It was a wet summer...
The year was 1999, the month of august - the eclipse year. It was a wet and windy summer and I was on my holiday from university and had returned to my parents .
In my local town of Monmouth there was a shoe store advertising for a sales assistant- I had worked for this company before and thought "Well its money the job is easy why not see if I can get it and earn some money over the summer" - being I had previous experience the job was mine. Until one unfortunate day..

It was raining, raining raining raining raining...

A little description of the property. - shop down stairs, abandoned flat above, next door a kebab shop which had had some recent building work done to its roof.

Sometimes I would in my lunch go for a wander around the abandoned flat and see if there was any thing of interest squirreled away which there never was but I worked in a shoe shop dealing with customers I needed a break and pretending to be Indiana Jones up stairs for 30 mins helped every few days..

Until...

During one such rainy day I decided to pay my haunt a visit I opened the door a a wave of water shot down the stairs, splashing around I went to investigate where this was coming in.
On opening the front room door I noticed that a torrent of rain was streaming down the fire place out on to the floor and through the floor boards.

I went down stairs informed my boss of what I had seen. She went to investigate, while she was up stairs and the shop was full of customers,half of the suspended ceiling in the shop fell through. luckily it landed on no one. You have never seen blind panic from shop assistants and customers such as this. Lightbulbs were exploding, ceiling panels every where hanging off and dropping on all the merchandise. And the water, was thick and black full of soot

Nice

I ran to the back of the shop hit the power causing everything in the shop to go black including tills, got lost in the back of the shop for ten mins trying to find my way out - there were no windows or emergency lighting.I eventually found my way out to the front, my boss was in tears the 2 girl assistants were just standing there, watching the shop dismantle itself in a flood of black water.

We removed all stock the back room, put out huge bins to catch the streams of water coming through the ceiling, called head office told them of the damage and attempted to lock up.

I don't know if people are just stupid but during this commotion a customer walks in and tries to get a refund on some shoes...

Anyway this turned into a 4 week fully paid no work summer.. wooo
It turned out to be that the builders who had worked on the shop next door had blocked up our gutters.

Anyway later that summer I had arranged for some piano lesson from a lady down the road from my parents, it was a rainy day, she had a leak in her roof just near the piano. there I was sitting playing and a massive bit of ceiling board fell on me and the piano. I was under all of this he lady was running around her house screaming and going mad, I did my best to carry on playing...

what was up with that year.....?

there are many other stories of work I have done and stupid stories, such as working in a pub having a lock in and getting raided by the police- the land lord was a drunken Scottish man. We had 4 meat wagons and a helicopter turn up, as a massive fight brawled out onto the street. I was hiding up stairs in a dark room with the tills and the bar girls. As we were not supposed to be open honest guvnor... being they owed me a few hundred in late wages - no tax just cash in hand no till receipts etc...some money went missing that night. the pub closed 2 weeks later...

NIA birmingham - world championship indoor athletics.

That running track used to be stored down stairs where the junkies would shoot up and leave needles everywhere. It bit the bullet when I found a blooded hatchet hidden in the track boards. Health and safety were more concerned about gig going customers who may trip over seat units then us getting the Aids or finding dead bodies down stairs...dicks the lot of them....


The best one ever working as an industrial cleaner on drake circus shopping centre before it opened. Those ride on cleaning buggies are great for a game of tag when you have to whole place at night to yourself and a group of other like minded delinquents ..
( The invisible ham Fig rolls are the best, Tue 15 May 2012, 13:26, Reply)