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edenfallingWe sell coffee at the smoke shop, both beans and brewed. The brewed coffee is kept in air pots in a two-level metal stand, and we refill or remove them as necessary over the course of the day. (The idea is to finish the night with maybe half a pot of basic Columbian to dump out, and all the rest sold.) Around 12:30pm on Monday, I checked the coffee, realized one pot was empty, and decided to remove both the pot and the bottom level of the stand, so as to free up a bit of counter space.
So far, so good.
The problem is that when I unhooked the bottom half of the stand from the upper section, I put it on the floor perpendicular to the counter instead of flush up against the cupboards, or even on top of the nearby Snapple cooler, so it stuck out into the aisle and presented a traffic hazard. Even though I had every intention of picking it up within a minute, once I'd cleaned the counter and finished rearranging the pots, that was stupid. PM even walked past me and, as she later said, considered telling me to move the stand, but for whatever reason she didn't say anything at the time.
And then a customer came to the counter and I hurried to ring him up... without remembering to take a second and pick up the coffee stand. Which was still sitting in the middle of the aisle.
You see where this is going, right?
Less than a minute later, I heard a loud metallic crash and saw, in my peripheral vision, a man stumbling and falling along the aisle, finally hitting the ground over ten feet from where I'd left the stand. PM and I both rushed to see if he was okay, and I then picked up the pieces of the stand while she got his name and contact information in case he was injured and we would have liability issues. Then she chewed me out for creating the problem, and I felt like a complete idiot.
End of story, we thought, unless the man turned out to have a more serious injury than initially apparent.
Except.
PM then went to the back room to review the security tape of the incident, so we knew for sure what had happened... and saw, quite clearly, that the man had noticed the stand, stopped, turned to look around for witnesses, and then tripped on purpose. We have him from four camera angles.
PM called the police to explain the situation and make sure we weren't liable for any potential injuries the man may have given himself in his scheme. When she gave the man's name to the police officer, he started laughing, which is a pretty good sign that our "victim" is a known shady character. Given that and the camera evidence, we are almost certainly safe from any legal trouble.
So we got off free this time.
But I am going to be really damn careful about what I put where from now on!
(I don't know why people don't realize that we have security cameras and we do check them after suspicious incidents and potential instances of shoplifting. The giant black half-spheres dotted around the ceiling are not much of a disguise, and the two cameras aimed right at the cash registers are not hidden at all. But petty thieves are amazingly dumb sometimes.)
So far, so good.
The problem is that when I unhooked the bottom half of the stand from the upper section, I put it on the floor perpendicular to the counter instead of flush up against the cupboards, or even on top of the nearby Snapple cooler, so it stuck out into the aisle and presented a traffic hazard. Even though I had every intention of picking it up within a minute, once I'd cleaned the counter and finished rearranging the pots, that was stupid. PM even walked past me and, as she later said, considered telling me to move the stand, but for whatever reason she didn't say anything at the time.
And then a customer came to the counter and I hurried to ring him up... without remembering to take a second and pick up the coffee stand. Which was still sitting in the middle of the aisle.
You see where this is going, right?
Less than a minute later, I heard a loud metallic crash and saw, in my peripheral vision, a man stumbling and falling along the aisle, finally hitting the ground over ten feet from where I'd left the stand. PM and I both rushed to see if he was okay, and I then picked up the pieces of the stand while she got his name and contact information in case he was injured and we would have liability issues. Then she chewed me out for creating the problem, and I felt like a complete idiot.
End of story, we thought, unless the man turned out to have a more serious injury than initially apparent.
Except.
PM then went to the back room to review the security tape of the incident, so we knew for sure what had happened... and saw, quite clearly, that the man had noticed the stand, stopped, turned to look around for witnesses, and then tripped on purpose. We have him from four camera angles.
PM called the police to explain the situation and make sure we weren't liable for any potential injuries the man may have given himself in his scheme. When she gave the man's name to the police officer, he started laughing, which is a pretty good sign that our "victim" is a known shady character. Given that and the camera evidence, we are almost certainly safe from any legal trouble.
So we got off free this time.
But I am going to be really damn careful about what I put where from now on!
(I don't know why people don't realize that we have security cameras and we do check them after suspicious incidents and potential instances of shoplifting. The giant black half-spheres dotted around the ceiling are not much of a disguise, and the two cameras aimed right at the cash registers are not hidden at all. But petty thieves are amazingly dumb sometimes.)
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Date: 2011-04-27 08:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-04-28 04:00 am (UTC)