Snowpocolypse 2010 Pt. 1

Well, work has been interesting over the last few days.

I wasn't there from Friday around 5PM till today (Monday) at noon, but interesting stuff happened between now and then. To start things off, Snowpocolypse 2010 Part 1 shut the whole mall down on Saturday. Talking with my boss, they left a message on the mall office phone line to tell everyone. Schools get broadcast over every airwave. Malls get a phoned in recording that may decide to not take your call.

This is par for the course for Granite run Mall. I know when I first started working there, there was a huge snowstorm one morning. I even was taking the bus into work. All public transit was so delayed that the bus I got on 20 minutes after I thought I missed it, was actually the one before my usual bus. I was dropped off at Springfield Mall's parking lot, to await my actual bus. It came careening towards me, fish-tailing through the snowy goodness. It was an exciting trip. It took the mall a few hours to close.

See, for Granite Run Mall to close, and probably many other malls, it takes the anchors to close. For Granite Run, there are 3 anchors, so 2 need to close. Sears is always the holdout. JC Penny or Boscov's usually break first. For Saturday there was an unprecedented prior closing before anyone was actually there.

But, that isn't where the fun stops. Not only did we lose sales for Saturday, but Sunday was hit as well.

After only being open for about an hour or so, an alert was passed through the mall for evacuation. I say passed because the mall doesn't make any announcement over a public address system or anything. Some one hands to go to each store and tell the to leave. For Sunday, there was a reported carbon monoxide leak in JC Penny. It was spreading through the mall, and apparently people were getting sick. The mall closed for the rest of the day. So, there goes the entire weekend's sales.

The mall was already open for two hours when I showed up at noon on Monday. Shortly after starting work, I received a phone call. My brother's girlfriend's father... let's just shorten that to my roommate's father works for Sears and listens to the emergency response calls in the area. He overheard something about there being another leak of carbon monoxide at the mall today. This was at noon, there wasn't an actual evacuation until 2PM.

I knew it was coming. I warned the boss. Close to 2, I could see people funnel out of the mall. No one came to say anything to us until after I noticed many other stores, including Sears, already closed. Granite Run Mall's management is completely inept and has no real proper response to an emergency. I sat in my car for a couple minutes until the initial wave of panic and anger passed through the crowd. Then, I went home. My boss stayed for a bit to try and get answers. He didn't get any, despite the futile anger towards the firefighter who was just doing his job.

I sat at home, greeting my brother as he showed up at 4PM. I didn't know if I was actually going back to work. I typically close on Mondays. After a phone call to his girlfriend's father, my brother told me that the mall opened an hour ago. So, I went back to work. I even beat my boss there, who only lives 5 minutes away. I then worked the remainder of my hours, only losing 3. I didn't walk through the mall, but people were telling me that nearly 30 stores/kiosks didn't open when the mall reopened. It also didn't help matters that the mall left it's doors open to ventilate the place. It was positively frigid in the later hours.

The store didn't do too bad for a single day, even being closed for 3 hours. It just didn't do well for 3 days including a weekend. The problem that rises is that there is another storm coming, and a repeat could be in the cards.

On comes Snowpocolypse 2010 Part 2.

If we are closed Wednesday, which is highly likely, I will lose another 13 hours in one shot. This will not be fun.