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Thanksgiving Thanks

Postby Rebecca Iavelli » Fri Nov 24, 2017 10:04 pm

I work in a floral department at a Whole Foods Market, and Thanksgiving starts off the beginning of some major holidays that want lots of flowers. Our hours change from our regular hours to be able to put in the extra time to prep and make flower arrangements.

The day before Thanksgiving, I had an early shift, needing to be there by 6am, and since I live an hour away from work, it means getting up at least by 4:30am to leave the house at least by 5am. I actually woke up earlier than the alarm going off that morning, so got up and got to work by 5:30am.

Was a regular kind of day for me, other than extra prepping work, and it moved along pretty fast, and soon it was 3pm, and I was only scheduled til 3:30, so needing to clean up all the boxes to take to the crusher, I grabbed an empty U-boat, a large cart that is U shaped, but this one was actually L shaped, as it only had one upper side attached. I took the boxes to the cargo elevator, which had finally been fixed the day before, and got rid of them, and then headed back down to the produce prep room where I had been cutting the flowers, to pack up my cutting board and supplies, and also return the U-boat back to its parking spot.

As I crossed the produce prep room, pulling the U-boat behind me, I was halfway across, when suddenly a loud crash behind me made me jump. I thought the U-boat had caught on one of the vegetable racks and pulled off a tray or two, from the sound. I turned around and saw the actual reason for the crash, was that some of the roof of the produce room had fallen down, and had just barely missed me. It was a low hanging roof, probably 7 feet at best, covering up the pipes and other wiring behind it. At least 3 pannels had fallen out, and more were hanging, looking ready to fall, along with a light fixture and speaker.

One of the guys in produce came in the room when he heard the sound, since he was in the next room over. He asked me if I was ok, and other than a fast racing heart, and some dust on my clothing, I was. He then paged for the Supervisor and we blocked off both entrances to the room. I went back upstairs to my department and informed the girls there of what just happened, and then went back down to talk to the supervisor. During the time I had been gone, the speaker had fallen on the floor, disconnected from it's wiring, and the light fixture was hanging lower. They finish blocking off the area with the yellow warning tape, and tried to get the lights out of the light fixture, but were having problems with that.

The produce boss was in the room, and I let him and the supervisor know what had happened; one of the produce guys took pictures for records of the damage, and then I decided it was time to head home, while I was still in one piece. I had had enough for the day. I figured bringing down the house was more than what was expected of me for the days work, and left for the day. It will be interesting to see how long it will take to get the roof fixed, as I don't know if they could get anyone on Thanksgiving, and today was the first day back, but it was my day off, so I have to wait til tomorrow.
Think! - Its not Illegal yet.
Rebecca Iavelli
 
Posts: 1160
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2010 6:15 pm
Location: Massachusetts

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