. There was a stain on the floor until it got painted over a couple years later.

When I was there, the giant ink totes all got turned off when closed, and they just waited for the pumps to heat up.