Over-protective pain or legitimately aggrieved parent?

[UsedtobeFeckless]

If your kids ( Who looked around 10ish ) were in a shop without you and climbed up on a display to reach a high shelf where they ignored a Don't Touch sign and went on to start twisting all the Rubiks cubes ... Would you then write in and complain if someone asked them to please stop?

I'm feeling peeved and hard done by ...

Bloody ridiculous. The parents are probably the sort who'd have tried to sue you if their precious children had hurt themselves climbing all over your display.

Actually, if you do reply, you should point out that they could have fallen and hurt themselves. It's a shop, not a soft play or play ground.

I would write a stiff letter back saying that you were jolly pleased they were upset- perhaps they have learned a lesson and won't do it again!

How about

"I am unsurprised that your younger child was unable to reach the shelf to replace the items. This is because both children had found it necessary to climb on a display cabinet to reach them in the first place. We shall always intervene to stop anyone from climbing, and will request that "do not touch" notices are respected."

"Thank you very much for writing to me. I hoped you would get in touch as I did not have your address prior to this. Please find attached an invoice for xx rubic cubes which we are now unable to sell, as customers will not buy cubes that have been used. This was explained to your children both by the information on our signs and verbally by myself. You can pop in any time with the money and to collect your cubes, and I hope your children have many happy hours playing with them. With very best wishes."

Cheeky mare! They should not be climbing on displays , and probably shouldn't be in the shop,unsupervised if they can't following simple rules. Perhaps a reply along the lines of
" dear xyz, I'm sorry your children were upset. However, for the health and safety of all our customers, we do not allow people to touch our displays. Please ensure your children respect our 'Do not Touch' signs in the future'.

Or ignore,

I used to work in a camping shop. We had one child pull out sleeping bags, get shoes out of boxes etc and wreck the joint. He was just out of sight of the main till, and a customer actually came up and told us what was happening. The wealthy looking father did nothing.

Another toddler ran around the store with a mallet, waving it about, having got it out of it's packet. The mum didn't seem bothered when I asked whether she was buying it ("no"), and seemed oblivious to the danger.

I was unfortunate enough to have a 'friend' who was the parent of 4 special snowflakes, until I saw sense and distanced myself. Every conversation was a litany of the many, many people who had upset her darlings that week.

She used to take the dcs into bookshops and spend over an hour reading to them, sitting on the floor in everyones way. Never bought a book of course. Got into fights at tesco every time she went there!

She had an ongoing feud with her dcs school because she wasn't allowed to park in the staff or disabled car park (none of the family were either). She couldn't take all dcs out on her own because their behaviour was fucking atrocious, but woe betide anyone who pulled them up on it. Her dh attacked a teacher who told their eldest off.

They were (still are presumably) deeply unhappy people.

Great replies! Unfortunately the letter is now reposing in my file in HR and an emollient reply has winged it's way to the distraught family ... HR lady informed me chirpily that she'd managed to smooth things over so Mrs SeeNoEvil and her free-spirited sprogs have generously decided not to boycott us forever after all ...

Next time I'm just going to stand by serenely while they pull the whole bloody thing down on their heads.

HR lady informed me chirpily that she'd managed to smooth things over so Mrs SeeNoEvil and her free-spirited sprogs have generously decided not to boycott us forever after all ...

That must be a terrific relief to you.

Not only would I not have written a letter of complaint I would have read my dd the riot act too if I'd have caught her behaving in that way and she's only 5. Ridiculous behaviour on the part of hr they should have backed you up.

I trust that if Mrs SeeNoEvil turns up again you will be following her and her sprogs round the store and kindly suggesting to her that she might like to stop them climbing on the shelves due to it being a tad dangerous? I feel a head tilt would go well.

I guarantee you anything that parent didnt get anywhere near an accurate account of what happened from her DC. They'll have spun it so they were completely innocent and you were a demon threatening to lock them in the stock room.

I feel for you op. I willnever work retail again.
Unfair for you to have things in your file when they're not true.
Some customers are just liars.
Makes my blood boil.
Sure if they do pull the display on Themselves it will still be your fault
Complete twat s for parents.

Great replies! Unfortunately the letter is now reposing in my file in HR and an emollient reply has winged it's way to the distraught family ... HR lady informed me chirpily that she'd managed to smooth things over so Mrs SeeNoEvil and her free-spirited sprogs have generously decided not to boycott us forever after all

This was the thing that fucked me off most about working in retail. The attitude that the customer is always right, even when they behave like entitled fucking arseholes.

OP, you have my sympathy.

Cheers all next year they're supposed to be splitting the admin and retail parts of the museum visitor centre and I'm going to dive like a rat out of an aqueduct for the lovely none-front-of-house safety of an office and leave all the through-gritted-teeth-smiley helpfulness for someone else!

It's worse at the moment as we're all doing 12 hour days due to a Christmas thing that's on all week and everyone ( Not surprisingly ) is getting more and more tired and snarky with one another - if we make it to Friday without a ginormous row and fisticuffs I'll be well impressed!

Yep, that's the best part of any service sector job, getting treated like shite by some of the rudest people you'll ever meet and then to add insult to injury, the same terrible people get pandered to for displaying atrocious behaviour by the organisation's desk jockeys and thus rewarding and validating their shitey way of treating people.

I guarantee you anything that parent didnt get anywhere near an accurate account of what happened from her DC. They'll have spun it so they were completely innocent and you were a demon threatening to lock them in the stock room. [quote]

I agree. I had an incident with a neighbour's child who was being a brat. When I eventually snapped and told her off, she went running home crying to her father with a different version of events (with her starring as an innocent child innocently playing on the green). Idiot father believed his little princess and went on a rant. When he realised he'd got hold of the wrong end of the stick he gave a blustering apology full of qualifiers .

I would ask your manager what is policy when staff witness children damaging shop property or doing something unsafe. You are entitled to know what you can do that will ensure you have back up from management, and don't have to put up with ridiculous letters on your file.

Would you then write in and complain if someone asked them to please stop?

I'd take my children in personally to apologise for being little shits if they came home whinging about being told off for climbing up shelving in a shop.

rubiksolve.com/
if this link works, then you can solve any Rubik cube.
Not that it will help with your shelf mountaineering little brats darlings.

Thanks Faded I'll give it a try in the long watches of tomorrow's marathon opening!

Sadly our lovely manager - who always stuck up for us and wouldn't take any nonsense from customers - was forced out by the upper echelons and so we don't have anyone in charge at the moment.

I agree with the others who have said that the parents got told a completely different story from what actually happened.

You can tell the type of parent they are as they wrote in instead of going in (assuming they are mobile) so they could avoid hearing the other side of the story.

Mrs SeeNoEvil and her free-spirited sprogs have generously decided not to boycott us forever after all ...

That's a shame, since next time they'll probably want compo too

Hope your move to an office comes as soon as it can, OP; at least you'd avoid some of this insanity ...