Service staff – like retail and hospitality workers – cop a lot of sh*t.
Most of the time this looks like a rude and entitled customer taking their bad day out on someone who is unlucky enough to utter the phrase, “I’m sorry but we’ve sold out of that sandal in a size 8,” but other times, this can take on a much more literal meaning.
Sometimes adult humans will – for reasons unknown – decide to leave their mark on the world by doing a poo in a fitting room, scarring these poor and unfortunate employees who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
In case you missed it: This is how retailers are tricking us into spending more.
Luckily, said employees can take solace in the fact that they will forever have a story to tell unwitting members of the public and watch as their eyes fill with confusion and horror, because until you’re confronted with a human turd in the public domain, you just don’t know how bad it can get.
For example, like many people before me, my first job from the ages of 17-20 was working the front registers at my local department store. Among anecdotes of someone returning ‘worn underwear,’ and a toddler who had a thing for making ‘little vomits’ all around our sizeable store, there was the time someone did a poo in the women’s change room. And make no mistake, it was apparent from the (errr) girth of the excrement, that it once belong in the bowels of an adult, or post-pubescent teenager.
One night, five minutes before our 10pm closing time, the evening manager ran up to the front desk to inform me that somebody had left a poo in the change rooms. She was visibly grossed out and I tried to hold back an audible gag. It was a quiet night and of the dozen or so customers who had entered and left in the past half hour, I had probably greeted all of them. Unknown to me, I had made eye contact with the poo fiend. By the time we got to the change rooms, it turned out that one of the apparel staff, Lydia, had already “disposed” of the mess, with the offending matter safely contained in many layers of plastic bags.
We all left work that night with an unparalleled respect for Lydia. As they say, not all heroes wear capes. Some grab a plastic bag glove and plunge themselves straight into the depths of excrement-tainted danger.
