So for background I work in a retail store in the northeast (U.S). So winters can be rough to say the least. I work on a team of 8. We work in a place where appearance is super important; so looking decent at work and making sure everything looks good is important.
A month ago I came into work and a leak had started directly over our cash wrap (so registers/light fixtures/light-up signs, the only counter space we have). And when I say leak, I mean more of a downpour of ceiling water. Not like the shining scene with the elevator doors or anything; but definitely enough to get soaked with disgusting brown ceiling water if you had to stand there to check people out. Like need to wash your clothes and completely shower.
Nobody came to fix it and the managerial solution was to have us try to make a wall with trash bags and eventually my supervisor for the area had to get on a ladder and fashion a tunnel out of trash bags and hangers to try to keep us from getting wet. I suggested that we check people out at other registers but they didn’t want to do that. So instead of having us just check people out elsewhere we have to stand in the splash zone and get rained on with brown ceiling water that is a mix of snow/rain and god knows what.
We have to haul plastic totes full of water outside, we’ve lost our counter space and aren’t allowed to use rolling carts or any other space for our stuff. Which our section makes up a small store. So. That’s been fun.
Three times this has happened. Three times me and my coworkers have had to put ourselves in definitely unsafe situations to try to just stay dry while doing our jobs.
This has happened three times. The final fucking straw was today. After, again, last night having to watch my supervisor climb on a step ladder on the counter to try to make sure our stuff doesn’t get ruined and we aren’t rained on with ceiling water, I came in to an absolute shit show.
Apparently the container catching water accidentally got dumped out (and by container I mean dirty ass trash can caked with shit) on the floor. The registers, mats, and then product were covered in dirty water. They sopped it up with towels and left them on the floor. Everything we need for a day was piled on a cart and left out back and when I went to bring it out to get the stuff we needed off and try to organize and clean I was reamed out for it despite the (literal) shitty circumstances.
We’ve been promised the ceiling will be fixed. I recognize this isn’t a third world sweat shop situation but goddamn would anybody want to be standing and getting brown water on them for 8-9 hours a day, 5 days a week? This is way more than we signed up for with zero end to this in sight, infact with spring coming this is about to get so so much worse. Some of us have gotten sick lately, including me; and although that could be anything I can’t help but feel getting rained on for 8 hours a day hasn’t helped that. We have no idea who exactly to call or what to do but a lot of us have no sick time or ability to leave early/call out (thanks point systems) and we’re all at our wits end. This is a huge fucking retail company and not at all what we signed up for in the slightest.