AIBU to dislike lone working

[loneworker]

Does anyone 'lone work'? As in being alone in charge of somewhere - in this example, a shop.

Does your workplace have any policies or procedures in place regarding lone working?

I work in a small shop, (not a chain but not the only one, ifyswim), and have to lone work the majority of my days, for 7-9 hours. There doesn't seem to be any policies in place regarding safety. So sometimes I wonder if I had an accident or fell down the steps, how long it would be before someone found me.

For example when a delivery comes in, and I have to carry all the boxes & crates up a flight of stairs in the building on my own.

Not to mention the feeling of being vulnerable, being alone for such long periods in the day.

I know you could say I need to get a new job, but apart from this, I do enjoy my work. Just wanted to hear about others who work in similar situations.

No idea of the legalities of any of it either.

I don't think that's very good at all. I have worked in similar situations and whilst they weren't perfect they certainly made an effort to make sure that I felt safe and comfortable. Is there no one you can call if you feel threatened? What do you do if you need to go to the loo outside of your lunch break? Is there any sort of HR (or just a line manager) you can talk to about it all?

So what happens when someone robs the shop, you get hurt— how would the police be informed? Do you have a panic button? Monitored alarms?

If not then you absolutely need to push to get this sorted. Even the local shops in my area (even the tiny Indian / Turkish / Polish ones) have monitored alarms or dual control.

Lone working at night in s building stuffed full of highly desirable drugs. Never felt vulnerable once in 20 years, I was trained that attitude helps to prevent you being a victim if you are confident and assertive you are safer. Be sensible don't have back and front doors open, make desirable items tricky to get to ( several locked doors) and if all else fails hand over the cash no amount of money is greater than your personal safety.

I used to work as a carer/support worker so often did lone calls/visits

I lone work as does my team due to shifts and I love it, but we do have safety procedures in place and Security are always on site. We have panic buttons and lots of procedures in place. I wouldn’t be so keen without them

Try being a home carer late in the evening. They told us that there would be 'help at the end of the phone', but most of the time it was ringing out.
When you went to people's homes it would be late at night, dodgy area, anything could be on the other side of that door.
Not to mention the driving around country lanes in the dark.
I only managed to hack it for 9 months. Hats off to anyone who does it full time.

I'm a lone worker supporting adults with learning disabilities.
There's no breaks, it's hard.

I was trained that attitude helps to prevent you being a victim
What???
And how is OP supposed to keep doors locked if she works in retail and is open to the public? Presumably the desirable items she has are the till and for sale and so accessible. It's not ok OP. There should be procedures and they should be written down.

I work in a small food shop. One person on till, one on shop floor/warehouse/office. If something happened to one of us, ie: robbery on shop floor or a fall down the stairs out the back, the other wouldn't know a thing.

There is a campaign going around the company to get this practice stopped. It really isn't safe to work this way, especially late at night when dealing with drunks and gangs of kids etc. Our company (not my store) recently had a staff member stabbed. At least if there were more staff about it may deter criminals (safety in numbers, etc).

And we quite often don't get breaks as there's no time. If we leave the shop floor we're very likely called back to help deal with a queue/problem transaction/faulty till etc.