The CVS inhaler article reminds me of a time we had an employee near death at Target

[TwixVoy]

It's very interesting how people in the retail business don't seem to have any common sense or ethics. The CVS news article about the inhaler reminded me of a situation we had when I was a manager at Target.

I was upfront at the check out lanes when a team member (employee - one who had earlier asked to go home due to feeling ill and was denied) was walking through the checkout lanes and collapsed in the middle of them. Suffice to say she was rapidly deteriorating and was near death making sounds I never even knew humans could make.

I immediately got on the phone with 911 and was put on HOLD due to high call volume. (welcome to the south) While I was on hold with 911 I a series of events transpired which made me lose all faith in humanity.

Prior to this team member collapsing I had gotten on a checkout lane to help with an excessive number of "guests" (customers) that needed to check out. I had been in the middle of a transaction when this situation occurred. The moment I saw this team member collapse I told the "guest" I was checking out I had to go call 911.

WHILE I WAS ON THE PHONE WITH 911 I felt someone tap my shoulder. It was the person I was checking out. She wanted me to get off the phone with 911 to finish checking her out, even though a person was on the ground near death just a few feet away from us. I turned my back to her and focused on the call. I imagine she walked off because I never saw her again.

After this people just walked over the team member that was on the ground as if she wasn't even there.

So realizing that 911 was going to be a little while I got on the walkie and called our pharmacist. (being the only person on staff with ANY kind of medical knowledge that I could think of) He came to the checkout lanes and refused to help. Just stood there watching.

Then I got on the walkie and asked the operator (the person who handles the phones/intercom at a Target store) to get on the intercom and ask if there were any doctors/nurses in the building if they could come up front.

Fortunately our store was located literally 5 minutes away from a major hospital and a doctor WAS in the store. He came up and rendered aid. 15 minutes later an ambulance showed up. After she was taken away the doctor told me had he not been there she very likely would have died prior to the ambulance arriving.

Oh and what was the end result for me? I was written up. Seems our store manager (who was in the building at the time and couldn't bother to get her fat ass up front to even try to help during the entire ordeal) felt that the announcement I asked the operator to make "disrupted the guest experience" at the store and "made guests worry they could be in danger thus stopping them from shopping".

I often believe that 80+% of the population is sociopathic. That day sealed the deal on that belief for me.