Staying calm and jumping into action can turn a bad situation around in unexpected ways.

So, what would you do if a customer’s entire grocery cart was ruined right in front of you and they were clearly overwhelmed? Would you do the bare minimum? Or would you step in and fix the entire situation for them?

In the following story, one cashier finds herself in this exact scenario and chooses the latter. Here’s what happened next.

My most disgusting cashier experience

Over the summer, before I head off to university, I’ve been working at a grocery store to have enough money to live on. My job entails quite a few responsibilities, but I’m mainly at the tills.

So I’m sitting at my till, halfway through a 10-hour shift. I’m about 15 minutes away from my break, so that’s pretty much all I’m thinking about.

A pregnant woman walks up to the conveyor belt with a full shopping cart. She has two young kids, one walking alongside and the younger one in the fold-out seat in the cart.

The customer’s son started vomiting.

It’s obvious that she is in a rush and has her hands full with the kids, so I offer to take the bags that she brought and pack the items as I scan them. She is very thankful, but I tell her that it’s no big deal.

This is where things got interesting.

She began to lift the younger child out of the seat because he was in the way of her getting the groceries. She turns him around to put him down, and he proceeds to projectile vomit directly over all the shopping.

I’m not talking a little bit of baby sick; more like Charlie in the limo in Always Sunny. This stuff just keeps coming, completely covering her shopping.

With no one else to help, she got right to work.

The woman was almost in tears, apologising as much as I think is humanly possible.

I tell her that it’s not her fault, after all, there is no way to predict when your baby will be sick.

Now, usually my team leader (pretty much my boss) would be there to help in a situation like this, but it was a very busy day, and she was away dealing with something else, so I had to take charge.

Firstly, I called the in-store cleaner to clean the sick from the floor, and I closed down my till.

Next, I got a hold of my friend who was stacking shelves and got him (after some persuasion) to take the hazardous waste container that the cart had become to the back of the store.

She got the woman settled and started the shopping.

I led the woman to some seats near the door and then asked if she had a shopping list, so I could go around and collect her shopping again.

She said she couldn’t let me do that, but I insisted.

So I grabbed another cart and raced around the store completing her shopping list. I’d been working there for about 6 days a week for 3 months by then, so I knew where everything was.

I got everything in about 10 minutes and was back at the checkout. I got my friend back to help me unload and repack the stuff. All in all, it took me about 15-20 minutes from taking the list to getting all of her shopping scanned through and packed.

The woman was very happy!

I went to get the woman and told her that everything was packed and ready to go. She just needed to pay.

She couldn’t believe it!

It was great to see the relief in her face after seeing her so close to tears. She paid for her shopping and thanked me about a million times before she went on her way.

I went for my break.

The lady wrote a letter to thank her.

Fast forward to the present day.

My team leader comes up and tells me that a lady wrote her a letter saying I went above and beyond to help her when she was stressed.

My team leader told me that if I ever asked her for a reference, she would just forward that letter, as it was better than any reference she could ever give.

I was just glad to make someone’s day.

Wow! She really did go above and beyond.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.

Let’s see how Reddit readers feel about this situation.

Here’s someone whose kids got sick in a store one time.

The title threw this person off.

According to this comment, her faith in humanity is restored.

This reader doesn’t take her young child out for that very reason.

What an amazing thing to do!