The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

So, while I work at the work where I work, I’m in charge late at night. One thing I have to do while in charge is answer the phone, because sometimes Corporate forgets to tell the security system people that my crew is going to be in there, so they call to check and make sure I have the proper clearance, and I have to feed them a code and shit.

So the phone rings, I walk over and answer, all ready to give that code out. But it turns out it’s this guy. Apparently him and his girlfriend were in the store before they went to a late night movie, and now the girlfriend has lost her phone. Could I go check and see if it was there?
Sure. I’m a helpful person, I can check to make sure it’s safe. So I go and check the lost and found, and sure enough, there’s the phone he described. I tell him the good news.
Then he asks me to bring it outside to him.
Now this, I can’t do. I don’t actually have a key, for one thing, so it’s a one way trip outside the door. For another, I can’t just open the door for a stranger. I’m in charge. I have to set alarms. I didn’t doubt that this guy was sincere, but there’s always that vague risk that he’s trying to get me to open the door so he can point a gun at me, barge in, and rob the place, right? It’s just not something I’m allowed to do. I also can’t take the phone out of the building. No matter how innocent it is, I’m being recorded, and honestly, that could very easily look like me stealing. Me getting the phone to him is just not going to happen.
So I tell him as such, and that the phone will be right here, ready to be picked up in the morning, or whenever he wants to stop by and pick it up during business hours.
He keeps begging, saying he lives far away, and I can hear his girlfriend in the background feeding him things to say. Why not take another associate out with you? Why not take it out when you leave the store? I stand my ground, he eventually hangs up.

I head back to work.

Ten minutes or so later, the phone rings again. I figure it’s the guy calling me back, but I can’t not answer the phone, because, you know, it could always be the security company. So I pick up the phone.

It’s not the guy. It’s the guy’s girlfriend’s mom. She wants to know who is going to be the manager on duty tomorrow morning, and that that manager best be ready with a $60 check to cover the gas of her having to drive out there and pick up her daughter’s phone. She’s very angry.
I very much wanted to snap at her, but, you know, I’m the boss now. I was polite and professional, and explained to her why I couldn’t just hand her daughter the phone.
She tells me that not only have I caused her to have to waste her time tomorrow where she has to leave church to drive here and then drive back for a funeral, and I’ve also put her daughter in incredible danger, driving home and to work tomorrow without her phone, and that the manager best have that check ready.
I explain, as nicely as I can, that that is almost certainly not going to happen, but she can pick up the phone any time she wants. It’ll be safe until she gets there. She doesn’t have to come right when the store opens, or even tomorrow.
She tells me I best leave a note telling the manager to have her check ready or she is going to call corporate.
I desperately, desperately wanted to tell her to please, call corporate and complain that I am doing my job correctly and protecting their store and their investment. Surely they would be on her side. Of course.
I told her I would write a note, and she hung up.

I went back to the office and wrote a note of warning, explaining all this and that she’s coming and that it is probably going to be a “hairy situation.” And then I signed it “Good Luck.”

And that’s my most recent work story that’s of any interest.