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?

My sister is too and has done the same.
She doesn't like doing it.
Other people's vomit makes her gag and want to vomit herself but needs must so she cleans it up and minimises it for the distressed child.

Yes some of the language is very unpleasant.

I get it OP, I'd have been horrified at something like this before I was a mum and dealing with piss became the least horrific bodily fluid (give me piss or even shit over bogies or vomit any day) and ideally the parents would offer to clean it. Otherwise someone needs to do it and in a shop the size you described surely there would be one staff member who wouldn't have a problem with it, rather than instructing one person.

I used to work at a soft play as a teen and had to clean up kids vomit quite frequently. I don’t think I had a job description but we only had a cleaner at the end of each day so one of us had to do it. Do you have cleaners in your work? If yes then it would be their job. If no, then what else would happen if one of the staff didn’t clean it?

I do think the parents should have offered to help clean it. I would have been mortified and asked for some spray and blue roll to clean it

Hospital cleaner here. Yes the Nurses/HCAs get up the bulk poop/vomit etc and I then sanitise the area etc... however, I've cleaned up all sorts in previous jobs and they're so busy if I can do it for them, then I do. Like a PP said, is phlegm that's the problem 🤢

Also, who is responsible when someone slips in the wet floor left by [Randomer] and sues the shop?

You might have got away with throwing a strip this time OP, but the correct procedure is:

1. Identify this situation as a task that the shop has to handle.
2. define a procedure for dealing with it, including the relevant safety assessments.
3. Communicate that to staff and train the appropriate people correctly.

It’s easy to think you can shove the problem when it is a child having an accident- but what if it is a pregnant woman and her waters breaking, and particularly if you make an elderly cancer patient wipe up their own accident (wee/poo or vomit) you are going to get, villified as a callous bitch, rightly in my view.

The shop is at fault for not having a procedure, but presumably they will now put a procedure in place.

Urine isn’t sterile. It contains bacteria just like any other bodily fluid.

Even if it was sterile in the body, it would instantly cease to be sterile the moment it was expelled.

The ‘urine is sterile’ myth is one of those things I constantly see on Mumsnet that is simply factually untrue.

I've had to clean it while working at Tesco, wee and vomit.
Big clean is in the morning, sometimes "janitors" are on during the day to keep on top of toilets and spillages.
But anything after 4ish in the afternoon was the general store assistants job.

I wasn't happy about it, but like most situations in the workplace, I wanted to keep my job.

How old was this child?

Because mine had loads of accidents and really never dripped onto floor always just soaked up in their clothes or possibly chair if they were sitting down. I can't see how it could have gone much on the floor?

It isn't always children. Sometimes adults wet themselves for various reasons. I haven't seen it happen but I am assured it's true. Pregnant women's water break fairly often, I think - just nipping in for a last few bits.

As a parent, I would have cleaned it up myself but as someone who has worked various retail/hospitality jobs, I wouldn't have too much of an issue cleaning up children's wee

My most hated part of pub work was cleaning up vomit and I really struggled with that but a bit of children's wee wouldn't really bother me

I do some shifts at a convenience store and two larger supermarkets at the seaside. I've cleaned up child wee and dog wee, and didn't need asking cos it obviously needed cleaning up ASAP.

We have gloves and cleaning materials available, and it's also a slip hazard if left. I certainly would not expect my bosses to do it and we don't have shop cleaners at the convenience store. The supermarkets don't have cleaners in during the day.

The 'policy' is 'you see it, you sort it'. Or 'boss sees it, you sort it'.

Are you the OP who works in a shop and is always banging on about reasons for hating it? I don't think it's the job for you.

I'm finding it impossible to believe there was no mop and bucket available.

There must have been, or what happens when someone spills something sticky like a jar of sauce?

They're not going to be able to clean that up with paper towels, and the cleaners don't hang around all day on the off-chance there's a spillage 🙄

The didn’t have infection control policy’s/training where you worked? 🫤 I guess you weren’t trained how you wash your hands either (yes, nurses are trained how to wash their hands 😂)

Yes of course! There are always a couple of pages on different sharps containers and colour coded bags which aren't used in non clinical areas 😀

I think you are relating this all back to working in a hospital or other clinical area which is irrelevant to the point. Of course there are tighter procedures that have to be followed there for obvious reasons.

When you work in people's own home or public places you don't have access to colour coded bags, special mops or granules. Like any other person in that position I would grab gloves and an apron and use whatever I can find under the kitchen sink/cleaning cupboard. Then it all goes in the general waste. I certainly haven't been taught special wee cleaning skills. Or access to someone specially 'trained' to do it for me 😂🤷

As for hand washing. Yes I was trained. But then so has everyone else. Shop workers included. Don't think you could avoid hand wash training over the last few years! 😅

I certainly haven't been taught special wee cleaning skills.

Tell that to the cleaners. They won’t touch bodily fluids hence nurses having to do it.

tbf urine is only sterile if there is no blood in it. Urine isn’t meant to have blood in it of course but if could happen if someone is unwell (as in people admitted to hospital)

I think you are relating this all back to working in a hospital or other clinical area which is irrelevant to the point
yes but that’s where the trained wee cleaners are. No-one said they worked in shops. I mean there’s still an infection risk if you clean up bodily fluids in a shop but in a hospital you run the risk of infecting patients hence the OTT seeming infection control measures 😅

Hmm, my DD has had an accident in a public place a couple of times and I didn't offer to clean it myself. I mean in that moment I need to find a toilet or somewhere I can take her and get her cleaned and changed. I can't just stay and clean up the spill first? Besides which how would I supervise my toddler adequately while doing it? She'd just run off and it would cause even more problems.

No it is not!

One of many reasons i choose not to have any children.

How much wee could there possibly have been on the floor anyway. Child (with child size bladder) wets themselves, a fair bit would be soaked up by the childs clothes. Get over yourself and get a paper roll or some toilet paper, stick your hand inside a bag if no gloves are available and wipe it up.

No such protocols in many places unfortunately. In a school it's often the teacher or TA who cleans up vomit. I've never had any training, nor have I found those 'body spill granules' places like schools have any use so I put on gloves and scoop it into the bin. I'm pretty sure it's not in my contract but there's literally no one else on site (cleaner, janitor etc) to do it. I've also cleaned up urine and poo whilst working in retail. You just have to get on with it I think.

For God's sake.
I would have cleaned up after my child if this happened in a supermarket, but a small child wetting themselves is not because the parents can't control the child. Very common for small children to have accidents from time to time.

And this is one of today's problems. Too many people say 'not my job'.

If it needs doing, just get it done 🤷‍♀️

To be honest, if it were me, I'd be telling the parents to clean it up. If you break a vase, you pay. If you open a pack of biscuits, you pay.

I'd be marching them to the cleaning products, tissues etc and say you have caused damage, you pay to clean it up yourselves if you don't have the tissues on you.

Marching customers about lol.