A little shaken

SoupyNorman · 13-10-2006 12:54am #1

Got held up in work tonight, was working on my own and the shop is in an isolated part of town. Was in the store room and came out only to be greeted to a big ass knife. Emptied the till only too gladly (not my money) as it kept him calm and twas all over in about 40secs.

I'm abit shaken now but its more the thought of what could of happened that scares me more, anyway does anyone know what if any responsibilities the shop has towards me i.e. paid leave etc. I'm not one to look for a free buck but I want them to admit that there should be two people on at all time during the evening shifts at the very least.

P.S work in a video store so open till 12, happened 11pm approx.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Move if necessary MOds.

DaBreno · 13-10-2006 12:57am

Sorry to hear that lad, glad you got out ok. Best of luck.

drdre · 13-10-2006 12:57am

you are very brave, its good you kept calm and just handed over the money.as most places are insured for such a thing so the owners donot really care.saftey is 1st and money is 2nd.

ball ox · 13-10-2006 12:59am

bravestarr082 wrote:

Got held up in work tonight, was working on my own and the shop is in an isolated part of town. Was in the store room and came out only to be greeted to a big ass knife. Emptied the till only too gladly (not my money) as it kept him calm and twas all over in about 40secs.

I'm abit shaken now but its more the thought of what could of happened that scares me more, anyway does anyone know what if any responsibilities the shop has towards me i.e. paid leave etc. I'm not one to look for a free buck but I want them to admit that there should be two people on at all time during the evening shifts at the very least.

P.S work in a video store so open till 12, happened 11pm approx.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Move if necessary MOds.

well, if you work in same company I do in the same isolated part of town that im thinking of, which has been robbed several times, you most certainly should not have been on your own closing up. You will probably get a bunch of flowers and a few days off.

luckat · 13-10-2006 1:05am

Try and find a job somewhere else. Robbers get proprietary about places they rob, and are more likely to try to rob the same place or one nearby again, rather than trying somewhere new.

abetarrush · 13-10-2006 1:14am

luckat wrote:

Try and find a job somewhere else. Robbers get proprietary about places they rob, and are more likely to try to rob the same place or one nearby again, rather than trying somewhere new.

yeah, so stay der

n when he comes back, b like thats not a knife!.....

SoupyNorman · 13-10-2006 1:20am

abetarrush wrote:

yeah, so stay der

n when he comes back, b like thats not a knife!.....

....thats a spoon, I see you've played knifey-spoony before.

Nah not gonna go as far as leave my job as Its a nice number as in the hours I do fit perfectly into my college hours.

cheers for the caring words everyone..............!

Ruu_Old · 13-10-2006 1:25am

Sorry to hear about it, fair play for staying calm and minding yourself. I know someone in your situation, video store too. It happened to him twice, second time it happened, he was tied up and locked away in one of the back rooms. Thought no one would find him when they found him after a few hours.

SoupyNorman · 13-10-2006 1:32am

Ruu wrote:

Sorry to hear about it, fair play for staying calm and minding yourself. I know someone in your situation, video store too. It happened to him twice, second time it happened, he was tied up and locked away in one of the back rooms. Thought no one would find him when they found him after a few hours.

Yeah, something like that is the most prominant thought I have at the moment or if it was more then one person and wanted to ran-sack the store. Luckily he just wanted a quick cash transaction and thats what he got.

Black Swan · 13-10-2006 1:59am

You did the right thing. The money can be replaced, a life cannot. Regarding your employment rights and benefits, you could talk to your supervisor, and HR if your video company is large and has a centralised department someplace? You might also want to do a similar post over under Biz in the Work and Jobs forum? Someone there might know the answers?

FranknFurter · 13-10-2006 2:14am

Congrats on how you dealt with it. Compliance is always best when it comes to cash robbery.

You'd have to wonder, I'm sure somwhere in their insurance policy it states that they have to take "reasonable precautions" to make sure such an incident does not occur. Having one staff member on nights, in a dodgy part of the city, where there have been incidents before, dosent sound like "reasonable precautions" to me.

Maybe an off the cuff comment about how much of a shame it is because "surely they wouldnt cover ya, ya only had one person on?" might spark a thought

B

Ruu_Old · 13-10-2006 2:20am

bravestarr082 wrote:

Yeah, something like that is the most prominant thought I have at the moment or if it was more then one person and wanted to ran-sack the store. Luckily he just wanted a quick cash transaction and thats what he got.

Oh sorry, didn't mean to put you off there. There is a fairly good chance that he just wanted some quick cash, by all means have a chat with your boss and let him know your concerns. What are your shifts like? Maybe you could switch them if possible, around college to something more in the daytime hours.

turbot · 13-10-2006 9:13am

Get your work to pay for some councilling.... to help you process and deal with the experience. Should do the trick.

zefer · 13-10-2006 9:19am

I get held up twice when I worked in a shop. Once with a knife and once with a sledgehammer and gun! (think it was fake but still very frightnening experience)

Rang the boss after it happened and was told,
"fix the shop up and keep on working" :eek:

So, wouldnt hold your breath about getting time off!

petes · 13-10-2006 9:23am

zefer wrote:

Rang the boss after it happened and was told,
"fix the shop up and keep on working" :eek:

And I presume thats when you handed in your notice?

Nevyn · 13-10-2006 9:46am

Do speak to hr about it, make sure you fill out all the report forms and if the place keeps gett turned over ask why they don't have a security gaurd on for the late nights.

fillmore jive · 13-10-2006 10:41am

the least they can do is give you a few days off. i used to work in a supermarket, and a robbery happened one morning at the main desk. the person who was working at the desk got councilling, and 3 WEEKS PAID LEAVE!

zefer · 13-10-2006 1:22pm

petes wrote:

And I presume thats when you handed in your notice?

I did leave quite soon after that but not for that reason!

But I think everybody that it happens to should be offered counselling and time off. Only fair.

MikeHoncho · 13-10-2006 1:39pm

I had the exact same thing happen to me. Working in a video shop late at night and was held up with a stanley knife. There was feck all in the till as I did drops into a safe I had no key for all night. So aswell as taking the 100 or so quid from the til he robbed me too. He got about 50 euro and my ipod which was worth 400 euro. I didnt get any knid of compensation from the shop not even a day off (After 2 years work). I quit the job a week or so later.

You will feel unhappy and even scared for a while but this does pass. You did the right thing by just giving up whatever was there its not worth the risk of getting hurt.

doctor evil · 13-10-2006 2:58pm

If its the same one Im thinking of that I work at there should definatley have been two!.

spiritboy · 13-10-2006 3:54pm

bravestarr082 wrote:

Got held up in work tonight, was working on my own and the shop is in an isolated part of town. Was in the store room and came out only to be greeted to a big ass knife. Emptied the till only too gladly (not my money) as it kept him calm and twas all over in about 40secs.

I'm abit shaken now but its more the thought of what could of happened that scares me more, anyway does anyone know what if any responsibilities the shop has towards me i.e. paid leave etc. I'm not one to look for a free buck but I want them to admit that there should be two people on at all time during the evening shifts at the very least.

P.S work in a video store so open till 12, happened 11pm approx.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Move if necessary MOds.

do they have CCTV installed? i'm sure they would have to provide you some sort of leave check it out with ENTEMP on www.entemp.ie they may be able to advise you of what entitlements you have.

from a health and safety point of view they also have an obligation to provide a safe environment, so possible security or maybe locked doors where by people need to use a buzzer to get in with a camera facing them so if ya can't see their face they don't get in

SoupyNorman · 13-10-2006 5:17pm

Just got a call from HR, asking how I was and offered some councilling for me. They have also told me to take tonight off work (paid) and I have the option to take more time of if needed but tbh I feel fine.

All I want to see is that
1. the actually giv a sh!t about the staff (check)
2. give the option of taking time off(check)
3. and most important that there be two ppl on at all times.

The Walsho · 13-10-2006 5:19pm

Fair play to ya, hopefully they'll start putting two people on every shift

J.R.HARTLEY · 13-10-2006 5:24pm

bravestarr082 wrote:

Just got a call from HR, asking how I was and offered some councilling for me. They have also told me to take tonight off work (paid) and I have the option to take more time of if needed but tbh I feel fine.

All I want to see is that
1. the actually giv a sh!t about the staff (check)
2. give the option of taking time off(check)
3. and most important that there be two ppl on at all times.

You did the right thing keeping your head in the situation, as for what you want to do re the job use your time off to think about it, would you feel better talking to someone about it, maybe you would or wouldn't depending on your personality, would it be a case of just getting away for a few days to help you feel better , ultimatley it's down to what you feel is best for you, but for now look after numero uno, the shop will still be there when you get back to it.

daiixi · 14-10-2006 1:53pm

You should be able to get paid stress leave until you're ready to go back to work. They should also pay for any counselling that you have. It should be covered under their insurance.

I had the same thing happen to me (well slightly different details but still a damn big knife held to my throat) and I wish I'd taken more time off work (took a week) and had more counselling (one session). It took me a long time to get through it on my own - turned my world upside down. Tbh I still freak out if people get too close behind me or follow me down a street for more than a block.

_blank_ · 15-10-2006 10:54am

I was held up a few years ago, with a gun to the side of my head. Another of the robbers held a knife to a female colleague's throat during the whole thing too. I had to open six tills with the guy holding the handgun at my temple, I was shaking so much, and I let the key fall, then they guy started freaking out.

It was the most frightening experience of my life, I can tell you.

About an hour after someone came from head office and offered a few hugs around the place, I took the next couple of days off, then got flowers delivered to my house.

A little shaken

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