I work in retail and the one thing that bothers me more than annoying customers who complain over nothing are parents who bring in their young children around 5 years and younger, and don’t look after them. No, I’m not talking about them destroying my department, I mean bringing them in and just walking ahead of them, letting them fall behind. No turning around to wait for them, no checking on them, just leaving them to be picked up by any sort of freak.
I’ve seen little ones running after their parents crying and screaming as they walked ahead, talking on their phones, or just yelling at them to hurry up while not stopping. This sort of thing makes me sick!
I remember going into the store and my mother making my siblings and I hold on to the cart, her hand, or our father’s hand just so we didn’t get lost or anything.
There’s been enough lost kids in the store, and some of the children are completely terrified! If you’re bringing in your kids, keep an eye on them! Hold their hand, stop letting them out of your sight! Some of these poor kids don’t deserve to be taken away by some freak-o because you’re too fucking lazy to pay attention to them! —Sick of some parents
This article appears in Jan 20-26, 2011.
I totally agree!! I know kids cry I have kids, it’s not the crying kids in public, it’s the damn parents too selfish to take their kid home!! It’s the parent so wrapped up in their own world and getting that new shirt they forget they brought their child to the effing mall!!
Oh man….. don’t get me started on these kind of parents. I agree 100% with the OP.. enough said.
I agree with this bitch. But I have a 3 year old who when were in a smaller stores in the mall – he likes to hide in clothes racks…at all times me or my partner can see him…and we do the “oh my goodness where did he go?” stuff which makes him giggle. But he’s a really good kid…and always 2 feet from me.
My daughter works in retail, as well, and she came home pissed a couple of weeks ago because some woman put her baby seat (with the baby in it) on top of a pile of clothes at the front of the store and then walked off while talking on her phone to look at clothes at the back of store. She was pissed because as much as she knew it was not safe for the baby, she couldn’t remove the baby/seat to a safer place because touching other people’s babies is a no-no. So, she had to leave the baby hoping it didn’t get knock over or stolen while she went to tell the mother she couldn’t leave the baby unattended. Of course, the woman got defensive and angrily asked my daughter who she was to tell her how to care for her own kid. My daughter just said it was store policy and walked away, but she wanted to say, so badly, ‘the one who has to mop up the blood when your baby splits its face open on the floor it’s tipping towards’.
haha, i loved doing that with the boy…they’re not accessories folks, just little humans but http://www.childharness.ca/images/dog/2boy…
If the media mentioned there was a baby-snatcher in your department store, you’d be sure parents would keep a better eye on their kids in public, but these parents feel so comfortable with letting their kids trail behind that they are not concerned. How would the parent(s) react if the kid disappeared? From the sounds of it, the parents the OP is describing probably wouldn’t even notice.
yeah, cause that ‘media scaring people’ into common sense worked so well with the sleepwatcher.
Since the op didn’t want to mention parents who let their brats run around screaming and grabbing at merchandise, I will. Please, take responsibility for your little shits, I hate shopping and watching some brat paw over everything in sight and run around knocking shit over. What is wrong with parents these days? Am I the only one who was forbidden from touching stuff I didn’t plan to buy?
in our shop the motto for the wee bairns is “look with your eyes”…it works most times. tho sometimes you get the lower lip quiver
RC that may be cute but it’s bad enough with adults pawing through things, not putting things back and then add kids running/hiding in racks, possibly damaging/dirtying merchandise.
Parents bring their kids in where I work and leave them there thinking we are a babysitting service while the parents go shopping or wherever.
Cranky: you sure are.
Bon: McDonald’s at Walmart?
Its the same in nearly every customer service/retail business and its just Sad. Parents think that the staff are obligated to look after their kids when in their place of business so they just stop caring when they walk through the front door. And those same ones are the first to complain if you ask them to look after their kids after they have already broken something/caused hell for other customers.
I don’t think they expect the staff to look after their runts, I think they just don’t give a fuck.
Kim, I’m embracing this section of The Coast for what it is, unlike other regulars who see it as a place to socialize with people they don’t know.
I worked as a security guard at a Halifax rink that rhymes with The Quorum. I found one little boy 7 or so, wandering around the outer area where the washrooms, dressing rooms and concession stands are. As he paced he looked more and more worried. I approached and asked if he was lost. He burst into tears and nodded his head. I gently took his sleeve (as taking his hand is a no-no) and led him toward the office, knowing they would make an announcement. A woman came over, said she knew the boy. I did not take her at her word and had the announcement made. The father arrived and I said: ‘You’re little guy is pretty upset.’ His reply: ‘He does this all the time’ WTF? So you know he’s gonna wander, at night, in a place where anyone can walk in off the street and you don’t care because it’s a habit? Bad parent! Bad parent I say!
hmmm…hansel and gretel http://i.ytimg.com/vi/iOxekpmGWPs/0.jpg
come on now o.p., do you really need to ask that, you know where they are from, they just decided to let you folks take care of them for awhile.
if and when they do any damage, haul parents(sic) over to side, and lay bill of damages on them. they might get pissed, but hey, it’s only like 15 bucks they’ll spend there anyway, fuck them, tell them to take their spawn the fuck away, or next time, you will seize and hold them, the damages are taken care of. goddamn, i’d love to work in retail.
I hear this! OMG Parents? Is this what you’re called?
I see you all the time and you sicken me too. I haven’t worked in retail in years, now I just shop in it, and still… any trip to any large retail store is likely to cause me mental stress for these children.
I hope often to get terret’s or whatever it’s called so that I can openly tell these lazy sob’s to wake the hell up.. or something in a curseword 😀
And the poor little kids hauling ass to keep up, are dressed like it’s 40 below. No wonder they get cranky & cry, it like a sauna in those frakin snowsuits.
haha, could prove useful http://www.southparkstuff.com/season_11/ep…
Nobody should wish for tourettes if they don’t even know how to spell it.
Sorry, Cranky, I’ll try to be a good little bitch in the future.
http://rlv.zcache.com/gingerbread_man_bite…
Cranky writes script for new Jackie Chan movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85WNaVTXVaI
If the “parents” don’t want to go shopping and look after their children at the same time, they should just leave them home with a baby sitter!
I work in a retail store too, and fuck it pisses me off seeing how neglected children are! It’s something I could never do to my children.
Thanks for the Jackie C clip Kim, nice laugh with my coffee 🙂
I agreee. I used to work at a large drug store and we were located in a somewhat sketchy area and people coming in with children really didn’t give a shit about them or care what they did. One night I was facing products (making them look neat and full on the shelves) and these two runts came running by with their arms out, knocking a ton of stuff on the floor and laughing. The mother was just standing there looking at shampoo, ignoring the whole thing. Another time a mother got her little son to steal things for her, but we caught them as she had just got a perscription at that pharmacy (we had all of her info) and their “get-away” car was parked with their license plate facing the windows, teehee. One man stole like 10 things of perfume while holding his little daughter’s hand and got really violent when we confronted him. The police came and my understanding is the daughter was taken from him for at least that day. There was also this other woman who came in, her young son was asking a lot of questions as kids do and she all of a sudden lashed out and starting yelling “YOU DON’T EVER FUCKIN’ SHUT UP! YOU’RE ALWAYS TALKING! SHUT THE FUCK UP ONCE IN A WHILE!”. It was really sad to hear :(.
The worst at my store are the parents who pay no attention to their very young kids playing around the automatic doors. Heavy swinging doors, not the sliding ones. I usually stop serving the parents momentarily and go switch the door to “HOLD OPEN” after having seen one close on some kid in the past.