A "Slow" Day

It's been a busy week both on the work and home fronts, thus the lack of updates. The most notable weekend event:

It was a somewhat slow day (for a weekend, anyway) and plenty of associates were working. My cashier rather curiously paged me to the back of the store. Huh? Where? Why? Assuming she was mistaken or I misheard, I headed to the front to see what she needed. Partway there she saw me and somewhat desperately shouted out, "The back of the store! Don't ask questions! Just go! Hurry!"

Ok......do I want to know what I'm going to find when I arrive at the back of the store?!

The back door was propped open, not unusual since the smokers take advantage of the rare weekend moments slow enough to get off the sales floor. Outside, one of my most trusted employees was being interrogated by a police officer. A police helicopter circled the building. Another policeman/car surveyed the front of the store.

Apparently our alarm system malfunctioned and sent a message that we were being burglarized. Now usually our alarm company will call us first before calling the police. But either they couldn't get through on our always-busy phone lines or they assumed that since it was regular business hours that we must be in trouble, thus the call to the police.

My trusted employee told me later that just as he was exiting the building the police officer was rounding the corner. The officer radioed the dispatcher with my employee's description as he kept his gun-hand ready for action. The employee offered to go and get me, the manager on duty, but the policeman quickly refused as his hand moved a little closer to his gun and he insisted that the employee step away from the building/door. The officer radioed the dispatcher again for them to call our store and send the manager to the back.....thus the cashier's mysterious page.

We quickly sorted it out. Apparently the policeman thought the employee might have been involved in a robbery or taking merchandise out the back door or who knows what. No, no illegal action here.

The policeman went back to his car and drove around to the side of the building, where he met up with the other officer to chat for at least a half hour.......must have been a slow day for them, too.