Omg

The chilling moment that you're at work with one other girl, a client shows up off his face with 4 other huge guys. Intimidated. Would like them to leave. Panic button anyone?

what kind of work do you do? Sounds scary. Call the business owner/manager to come in and sort it out if it gets ugly?

They're gone. Job Services.

He had his payments cut off from c/link.

oh man. I bet you have to deal with that kind of crap all the time hey? sad glad they're gone.

yep! Just occasionally it gets intimidating. I sometimes wish that the company would hire a man or two, as much as i hate to say it, when a man is around a client is less likely to get aggressive.

We get that all the time... I just smile and be really friendly and they fall in love. lol

However by that point I've already made the phone calls to ask other people to come for a bit of backup. smile

Do you have a code word?

We don't, however the other day i found out that calling the girls upstairs and asking for a 'red pen' means "come down stairs, there's a cute guy you need to check out!"

no we dont. But we have an emergency bell on the wall and one on the keys in our pocket if we need.

I like the red pen idea!! lol

I used to work in retail and oh my, there were some scary people. I had one guy lean over the counter and scream at me, almost nose to nose. Another woman threw her money at me. It really makes it hard to just do your job if you're left a shaking mess after a nasty incident.

We did have a code word for potential shop lifter but only a few of the staff actually remembered it, so if you paged say "Ethel to aisle three" the manager would get pissy because he thinks you're stuffing around on the intercom <img src='http://www.huggies.com.au/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/dry.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='<_<' />

So scary. My mum is in the same line of work and has to deal with some really crazy people sometimes.

yep! Just occasionally it gets intimidating. I sometimes wish that the company would hire a man or two, as much as i hate to say it, when a man is around a client is less likely to get aggressive.

I would think not having any males present at any given time in such a job could be a legitimate OH&S concern? The fact is, if you have concerns for your safety they should be addressed. One place I worked used to consistently have women-only staff in positions of authority and as the predominate workers under them for night shifts. I couldn't tell you how many times we had abusive customers that were, more often than not, under the influence of either drugs or alcohol. It took over a year and a couple of incidents to get a security guard employed, but by that time I'd stopped working there.