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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think this was terrible service

139 replies

Armadilloboss · 31/08/2019 16:22

Sorry in advance for the long post

My DS took DN’s (4 and 5) to get their back to school stationary yesterday. DN (4) is starting reception and was super excited for this as she feels grown up like her big sister.
Upon entering paperchase, a nasty little girl stuck her foot out and tripped my niece over. Poor thing didn’t see it coming and went straight into the glass display table, splitting her mouth open.
The girls mother ran over and grabbed the girl shouted ‘what have you done now?’ And swiftly left the store, making me think this girl has form for this sort of thing.
DN was bleeding from her mouth. It was all over her, the floor and my sister, and as you can imaging she was screaming in both pain and shock. Sister shouted the girl at the till for help and the girl responded ‘I’m busy serving’. She then shouted over for a wipe or something to stop the bleeding. The girl huffed, pulled a toilet roll from behind the till and ripped some off for her. Luckily enough my sisters friend walked past and seen sister (they were at the first display as you walk in, this happened within seconds of them entering the store) she went in to help and again approached the girl at the till and said ‘are you not going to help the little girl over there?’ Again she was told they were too busy. SF asked if they had a first aider of first aid kit on site and was met with ‘no, we dont’
After DN had calmed a bit my sister went over and said ‘do you need to put this in an accident report (we have both worked in retail for 15 years so know the procedure for this type of thing)’ again the girl was unphased and replied ‘no we don’t have one of them’ my sister again queried this and said ‘a 4 year old has just smashed her face against your glass display, there is blood all over your floor, and you don’t need to document this?’ The girl responded ‘yeah but was she running around mad?’ At which point my sister just walked out the store.
She immediately emailed paperchase to complain and has yet to receive a response (this was 10am yesterday morning).
AIBU to think this is appalling and the safety of people in their store should come before serving a customer?

OP posts:
partysong · 31/08/2019 17:08

A lot of you have really low expectations of others. I would expect any human to offer basic kindness and to be polite, and to try to help when another human had hurt themselves

Also used to work in retail - I think she was really rude. They should access to a first aider and it should have been recorded

Nicknacky · 31/08/2019 17:08

I don’t get the obsession with accident books, I really don’t. I think I would think differently if an accident occurred in the store which was the responsibility of the store but this was nothing to do with the store apart from being on their premises. Yes, it probably should go in but it’s not something I would be getting het up about.

HeadintheiClouds · 31/08/2019 17:09

It absolute does “make a difference” that this incident wasn’t recorded. It’s a legal requirement.

MiniMum97 · 31/08/2019 17:10

I love MN. Apparently shop staff on minimum wage can't be expected to do anything other than the very basics of their job (and sometimes not even that!) or speak to people politely or have common decency. Only on MN!

It's nothing to do with the fact she is young, didn't know procedure or is on minimum wage. Anyone with a shred of empathy, compassion or common decency would respond to a child (or anyone) having had an accident. Ridiculous to say otherwise.

And legally yes it should be in an accident book. And they should have a first aid kit.

I would definitely complain. The girl obviously requires training in both customer services and health and safety. And they should not be leaving young untrained or inexperienced staff on their own to manage a shop.

00q007 · 31/08/2019 17:10

I think the shop should've helped but it wasn't actually an accident was it? So YANU as the shop has no liability here.

AlexaAmbidextra · 31/08/2019 17:11

I would sue.

InterestingView. Oh don’t be ridiculous. On what grounds precisely would you sue? The accident wasn’t the fault of the shop. The child unfortunately fell on to a display table which is an entirely reasonable item to be found in a shop. Said item wasn’t inherently dangerous. The response from the member of staff wasn’t particularly helpful but how would her intervention have improved the situation? Nothing the shop or staff did worsened the child’s injury. What utter nonsense.

JJSS123 · 31/08/2019 17:13

I work in retail in a large department store. If this was us I’d of said to a customer excuse me. Grabbed someone else more senior than my self or just anyone in general grabbed cover for the till and then a first aider would of been called straight away!! But in that instance I wouldn’t of been asked to help I’d already be over there. I couldn’t see that and not help!!!!! And of course everyone had a accident book. I’m sure it’s the law...

DarlingNikita · 31/08/2019 17:13

What benefit is there to it being recorded in some accident book?

what would you have done if your daughter had fallen over or tripped up outside, rather than in a shop?

Are you all hard of thinking or something?

She didn't trip up outside. That's kind of the point Confused
And it's a basic legal requirement to have an accident book and an accident/first aid procedure.

The member of staff may well be on minimum wage/badly trained/unmotivated etc; but that's not an excuse, it's a further indictment of Paperchase's approach and attitude to staff and customer welfare.

I'd plaster this (no pun intended!) all over social media and write to head office as well.

Bluntness100 · 31/08/2019 17:13

I don't think it's low expectations of others, I simply don't understand why they shop girl was expected to sort this when the child's mother was there, or what the relevance and seemingly critical importance of noting it in an "accident" book is.

The mother must have been more capable of wiping her child's mouth and soothing her before some random girl serving, and yeah, sure, she could have grabbed a note book off the shelves and wrote it down, but what benefit does that give?

Flamingo84 · 31/08/2019 17:14

If the person on the till was the only staff member there, and deemed responsible enough to be left in charge for however long, she should have taken a bit of initiative.

Either asking if the customer in line could wait a moment and taking over the whole loo roll, checking on the child or ask the parent if she needed an ambulance (if there was blood everywhere and a child screaming I would offer!).

If she wasn’t alone she could have called another staff member to assist.

Her attitude seemed to be that it was the child’s fault (even though it wasn’t her running about, suspect it was the other kid who tripped her) and nothing to with her.

A chain shop like paperchase would definitely have an incident book and more than likely a basic first aid box. I hope your sister gets an apology.

JustMe9 · 31/08/2019 17:15

So you are 31 and call yourself a girl! Sorry just found it funny and I think YABU

Nousernameforme · 31/08/2019 17:15

There should always be a first aider on the premises. As for what this girl/ woman could have done get a manager probably the first aider would be the obvious one. They will have an alert system for when someone out back is needed out front. So.she wouldn't have even needed to leave the till area

Annabk · 31/08/2019 17:17

Awful thing to happen and I hope Paperchase respond with a get well card and some goodies in the post. At the same time, when I was young and worked in retail it was an ok job... Nowadays staff are paid pennies, staffing is cut to the bone and the only(?) serving staff member possibly feared losing her job if she left the till. It’s sadly normal to have no first aid training, no first aid kit and no flexibility available to handle situations in retail now.

Streamside · 31/08/2019 17:18

If the assistant didn't witness the incident then she had no way of knowing what had happened ie: your niece made contact with a glass display cabinet but could have tripped on the flooring or had an incident caused by something in the shop .It would be logical to try and record what happened in order to prevent a claim against the shop.From a humanitarian point of view she could have shown some sympathy.

Bluntness100 · 31/08/2019 17:18

The child didn't need an ambulance, and if she did I'm fairly sure her mother could have called for one. From the sounds of it she just needed some loo roll as that's what the mum asked do.

If it was my child I'd have dealt with her myself, I certainly wouldn't need the shop asisTant to get involved and I wouldn't give a crap about it being written in some book as it wasn't the shops responsibility.

XXcstatic · 31/08/2019 17:19

I would sue. Genuinely would as they've walked into a claim with this lack of response or reporting

For what? Gross negligence in owning a table? Not hog-tying all children who enter so that one can't trip up another?

Original poster
Armadilloboss · 31/08/2019 17:20

@JustMe9 yes I do. I don’t think that’s particularly funny at all. Maybe it’s to do with the city I’m from but we all call each other girl? I.e ‘I’m out with the girls tonight’ ‘me and the girls’ ‘the girls bathroom’ don’t think that’s particularly funny or unusual at all really.

OP posts:
FudgeBrownie2019 · 31/08/2019 17:21

It's not great customer service at all, but the whole "I'd sue" attitude is nonsense because you'd have zero grounds to sue for anything unless you can track down the girl who tripped your DN.

I also think Paperchase won't be able to offer much other than a generic "we'll review our process and make sure staff are trained appropriately" because anything else would be admitting liability.

maddiemookins16mum · 31/08/2019 17:21

I do sympathise BUT she did not have her accident due to any fault of the shop, their failing was not to have been more helpful. Different matter if the floor was wet, she tripped over merchandise carelessly left etc, etc.

WindsweptEgret · 31/08/2019 17:24

YABU to call a grown woman a girl, it is misleading. YANBU to expect the assistant to stop serving customers and to provide a first aid kit and call customer services for a first aid officer if the shop was in a centre.

Bluntness100 · 31/08/2019 17:24

I hope Paperchase respond with a get well card and some goodies in the post

Is this what this is about, getting g something for free? I can't believe someone said they would sue. Hmm

WorraLiberty · 31/08/2019 17:24

There should always be a first aider on the premises. As for what this girl/woman could have done get a manager probably the first aider would be the obvious one. They will have an alert system for when someone out back is needed out front. So.she wouldn't have even needed to leave the till area

There is no legal obligation to provide first aid to the public.

I agree the decent thing to do would have been to call another member of staff, so she didn't need to leave the till.

which1 · 31/08/2019 17:24

No it really doesn't make a difference.

Why?

Because the accident was not the store's fault.

It would be different if the child was injured as the result of a wobbly display of heavy books that fell on her head. Then yes in that case store has fault and should note it, and reconsider their display arrangements and change accordingly. This will prevent same injury happening to someone else.

But in this case, whilst might be required by law to note it down on the book it makes no difference at all because store cannot do anything to prevent customers coming and in tripping other people up. Entirely out of their control.

Suing is unjustified.

helpfulperson · 31/08/2019 17:25

I don't disagree that it would have been nice if the women on the till had been a bit more helpful but there is a lot of misinformation and wrong bandying about of the words 'legal requirement' here.

Recording of incidents - it is only a legal requirement to record if the incident both requires the Member of the Public to receive hospital treatment and the accident arises out of the work of the business. So even if she had gone to hospital if wouldn't because the cause was being tripped by another little girl. www.hse.gov.uk/riddor/reportable-incidents.htm

First aid - Businesses have no legal obligation to provide first aid to members of the pupil although many chose to do so.
www.hse.gov.uk/firstaid/faqs.htm#first-aid-for-the-public

Hope she is doing OK.

lyingwanker · 31/08/2019 17:27

Disgraceful service, they should definitely have an accident book and first aid kit on site. Even if she isn't first aid trained surely basic human decency would've wanted to make sure the child was ok and then you would've thought she'd want to make sure blood wasn't all over the displays?!