To be shocked by what DD told me about her workplace?

[whatinthenameofcrapisthis]

DD(17) has a part time job at Greggs around her college hours. She told me today that they (the staff) regularly find used needles in the toilets from people injecting drugs, and that it's well known that particular people spend a long time in the toilets doing that. The same people also often shoplift sandwiches and drinks. I asked DD what the policy is for dealing with this, ie do they contact the police, and she said "we don't ring the police, we just report the drug use via a specified number", ie a drug hotline for Greggs itself (?), and that some staff have protective equipment to pick up needles. I was so baffled by this.

Surely used needles being left in toilets is a matter for the police? Greggs staff are not paid enough to have to deal with this surely? I told my daughter she should not be doing this.
Granted it's not the best area where the store is that she works at, lots of poverty and crime etc, but still... This has really shocked me!

AIBU to expect my teen daughter who is paid minimum wage in Greggs not to have to handle used needles?!

She's 17, not 7. I don't police all of her life choices. Nor would that be healthy for her. This was the branch of Greggs that had a vacancy when she was interviewed, she wasn't to know at first how bad it would be. Yes, we knew it wasn't the best area of the city but did I expect her to be exposed to drug paraphernalia in the toilets on a daily basis? No, I honestly didn't. I expected rude customers yes, but not this. It's shocked us both, and as I said, she's actively looking elsewhere and also is going to request move to a different Greggs branch

How profoundly depressing that op is considered to be naive.*

Totally agree

Fuck me what patronising bollcks is this?!

I grew up in adject poverty in a one parent family. I'm in no way middle class or privileged. But thanks for that ridiculously (incorrect) judgemental tone

My colleague worked for Premier Inn in a hotel between two towns on a A road. She has found poo smeared everywhere- curtains, ceiling, bedding, kettle etc. Why would anyone stoop that low to do something like that?

@downbutnotouttake969

"The ruling classes that I want to be a part of"
😂😂😂😂

What are you harping on about?! 😂

Seriously, you know fuck all about me

Hilarious the lengths people will go to, to literally invent a whole narrative about a person online. All I've shared about myself is that I have a 17 year old daughter with a part time job in a bakery, who is exposed to drug use / paraphernalia and shoplifting during her shifts and that it surprised me that Greggs don't bother notifying the police about these things. And now I'm "middle class" and "privileged" and striving to be a part of the "higher classes" or whatever 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Fucking hell. If that poster could seen by background they'd cringe at calling me middle class and privileged.

Oh and I happened to mention that we live on a different side of the city to the high crime area, because... well, why wouldn't you choose the safer area, if you had that choice??? Anyone would surely!? 😂

Anyone who has/works for a DIY store with bathroom suite displays has had the joy of cleaning out someone’s poo from one of the displays’ toilets!

You got to have something wrong with you if you do a shit where you have no control over who walks past in the time it takes to empty your bowels.

We sold potties and a mother decided to let her DD use it and left the contents in potty on the shelf. Yet the toilet was ten steps away.

But that would just be circumstantial. Spending a long time in the toilet isn’t going to get someone convicted.

Police definitely won’t come out cos a couple of sandwiches have been nicked.

A lot of Gregs don’t have toilets for this reason. They should have a daily door code like a lot of Starbucks and other places.

It absolutely sucks and I don’t condone or accept it in any way, but there’s so little that can be done about it.

Hi OP have you or anyone you know ever worked in retail or restaurants? I'm afraid it is part and parcel of the stuff you have to deal with. The general public can be a absolutely gross at times and that goes from homeless drug users to supposedly responsible parents who allow their kids to do the most outrageous things and expect others to clear up their mess. The drug users accessing the toilets will be well known to the police and emergency services. They should put a lock on the door but then they'll pester people like your daughter to open it up. For balance, I worked at a gym that had sharps bins in the toilets. Although it sounds horrendous, it was better than us as employees having to empty bins with needles from steroid using members who then go on to take selfies of themselves with their tops off and upload to their 'influencer' Society is going to hell 🤣😵

They'd be better off putting a sharps bin in the toilets so staff don't come into contact with the needles but I guess its not a good look. Really the drug users should be disposing of their own sharps in the container they are given with their needles but it's not the job of a Greggs employee to enforce that!

Friends here took over a pub/BnB just down the road from me, about as rural as you get in NI. Spent a fortune doing the rooms up. First weekend let - the occupants smeared shit literally everywhere as well as trashing the room - ripping the bedding up, pulling the curtain tracks off the walls soaking the carpet etc

They sold up because of the trauma of it

This is not an uncommon policy. My DD used to work at Aldi & they aren't allowed to challenge shoplifters & the police aren't interested

The police aren’t going to come everytime a syringe is left in the toilets somewhere, it won’t just be Greggs toilets that they use it will be multiple places around the town, do you really think the police have enough resources to go around and collect all the used needles every day 🙄. It’s not ideal but it sounds like Greggs has a policy in place and staff who have had training to deal with it. It
doesn’t sound like your daughter is being asked to deal with it yet so I wouldn’t worry about it.
if you’re not happy about it you need to find her another job that’s not in the town centre (or doesn’t have public toilets).

Sadly op it is like this in many retail cafe jobs. I have worked in a few and it was just part of my job. Sad and you are not paid enough for what you have to deal with. I used to work in the health service, and this stuff was a reason many people are keen on injecting rooms, to contain all the used syringes and active drug using to try reduce it from happening in random public toilets and on the street. It is awful having to clean it up without a doubt.

I've had someone come at me before with a used needle. I wasn't even the one who challenged the preceding behaviour. I would encourage your daughter to find work elsewhere.

@Dacadactyl omg I never knew that. I wondered why our local Asda had weird purple lighting thought it was a money saving thing.

They used to do this in my local sainsburys toilets. Not sure if it still happens as sainsburys is too expensive for me to shop at now!

On a purely selfish note I would be encouraging her to look for a job elsewhere in the nicer part of town. One of the best things you can teach her is she doesn’t have to put up with working in crappy environments and that there are always other options. Encourage her to start applying elsewhere. It’s great she has a job, this will do until she can find a better one.

Many years ago I worked in environmental health and I was always shocked at needle debris etc. left in children's playgrounds and the calls to clean it up and this was in an very affluent area. As for what people did / do in public toilets, you really don't want to know and behaviour certainly seems more brazen now!

OP, of course, your daughter should not have to be picking up used needles at work. She is on minimum wage and not trained for this.

But it's really up to you (and her) what, if anything, you want to do about this. Many people would simply accept it due to it being a rough area, or leave and find work elsewhere. But that doesn't hold Greggs/ the police accountable.

If you want to put in a complaint (and I really think you should, because if people don't speak up then nothing will change) then check out the Health & Safety at Work Act to support you. If she has been explicitly asked to handle used needles then the manager is 100% in breach of this.

https://www.hse.gov.uk/legislation/hswa.htm

Well said op. It’s not a mark of being middle class or ‘privileged’ to object to dealing with scum of the earth and their selfish scummy behaviour. And yes, it’s inevitably a result of trauma - but why should that mean it’s down to low paid, zero power public facing workers to deal with the shit on a daily basis?

I doubt the law has changed. Theft is theft

As a matter of policy / priorities, police and prosecutors may have decided to focus on crimes over £200. They have to make difficult decisions, due to limited budgets / staff

Also just to add to my above post - I agree with @Screamingabdabz that asking to see their risk assessment would be a perfectly reasonable starting point.

If they are expecting employees to handle used needles then they should have been trained properly to do this, and if this is the case, it will be on the risk assessment that only trained employees handle/ dispose of needles.

My suspicion is that there either isn't a risk assessment or it will be very basic and there will be no proper staff training.

Then you can quote the health & safety at work act and threaten to prosecute/ sue them if they don't sort it out. At the very minimum they need to put a coded lock on the bathroom door and do a proper risk assessment.

There’s a reason why our hospital has blue lights in its ground floor toilets!!!

and a reason why staff don’t use them!!!