To not clean the wee up?

[lostintheour]

I work in a medium sized supermarket (4 tills) and we have no customer toilets - staff ones which are cleaned by cleaners not shop staff.

Today a child wet themselves in one of the aisles. My manager told me to clean it up with paper towels and I refused. It’s not part of my job description and I’m not cleaning up human waste - even if it’s a child’s.

To be honest the parents walking away and not offering to help was lazy and gross in itself but regardless aibu?

To be honest the parents walking away and not offering to help was lazy and gross

This is what @lostintheour observed: that the parents just walked away. Gross & dirty behaviour on the part of the parents.

I've never had to clean up my child's wee from the floor in a public place, but anyway it's completely different when it's a strangers, weird comment.

I used to work in a mid sized supermarket that didn’t have any cleaners on shift during opening hours. Wee is sterile. Anti bac spray, paper towels, wet floor sign - done, easy peasy. Kids have accidents, yes parents should have offered to help but you wouldn’t actually take them up on the offer. Besides it’s way less gross than when I was carrying a Christmas turkey and the bag had a hole and I got covered in bloody raw poultry juices, or when customers would bring back rancid meat asking for refunds when they probably just forgot to put it in the fridge, or when the fish counter didn’t seal the bag properly and a whole trout accidentally landed in my lap whilst I was scanning it, spilt alcohol when you’re hungover on a Sunday morning… etc. etc.

I worked in retail as a teen and I remember there was a protocol for cleaning bodily fluids including yellow sign, sand and gloves. Only the manager was 'allowed' (lucky them😂) to do it. I certainly wouldn't have, especially not for minimum wage.

I honestly think cleaning up child's pee would be quicker, safer and less unpleasant than, say, a bottle of booze that smashed on the floor.

In what way?

No glass in it for a start.

Can’t you just sweep glass up?

Child pee doesn't really smell. No broken glass mixed in. Less of it.

This is interesting.

So who cleans the human waste then?

As for this thread, I'd have covered and put a "wet floor" sign out. Surely the last thing you want is someone slipping over in it and suing the company 😮

I'm finding the mental image of an army of highly trained piss cleaners most amusing. Who knew such a thing existed.

I've been an NHS nurse for nearly 25 years and never been signed off on that competency or been offered training. But I work in primary care so perhaps we are a little more rough and ready.

It was incredibly bad mannered of the child's parent. But it all feels a bit jobs worth and childish refusing to clean it up. I think the first employee on the scene should just deal with it. It doesn't need a whole team!

Amazed by the responses here - the parent should have cleaned it up and it's disgusting of them that they didn't,

In that situation I would have asked staff for some cleaning stuff and cleaned it up. Same if my child had vomited. Same as I clean up after my dog.

People are disgusting and entitled, I would also refuse OP.

I project lead children activities and on the very rare occasion there has been an accident I have put on rubber gloves, soaked up the wee with paper towels, sprayed the affected area with 3% hydrogen peroxide and wiped with another paper towel. It took all of three minutes, no special tools needed (would have used detol or another disinfectant if the hydrogen peroxide was not available) and no special training was needed. I wouldn’t have used a mop because that would need to be cleaned and sanitised after use. As I parent I would have offered to clean up but as an employee, I could control that it was done to satisfactory level by doing it myself.

Being ordered to would of probably rubbed me up the wrong way but anyone would think that the OP was ordered to clean up nuclear waste FFS!

I remember wetting the bed as a young teen at a friend’s sleepover, my friend’s mum caught me cleaning up and I was mortified. My friend’s mum took over the clean up, provided a cover story for why I had changed in to one of her old t-shirts and reassured me that these things happen (she said as a mum she had cleaned up much worse). I am now 52 and still get teary eyed at her kindness.

This
No one needs training to clean up a child’s piss lol
Common sense and less of the snowflake attitude.
Yes parents should perhaps have offered but as they didn’t it’s down to OP to deal with it to keep the environment safe.

I once worked in a bookies where a customer had an accident and there was poo all over the carpet. We had to close the shop and a specialist cleaning crew were sent down to clean the shop. No way were the staff going to clean that

Yes, they should have offered.

I have name changed for this, as I'm hoping this hasn't happened to anyone else.
I worked in a post office. A customer came in a vomited their methadone (green shit) into my tray, you know where you pass money/small parcels through.
I absolutely wasn't cleaning that up.
The post office was within a shop, the shop had cleaners (we were all one company) and the cleaner did a fantastic job.
The smell was vile 🤢
The customer couldn't give a shit.
More concerned whether she'd get more methadone from the pharmacy.
I don't want a job cleaning up others bodily fluids thanks.
OP I don't think you're being unreasonable.

Cleaning up after your own children is a bit different from cleaning up the piss of some complete strangers children.

Guess it depends on your start point. I’ve been in healthcare most my life.
But it’d be nice to move away from natural things being ‘gross’

I was a nurse ,vomit didn't bother me but phelgm🤮

Exactly, this is what gloves are for.

1. Sorry you've never had proper training in this - that really isn't acceptable.
2. You realise the standards of hygiene (and the risk of said bodily fluids being SIGNIFICANTLY more of a risk of health due to the types of illnesses people tend to be hospitalised with) are totally different between schools and hospitals?

You want to count yourself lucky it was only wee. When I worked in a shop a lady had diarrhoea and my store manager and I had to clean it up from the lift, the shop floor where she walked to the toilet & then the toilet itself. I didn't question having to clean it up and my manager helped me because she would never ask someone to do a job she wouldn't do herself. All our contracts included keeping the store clean as required doesn't matter what it was we had to clean up.

I wouldn’t mind cleaning up a bit of a child’s piddle but the manager had a cheek telling you to do it. Obviously above him/her but not you. Typical!
Who cleaned it up in the end?

It's natural to find some natural things gross, it's part of the survival strategy - we have a natural aversion to shit and vomit because it can be infectious.