Jon, so long as you maintain some affinity for Lowe’s and/or Home Depot, that’s cool.

We used to have a customer restroom. It’s closed now because the meth-heads were stealing the lightbulbs, or at least that’s what my employee’s said was happening. You know you’re getting old when you don’t know how the drugs are done. Sigh.

Back when it was open to the public an employee came to me red-faced angry. “Someone shit all over the bathroom!” Sure enough there was poop all over the place. Some attempt had been made to clean it up, not very effectively. I took pity on the poor girl and cleaned it myself. The usual rule was: you find it you clean it.

I had to point out to my employee that despite how ugly cleaning up was, I was still having a better day than the woman who left her panties in our garbage.

Yah she should have cleaned up after herself, but someone sick enough to shit like that might not be in any condition to make rational decisions, let alone act on them. A little compasion goes a long way in these situations.

We are actually getting a Super-Target and an Old Navy here. I am very excited.

I worked for a well-known and privately owned/operated running store in Dallas. We often had runners come in asking to use our store bathroom (not open for the public); but since we had pity on those struggling through their long runs, we sort of developed a rep for being “that store that has a bathroom.” It became the thorn in the side to the employees who were required to clean it.

One day a well-dressed woman rushed in and asked where the restroom was. We begrudgingly told her only to have her rush to the back storeroom leaving a trail of diarrhea in her wake. It was horrible. We were so angry and upset and she destroyed our restroom, evidently behaving like some gorilla in the zoo who flings their poop about. That’s why I do feel sorry for some retail employees – you can work hard to keep your store looking spectacular but some people save their abhorrent behavior for the weirdest times.

They seem to have no reason want or desire to do anything outside of their direct responsibilities. Most hate their jobs and dislike their co-workers or supervisors (and I’m talking about middle-aged workers here, not teenagers who really don’t give a rip). The few that do genuinely take pride in their job performance really are helpful in keeping the sections clean and helping customers.

At the specialty shop, everyone really seemed to take ownership in the store (despite low salaries) – it was something they believed in and they went the extra mile to keep things clean and be helpful.

Maybe it’s an issue of giving the people something they can buy into – something to believe in.