(I’m on the shop floor, where we have some sockets on display.)

Customer: “Excuse me.”

Me: “Yes, sir?”

(He gestures to one of the sockets.)

Customer: “Do you have a three-pin like this for the bathroom?”

Me: “No, the shaver sockets are designed with the steam from the bath or shower in mind, whereas three-pin are not. You’d short-circuit the thing if the contacts inside didn’t corrode first.”

Customer: “I guess I’ll look somewhere else.”

(I later told a colleague, who’s a trained electrician.)

Colleague: “Short? The d*** thing would blow up!”

(Looks like I gave him the best-case scenarios, because shaver sockets are 12V while mains are 240!)

In a busy warehouse it can often be difficult to store everything. In such instances, the answer is often to start stacking pallets to consolidate them into a smaller area. Whilst space efficient, this does carry the risk of having a stack collapse if some thought isn’t put into the matter.

On this occasion, we were receiving four full articulated (26 pallet) loads of piston heads at 600 heads per pallet. The heads arrived in plastic shipping containers with grooves in the top to line up a crate above — in other words, perfect for stacking. However, the warehouse manager and I, the deputy warehouse manager, agreed that due to weight and product value, we should go no more than three high, and informed all the staff working that this was to be the case.

Fast forward a few hours: wagon three of four is being unloaded and I’m in my office filing paperwork when I hear an almighty crash. I run out to find hundreds of piston heads strewn across the floor and an extremely sheepish forklift driver. After a bit of investigation, it is found that for whatever reason he had attempted to stack five-high, and the stack had promptly fallen over once he’d pulled the forks out.

Cleanup took two days due to the heads being small enough to roll under pallets elsewhere in the warehouse. All told, just over 2,000 heads were thrown loose in the fall. Only some 400 carried visible damage; however, due to the precision nature of the items, all items thrown from their pallets had to be written off at the expense of £120 per head. Due to insurance, we avoided having to pay this out of our own pocket, but the customer promptly cancelled our contract with them. The forklift driver was let go soon after.

(I am a forklift operator. It’s a rather busy day for the garden department, and my spotter and I just finished loading a pallet of pave stones into another person’s truck. As is common, we get stuck near the registers trying to get back into the store. My spotter is about five feet in front of me with bright orange flags when a customer approaches.)

Customer: *to my spotter* “Oh! I thought you were here to direct foot traffic.”

(The forklift is clearly beeping in the background, in spite of being in neutral.)

Customer: *steps to one side* “Oh! I didn’t even see you there.”

Me: *blank face*

(How the f*** do you miss a thirty-thousand pound forklift? It’s clearly over six feet tall, yellow, and beeping, AND there is the rumble of an engine.)

(I’m a lot attendant at a grocery store. This takes place in the middle of a very severe thunderstorm with lightning all over the place.)

Manager: “[My Name], we’re low on carts; could you go outside and get some?”

Me: “I can’t. There’s a severe thunderstorm outside.”

Manager: “Oh, man up, will you? You won’t get struck.”

Me: “Just because it doesn’t happen often, it doesn’t mean it can’t.”

Manager: “Well, there are no carts inside, and I need both lobbies full. You’ll just have to deal with it and brave the storm.”

Me: “But if I get struck by lightning, we’d both be in serious trouble!”

Manager: *raising her voice* “The only person who’s going to be in trouble here is you if you’re not outside gathering carts!”

Me: “But I could be injured or killed! You know the—”

Manager: *now yelling* “I don’t care! If you’re not out there in thirty seconds, I’m firing you on the spot for insubordination!”

Me: *appalled* “You know, I find it very disturbing that you’d actually value a few shopping carts over the life of your own employees.”

Manager: *screaming full-blast* “YOU’RE FIRED!”

Me: “Do it! I’m sure the owner would gladly appreciate your kindness towards me!”

(The owner did appreciate my boss’s kindness very much. So much, in fact, that he fired her the very next day, just minutes after she clocked in. She had already had several complaints and multiple write-ups against her for screaming at employees in front of customers, but her decision to willfully put me in danger was the last straw. I’m still working there to this day, though I haven’t seen the ex-manager since the day she was fired. Last I heard, she was in jail for assaulting her ex-husband after she lost custody of her daughter.)

I work at a big fast food chain. A coworker who works the front counter is annoyed by our slower work speed in the back, due one of the deep fryer elements being stuck half out of the oil. They decide to come see why we are slower.

Seeing the lid on the fryer, which is an obvious sign that it has a fault, the coworker decides to turn it on without asking why it is off and covered, and walks away without telling anyone the fryer is now on.

A few minutes pass, and now smoke is seen coming out from under the lid. [Coworker #2] decides to take the lid off to see why. That causes the fryer to burst into flames. Seeing the danger, [Coworker #2] grabs the nearby fire blanket and covers the fire…

…only to see the blanket also catch fire, as it’s out of date and has not been inspected in years. [Coworker #3] sees this happen and grabs the nearby extinguisher for oil fires and empties it all on the flames…

…only to see them still burning, as the extinguisher — like the blanket — is also out of date and has not been inspected in years. [Coworker #3] then grabs another extinguisher and empties it on the flames, with no effect ,due to the same problem as the blanket and first extinguisher.

The fire brigade arrives and finally puts out the fire. In the end, [Coworker #1], who started the whole thing, doesn’t get in any trouble, and the store gets regular checks on all its fire prevention equipment.