Archived Will I be fired...

[CartBoy321]

for bumping into a guest with a row of carts? I've been a cart attendant at my store for over 3 years and have always been safe and courteous to guests. Never once have I put anyone in harm or caused any sort of incident. However, today as I was bringing in a row of carts I injured a man when I didn't see him standing in front of my row at the start of the cart area. At first it just looked like I startled him and inconvenienced him, so I waved and said sorry and carried on about my day. But then 15 minutes later the LOD confronts me outside and asks me if I injured a guest with the cart machine, to which I replied with surprise, seeing as I didn't realize it actually hurt him. Apparently it left a little bruise on the man's ankle, but no serious or remotely life threatening injury was sustained. According to my boss and others that he talked to, the guest seemed relatively down to earth and was more annoyed than angry....so I don't think he will pursue legal action or anything on that level. I'm just wondering if this is something that would be grounds for automatic dismissal or if I'm in the clear since it was an obvious accident that wasn't entirely my fault (we went back and looked at the tape and the guy had plenty of time to get out of the way but he just stood there completely oblivious)

 

[redeye58]

ETLs have to fill out a report whenever there is a guest injury & they HATE doing it.
It goes against the store's safety metric (X days without a guest/TM incident) & there's always a fear of legal action.
Most likely you'll only get coached, if even that.

 

[Kartman]

Hang yourself tonight.

Orrrr, don't worry about.

Me, I'd opt for the latter...

 

[CashierTM]

I know that Cart Attendants should watch out for Guests, but it's very obvious to spot a Cart Attendant coming right towards you with a bunch of carts...I don't know the answer to your question, but if you didn't get in trouble already...then I don't think so.

 

[Barcode]

Really as a CA you should be extra careful... You can't really use the "They should have seen me" excuse.. I never ran any carts into any guests in my entire time, I did witness a new CA do it though.... Luckily he ran the carts into some younger guy who didn't seem to care too much.

You might get chewed out a bit, probably not fired unless you were doing something very unsafe.

 

[Stubio]

Nothing should happen if the guest didn't care that much, an injury report makes the store look bad which makes the management angry though.
If you worked there for 3 years you should know by now if you are safe or not.

 

[CartBoy321]

How would I know? I've never seen a case of a team member inadvertently injuring a customer. But my store is pretty damn lenient when it comes to firing people though. There is a guy that has been known to sell drugs out of his car in our parking lot and he still works there haha.

 

[NitroKing2110]

Every store is different. At my store, you would not get fired. You would get coached and/or put on CCA but because the injury was relatively minor, probably just coached. Everyone makes mistakes, just be glad it didn't end up worse. If it becomes a pattern then that becomes a risk. The only cart attendant I've seen fired was one who hit a guest (CCA), hit another guests car two weeks later (Final) and hit yet another car a few weeks after (Term).

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

Learn from it. If you think you might hit a guest, report the event to your gsa or Gstl. By telling them, will give them heads up if anything is reported by the guest.

 

[thetargetman]

You're probably going to be fine. worst case scenario will be you getting coached but I don't think you will even be getting that. just learn from it and move on.

 

[indigo25]

At my store one of the cart attendants told me when he was interviewed that if he ever hit a car or guest he would be immediately termed. All stores are different though and if the guy ends up being okay I would think it would just be a coaching.