Retail Hell Underground

Albertsons Employees Honored For Rescuing Boy From Rape Attempt

Back in September, I reported that some grocery store slaves in Burien WA saved an 11 year boy from an attempted rape when he went to the store bathroom.

This past Monday the Burien Police Department recognized the bravery of the employees that came to the boys aid.

--Heidi

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BURIEN, Wash. -- Citizen heroes were honored Monday for saving a little boy last September from an attempted rape suspect at a grocery store in Burien.

Police say the child did the right thing by screaming and yelling, and what the Albertsons store employees did next earned them high honors.

Teasha Ward and Terry Carlson rushed into a bathroom when they heard a boy screaming, then ran to get help.

Police say Andrew Dempsey had the 11-year-old boy in a headlock and tried to rape him in the bathroom.

In all, seven employees jumped into action that day -- they didn't hesitate to confront Dempsey and tackled him when he tried to flee, police said.

"They got this guy, they tackled this guy, and they held him until police arrived a short later and he's still in jail," said Burien Police Chief Steve Kimerer.

Employees did everything right from comforting the boy to communicating with police and holding down the suspect. And for their selfless actions, Kimerer recognized the employees-- represented by the store manager -- with the King County Sheriff's Meritorious Service award.

"I am honored and humbled by the actions these people took," Kimerer said. "And behalf of Burien, we want to thank you very much."

Teasha's mom still can't believe what her daughter did to earn the honors.

"She told me she was grabbing at him and chasing him and stuff," said Tonya Ward. "But it's hard to imagine her being so tiny, so to see video it was wow, it was amazing what she did to save a little boy."

How an ordinary day turned on a dime, and good people stepped in and saved it.

"This could've happened anywhere," Kimerer said.

Dempsey remains behind bars on $1 million bail. His trial is scheduled to begin next month in Kent.

via www.komonews.com

Awesome Manager Puts His Foot Down To After Hours Dad

Hello RHU,

(Discovering RHU was like discovering a support group of other damned souls, condemned to wander the earth with "Do you work here?" echoing into eternity.)

Since several of my stories revolve around my years in an ice rink, I'll dub myself FrozenTerror.

I was hired near the end of the hockey season, so my training was done on the fly. Basically, I was a warm body who could do menial tasks, and if I could actually last, that was an added (and unexpected bonus).

With the hockey season tapering down, the rink was closing down earlier in the day than usual. On one Saturday, I was there with two others about 20 minutes after the last event came off the ice. Our Zamboni driver was doing a final resurfacing before closing up, I was out front putting rental skates away, and the manager on duty (MoD) was finalizing office work.

There was a table in the lobby that faced a TV, and a man and his son (about 10 years old) were watching a basketball game while eating pizza and drinking pop. I asked if they were going to be heading out soon since we were closing up, and the dad said, "Right as soon as the game ends."

I glanced up at the TV and saw that there were 11 minutes left in the 2nd quarter. Yeah, that wasn't going to fly.

MoD came out of the office to ask me something, and saw the guy and the kid sitting there. He asked me what they were doing, and I repeated the conversation that we'd just had.

MoD says, "Come with me," and we go over to where they were sitting.

MoD looks down at the kid and says, "Hey buddy, do you want a refill?"

The kid said, "Sure!", and MoD told me to take the kid and refill his cup. I take the kid over to the concession stand, refill the cup, and hand it to the kid.

No sooner is it in his hands than his dad grabs him and hustles him out the front door, muttering under his breath the whole time. The front doors slam, and MoD yells across the lobby that, "That took care of that!"

I asked him what had just happened, and he recounted the following conversation to me:

MoD: So how long are you staying?

Dad: Until the end of the game. Hey, can I get a refill too?

MoD: No.

Dad: Why not?

MoD: I'm not a waiter, and we're closed anyway.

Dad: Why'd you give my kid a refill?

MoD: Because I didn't want him standing right here while I tell you to get the fuck outta here!

That's when the dad stood up, grabbed the pizza and his kid, and left.

--FrozenTerror

Guy Gives Abercrombie & Fitch A Brand Readjustment By Giving Their Clothes To The Homeless

 

In response to Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries not wanting "not so cool" kids or women who wear size large to wear his company's clothes, Greg Karber has come up with a funny and creative way to readjust the Abercrombie & Fitch brand.

He's giving their clothes to the homeless.

After scouring his local thrift shop's "douchebag section," Karber heads to LA's Skid Row to dole out the clothes among the homeless population. Watch the stunt and find out how you can be involved in one man's troll-job on a company with some pretty unflattering business practices in the video above.

via www.huffingtonpost.com

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He RHU, I think this is a great idea. If any of you have A&F clothes, follow this guy's example and hand it out. I know you want to burn it, but maybe this is a better way to troll asshole CEOs while doing something nice.

--Ilia

Token Female Celebrates: McDumbass Is Elsewhere, And His Replacement Is Awesome!

Token Female reporting in, with some good news this time!

What's the good news? Did I win the lottery? Did I finally get the pony I've been wanting since my fifth birthday? Have I discovered that I'm an alien from outer space with super powers?

Well, that would all be awesome as well, but what I have to report today is far more mundane but still awesome considering the circumstances I have been complaining about in recent submissions.

Yes, RHU, McDumbass is no longer our dairy guy. No, he's not fired and he hasn't been transferred to another store - he's simply back as our other grocery full-timer where he knows what he's doing and can't really screw up since he's not in charge of ordering anything anymore. Considering he knows his shit there, he doesn't annoy me nearly as much, and is better conversation now that I don't feel like yelling at him every time I see him.

In his place, we now have a full-time, fully trained dairy guy... who will probably only last a few weeks before the company shits on us again and takes him away, because that's how things go in the training store. But whatever. At least we can have a nice looking dairy department for the time being, and I'll take that over nothing at all.

So, the new guy. I don't have a nickname for him yet, and I really haven't formed much of an opinion on him since I've worked with him for all of two hours in the past two weeks. What I have figured out, however (partially through the work grapevine), is that he's either superhuman or utterly insane.

Thursday morning he brought in a load of roughly 400 pieces, and guess what I found when I walked into the coolers to close Thursday night? No evidence of the load. At all. There weren't cases upon cases of back stock, there weren't boats of sale juice left in the coolers... Sale juice was stacked nice and neat where it belongs, other juice was stacked likewise, yogurt had been condensed onto one boat that was only partially full, cheese, butter, and creamer had all been put away neatly. The dairy cooler was practically empty - we had enough sale items to get through the night, but all told there were probably only 20 stacks of milk back there, roughly four crates high... completely and totally manageable. Instead of having to reorganize the entire milk cooler, all I had to do with it Thursday night was pull it forward so the delivery driver had space to get the new milk into the cooler on Friday morning.

The aisle looked great, too. I spun my wheels over there with the hand truck for about two hours, gave the aisle a final pull-down, and then went to build ends with the two guys who were closing grocery for the rest of the night.

The only downside to Thursday night was the fact that the Stork (tall, lanky coworker) sent the Wild Child (the crazy guy who works one day a week) a text asking Wild Child to ask me if I was working Friday. -_- Why? Not sure. Glad I wasn't closing anyways.

Love, rainbows, and ponies,

--Token Female

Stories Of The Good And The Bad Of Retail Slaves

After months of having nothing retail related, I finally have something. I am now officially a custy (and refuse to be a crusty).

I've moved out of Pennsylvania for a job and as such, I'm new to the area and have no idea where things are. So far everyone has been really helpful and understanding. However, I was out today shopping for groceries because the cupboard was bare and while ordering lunchmeat I had a worker with a really sour attitude who apparently couldn't understand me and/or didn't completely listen to my order.

Then I went to ask about what kind of cheese was hiding behind the bologna and she was just really sour and refused to tell me even when I explained that the label was hidden and I wanted to know what it was. I was kind of put out because the people there had been very friendly.

And then when I came out, there was an enormous truck parked mostly in their spot but part of the rear end was almost in front of my little car. I really should have taken a picture of it because it was horrible parking. The kicker? The person could have pulled through and fixed their truck but they were too darn lazy.

On the other end of the spectrum, awesome workers!

I was in a Blows in Pennsylvania looking for a washer and dryer and the guy who helped my mom and I was awesome. He looked up to see if they delivered to where I was moving to (that store didn't), looked up where the closest store there was to see if it was possible to go to that store and get a delivery (two stores close enough for a delivery), and printed out all the facts and numbers for the particular washer and dryer I decided to get.

The parentals and I went to one of the Blows down here and had another awesome worker who honored the Pennsylvania price and gave us a discount because we decided to take the floor model (Daddy asked politely if we could have one since it was the floor model; we wouldn't have been upset if the answer was no) and made sure we had all the parts.

I was also at the local Wal-fart picking up a few things that didn't require a trip into the "city." The young man who cashed me out was attempting to sell a monkey faced loofa to everyone who came through his line. If people told him no, he'd tell them to look at how cute it was and if they said no again, he quit the pitch. He was very friendly both times I went through his line (I was a bit forgetful and had to go back later). I love awesome (and friendly) workers!

--KitKat

Random Act of Retail Kindness: Fast Food Worker Dances With Girl Who Was Rejected On Prom

A teen reddit user who works at a burger place posted this: 

"She came into my work crying because her prom date stood her up the night of. She left smiling because I had another customer play music while I asked her to dance in front of everyone."

After commenters accused him of trying to pick her up, he wrote: "Dude, I did it because it was the right thing to do. Not because I'm trying to get into a high school freshman's pants."

RHU Salutes you dude! Kudos!

via www.reddit.com

RHUer Gives Shout Out To Local Pizza Parlor

Hello RHU! Comment lurker Rona here and I just wanted to give a quick shout out to some employees at the local pizza place in my college town.

I went with a fairly large group of people to dinner and, being the airhead I am sometimes, I forgot my purse when leaving.

I called them as soon as I realized it and they were very understanding and professional about it, and made sure I wasn't just some N.A.T. calling in to see if some other poor bugger had left behind their bag.

I know it may not be THAT big a deal, but I just feel grateful still that they found it and held it for me until I could come and get it.

--Rona

Random Act of Retail Kindness: Dry Cleaner Assists The Unemployed

 

The Best, The Worst, And The Silliest

Hey RHU! The Worst here with an update and some snippets that I hope will give you a chuckle. I’ve been lurking/commenting, but haven’t had much to post since I sort of escaped from Call Center Hell. Allow me to explain.

I told my supervisor that I got into grad school and would be leaving, and she asked if I would consider working at the branch near school (well, about an hour away). Thinking of the wise advice you all gave me, I told her I appreciated the offer, but an hour was a very long drive considering I’d be working 10-hr days already. She said she understood and wished me luck.

On the Wednesday of my last week, I attended a meeting with the admissions team (including a conference call with the other branch) to introduce my replacement. There had been no formal announcement I was leaving, but everyone had been congratulating me so I figured they all knew. My supervisor had to step away to take a call, and while she was gone I introduced my replacement (let’s call her Quick Study because she picked up on everything really fast).

There was a moment of shocked exclamation from the other line, because apparently they had no clue I was leaving. Then the president of the school (!) who I didn’t even know was on the call, said, “But don’t worry everyone, The Worst is just taking a temporary leave before coming to work in the home office!”

The admissions team looked at me, everyone mouthing WTF?? I had no response. After a long discussion with my supervisor and the prez, it came to light that they really needed my help in the home office, in part due to the fact that the team there had all been trained remotely and was struggling to figure out our info systems.

They said they would take me off calls, so all my work would be behind-the-scenes projects and training, so I agreed. It turned out to be the perfect situation, because my winter break is five weeks long and I can go home and be with my parents and work out of my old office. Oh! And Bestie got a promotion and a raise, so life is good for both of us.

And now for some snippets, one from the days when I was still taking calls and another from the custy side of things. So back when I was taking calls on our instant messaging program Chat, one of our currently enrolled students came on to ask about geometry. I helped him out and then asked my customary “Do you have any other questions I can help you with?”

Now, I can see what people are typing as they’re typing it, but they can’t see what I’m typing – or if I’m typing – until I send it. That way we can anticipate people’s questions, and if it requires a long response, get started typing it all up. So I see what he’s typing, and I can’t help but laugh. Here is how the conversation went (yes, I saved the transcript).

Student: How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

The Worst: He'd chuck all the wood that a woodchuck could if a wood chuck could chuck wood.

Student: ……

Student: Well played. Can we be Facebook friends so I can tag you in that? Because quite honestly you are a genius.

I told him I don’t add students on Facebook, but he was cool about it. I was a little worried I’d get in trouble for being a smart-ass, but my supervisor IM’d me to say that kid had corrected her grammar and then made some snarky comment about it, so she was glad I’d done it.

After the chat ends a comments box appears for the caller, and here is what he wrote: I'm asking The Worst to Prom. She's my hero. Give her a raise. (Oh and she answered all my questions about geometry I guess....but no one really cares about geometry).

Okay, I swear I’ve almost gone on long enough – one more snippet from the custy side that I hope will make you laugh like it did me. Karebear’s post about the SLUTress (to borrow the term from MahiMahi) reminded me of this.

One of my best friends is my dad’s best friend from college’s son. His parents are divorced and he grew up in the UK, so in addition to being ridiculously attractive, he has an English accent. The first summer he came to visit that I had my driver’s license and we could hang out on our own, we went to get pizza at CPK. The waitress was a really cute blonde girl who focused entirely on him, chatting him up and ignoring me.

When she came to refill our waters, she refilled mine from the pitcher and then took his water to the kitchen and was gone for kind of a while. We joked that she was going to roofie him (obviously she didn’t, just a joke, please don’t hate me).

When she was within earshot I loudly remarked that I thought the Englishman would get along really well with my boyfriend. After that the waitress addressed me, and was perfectly polite.

The next day we got Sushi for dinner, and our waitress wasn’t snobby, but she seemed down and a bit sulky. As an experiment, I told her the Englishman was my cousin. She perked right up, and flirted with him all night, and treated us both like royalty. Now whenever we go out to eat, we always tell our waitress we’re cousins. He loves the attention, and I love feeling like the best wingman ever.

That’s it RHU! I hope you got a good laugh out of this post, and that you make it through hell unscathed. Hugs and Hershey Kisses,

--The Worst

UPS Driver Hell

Karebear And Grandma Meet A Handsome And Kind Doctor

From: Karebear

I want to give a shout out to all the awesome doctors and nurses out there.

In my family, we all take turns taking my grandmother to the doctor because of many different reasons. (So she isn't alone, can't drive anymore herself, make sure we understand anything medical, etc.) For most of her adult life she has visited the same doctor, who I shall call Dr. Oldie in this post.

Dr. Oldie is a decent doctor when it comes to finding what is wrong with you medically, but his people skills are lacking. For example, one time I took her and he asked me if I was her great-granddaughter. This sort of depressed my grandma because she's already upset that she has outlived her husband and one of her children, plus she is reminded everyday she isn't getting any younger with all her health issues and such. So yeah...

Every time she had to visit the doctor, she would become upset and beg us not to go. Well, some of her friends in her retired community were talking about this young new doctor, who I am naming Dr. Young for the post. They raved that he was a top notch doctor, who was "quite easy on the eyes!" (Always awesome to see 4-5 little old ladies gushing about some dude over their bingo cards.) Finally my grandma's curiosity got to her, and she made an appointment with this mystery doctor.

Her first appointment lands on a Friday afternoon. I'm usually first pick for afternoon appointments because I can easily drop my kids off at daycare and take the time off work usually. So I pick her up and take her to the office.

From the beginning the receptionist made her feel welcome and happy with a pleasant "it's nice to meet you, Ms. Karebear's Grandma. I need you to fill out some paperwork, but if you have any questions, please come up and ask. I'll be more than happy to help you!"

I know you all say that this is the receptionists job and such, but at Dr. Old's office she was usually greeted with a, "Here, fill this out and bring it back when you done." So a major step up for her.

When we got back to the room, the nurse was friendly and helpful. She made friendly chit chat while doing her nurse-y thing. She could even tell my grandmother was nervous, so she tried comforting her and such.

Then the doctor came in. Grandma actually gasped. First because I don't think she expected someone so young. Dr. Young looked like he just graduated high school rather than medical school. And secondly, he looked like a younger version of George Clooney. Score one for Grandma since she just loves, loves, loves, Mr. Clooney.

Not only was he handsome and young, he was a flatterer.

Dr: "Is this [referring to me] your twin sister?"

Grandma: *giggles like a school girl* "No, that's my granddaughter! She's the baby of the family!"

(For the first 18 years of my life, I was, until my oldest cousin had her first child... but once your the baby of the family, I guess your stuck with the title.)

Dr: "You don't even look old enough to have children, let alone grandchildren!"

And my grandmother giggled like a schoolgirl some more.

He was an awesome doctor, covering all the bases while with my grandmother. He was with her for 15 minutes longer than Dr. Old ever stayed in the room. He made my grandmother feel special and comfortable. It was great to see her smiling like a little girl. I think she may have developed a crush on him as well.

By the time we were on our way home, she was singing her praises. ("His hands were just sooo soft!" "He was way gentler than Dr. Old ever was!" "His hair, his eyes! *swoon*") She called up all her friends, as well as my mom and aunts. When she got to my unmarried aunt, I think I saw the wheels in her head turning.

She told my aunt she had to take her next visit to meet the young, hot, new doctor who was very much single. (Yes my grandmother asked.) But you know what, it was amazing to see my grandmother that happy about seeing a doctor. As long as she gets the proper medical treatment she needs, she can gush and crush and swoon all she wants.

I feel there may be a lot more doctor visits in the future. Bravo Dr. Young, you made a new fan that day. (My mother also has a thing for George Clooney, I nearly facepalmed when my mother asked for his phone number so she could set up an appointment.)

--Karebear

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