Wow! The joys of working in the kinds of stores that parents think are entertainment for little billy and co. Ohhh, do I EVER feel your pain!

I worked in a Toy store for 5 years - i completely understand. And often, its these kids being little s**ts because the parents are just plain fools! Kids throwing things, tantrums, destroyed packaging, climbing on shelves, you name it! Unfortunately, it comes back to bad parenting. I'd like to blame the kids, but its usually the way they were raised.

Here are 2 of my favourite bad-parent stories from the Toy Store ...

A customer came up to me and asked "Oh, do you see that woman over there" (pointing to a lady rapidly dragging her little kid from the store).
I'm like: "Yeah, what about her?"
Customer: "She just took a bin of plastic animals off the shelf and let the kid pee in them"
Me: *dumbfounded* What?!
... I go over to look, and sure enough .... pee in the bin of animals. Straight to the back room, and straight to the garbage. We had a bathroom, if she'd been desperate - ask - but to do that? What kind of parenting is that

My get-back-at-bad-parent story: We had parents that thought we were a free daycare -- drop off the kids while they go to Sears and the rest of the mall for a couple of hours. I'd -often- run across 3-4 year olds alone in the store, and more often than not they'd be sitting quietly playing with stuff, but still. I had a good working relationship with the security people, so i'd give them a call and have one come to the store.
We'd ask little billy "Hey kiddo, you want the super-cool special behind the scenes trip in the mall?" (i.e the trip to the security office), and he'd take the kid off.

A while later the parent would come to the store, walk around, walk around again more frantically and finally ask me "Have you seen a little boy/girl of description whatever?". "Sure" I'd say, "They left here with a guy in a suit" (meaning security) -- they'd run frantically to the info kiosk to report a missing kid(almost right outside our store), where security would come with the kid and SCREAM at the in front of the whole mall about child abandonment and responsibilitly. Mean? Sure. But hopefully it teaches them a little responsibility and not leaving a 3 year old unattended in public!


Unfortunately, working in a toy store for 5 years (plus working Chrismas rush!) has completely ruined any desire I had left to have kids of my own!