Archived lost child

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evilSF

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Okay....so every day I work, I show up super early. When I'm fitting room, I like to check it out, prepare myself and get in target mode. Today, I did my usual thing and then spotted a little one, close to a year old, by himself. So I tell the girls to ask the people around if they lost a child......nope.

So I bring him to the front, and tell the others to walkie an LOD. Luckily we found his mother after a good ten minutes of searching. I'm just so glad a weirdo didn't snatch him and leave. I couldn't imagine missing a child, that couldn't even talk.

So chalk that up to my most surprising moment so far at target.
 
I hate when parents don't keep an eye out for there children. Also, when the child is completely hanging off a cart. It's like helllloooo anyone in there!
 
I had parents that walked out of Target and went into the Books A Million at the other end of the shopping center without their child.
 
Had a toddler come around behind the counter as I was finishing up a drink.
I ushered him out quickly, looking around for a parent but didn't see anyone come forward.
This generation of parents is scaring me because they're so absorbed in their iPhones that they don't notice what their kids are doing or where they've gone.
 
Our store has had so many code yellows this year, that we're thinking about setting up a child care drop off next to the fitting room.
 
Thank you for not calling a code yellow on that. There's nothing more annoying than a TM calling a code yellow only to find out that they have the kid, and it's the parent they are looking for...and then having to explain that it isn't a code yellow if you have the kid.
 
Once we had someone call out for missing child...the "kid" was eighteen. :rolleyes:
 
I have a few parent horror stories but this one i remember vividly besides my highway story. I had a parent come back into the store bc she had an extra kid. Apparently a little girl jumped in her family cart and managed to make it to the lady's car before this other parent realized she had 3 girls and not 2 and her family was native and the tiny hijacker was white.... yeah pretty noticeable. Anyhoo, when I did find the lost parent, they just looked at me as though *i* disrupted their shopping and just told the little girl to sit on the floor .... I'll never forget her name.
 
A team member was actually going to call a code yellow. I stopped her and explained why we don't do that.

It really is amazing how many lost kids you find; but this one was so young, it blew my mind.
 
I was off one day waiting for my coworker and this little girl was lost. She was almost in tears. As I was walking her to GS she was tightly gripping my hand and it reminded me of when I got lost in a store. Probably the most horrific thing ever to a small child. Of course her mom was yapping away to a friend like two registers away from the little girl. She didn't seem to care or notice that her daughter was gone.
 
My 2 year old stays within round-house kick length away. I'd die if I had to go looking for him. We had one kid hide behind boxes in Toys once, literally tried to hide from everyone.
 
Im still pretty new.. so dont call code yellow when you find a lost child? Only call it when the child is lost an cant be found?
 
Mattster said:
Im still pretty new.. so dont call code yellow when you find a lost child? Only call it when the child is lost an cant be found?
Click to expand...


Right, if you have the child and you are looking for the parent you don't call the code.
If you call the code everyone is going to be dropping what they are doing and hitting the aisles looking for a kid.
Usually hooking a parent up with kid is whole lot different.
 
Code yellow means man the doors and drop everything to find that kid before a psycho walks out with them. If you have the kid, there isn't quite the emergency, since the parents aren't likely to be abducted.

And while it's correct that only the LODs can cancel a code yellow, they'll generally let us cancel them at my store if you were the one to call it out. Though sometimes the LOD will cancel it early before the parent actually sees their kid...because someone will have claimed to have found the kid. That just irritates the crap out of me. The parent really should confirm that we grabbed the right kid and that we did not, in fact, just create a second code yellow.
 
Retail Girl said:
Thank you for not calling a code yellow on that. There's nothing more annoying than a TM calling a code yellow only to find out that they have the kid, and it's the parent they are looking for...and then having to explain that it isn't a code yellow if you have the kid.
Click to expand...

That's not a Code Yellow, it's a Code Wolley. :D

If the child is old enough to be able to tell you his/her parent's name, then I believe the proper protocol is to walk the child up to the front of the store and page the parent to the service desk "where your party is waiting." For such a young child, though, I'd have no idea what to do.
 
For a young child, the very first thing you do is keep them calm. If they are already calm, don't give them any reason to worry. If they are upset, talk with them a bit to build a small relationship and find out what you can. Tell them you are going to make sure they find mom/dad/whoever will claim them. Then contact the LOD right away. I usually tell them I have a new friend who is looking for his/her parents, and I need their assistance.

If it's a little one, you may need to stay with them until the rightful owner is found. I've seen them latch on to the first one who they find, and they will put all their trust in that one person until they find their party. So try to avoid passing them off to someone else unless it is absolutely necessary, or the kiddo seems okay with it.
 
One of our older SD cashiers used to be the 'resident Grandma' in these cases.
She kept a drawer full of colorful giftcards, qmosed candy & other kid treasure.
She would perch a crying child on a stool nearby & have them chatting non-stop by the time the parents showed up.
 
Ha, I said that to my ETL-GE the other day. I said reverse code yellow then I was like WAIT! No it's a code Wolley! She laughed at that one. But please don't call out code Wolley... strictly joking.
 
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