Retail jobs get interesting when the person responsible for solving the problem is technically still somewhere on the property.

One mulch-store cashier needs help loading for a customer, but every coworker is gone and the boss will not answer.

Her search stretches across a massive yard before the customer finally gives up, leaving one very important employee mysteriously missing.

Check out how it went down below.

My Boss Fell Asleep at Work

Some context for you: I am a female who works at what is essentially a landscaping supply store. We make and sell mulch by the cubic yard. This means that when customers buy product, we load it into their truck/trailer with a loader or Bobcat.

I am the only person who works as a cashier/office person/customer service representative and I don’t do the loading.

There are two other male employees of this company plus my boss/owner that operate the machinery in our yard and I have to alert them when someone comes in needing mulch.

Now onto the story.

This happened this past summer.

My co-workers come and go most of the day to do other work related activities, but they don’t usually leave me by myself since if someone needs to be loaded, there wouldn’t be anyone around to do it.

Once in while, though, it will happen.

Time to call for assistance.

So, I waited on a customer who needed mulch.

As per my job, I then got on my radio and called a co-worker to assist this customer.

After several tries and no answer, I called one of them on the phone.

He told me that he’s out on a delivery.

It’s okay. There are other people who can load it, right?

Great. I got the next co-worker on the phone.

He was out picking up a truck part we needed.

Alright. So, now it was time to call my boss and ask him to load.

And he didn’t answer his phone.

She tried to find someone else to help.

At this point, all I could do now was walk into our yard and wander around until I found someone.

Our yard is huge. Ten acres. We also have a “back lot” so to speak, where companies can rent spaces to park their large landscaping/tree work trucks.

It’s a long walk from my building to this area and I didn’t see any of our vehicles in my line of sight sitting back there, so I didn’t want to walk over there and lose sight of my office.

Since I’m the only office employee, I try not to stray too far in case a customer comes or someone who isn’t supposed to be there enters my office.

Instead, I started checking around the large piles of mulch that could be blocking me from seeing someone.

She wasn’t alone.

The customer was also following me a few steps behind while I squished around the smelly mountains.

He and I didn’t see anyone in the big machines and there was no movement anywhere.

After a good five minutes of this, I couldn’t see the building anymore and I really needed to make sure that no customer had come in.

I assumed that they left me alone. Since it had happened before, I didn’t think it was unreasonable to come to this conclusion, so I turned to the customer to let him know that it would obviously be some time before anyone returned.

The customer was understanding.

This customer was a regular and was thankfully very kind and understanding. He said he would leave and come back to get his mulch.

I returned to my office.

Cut to a half hour after this occurrence, my co-worker returned from the delivery.

I asked him why they left me alone.

But, she wasn’t alone.

He informed me that our boss should have been there.

I tried calling him again and, again, received no answer. So my co-worker went out to start the search.

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Five minutes later, he returned with my boss.

As they walked into my office, I heard my boss say, “Yeah, I just fell asleep in the loader. I was out in the back lots and just passed out.”

Which means he probably drove a loader all the way into the corner of our property and way out of my walking distance, parked and laid down.

At least the boss admitted what happened, and at least the customer was understanding. This story could’ve played out differently.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

Now, this sounds like a great place to take a nap!

This isn’t a bad idea.

Not everyone likes naps.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman who received a work email from a place she never even applied.

An apology would be nice.

The cashier searched everywhere she reasonably could, while a patient regular eventually left because nobody was available to load his mulch.

Half an hour later, a coworker found the boss asleep in a loader way out in the back lot.

Nothing says hands-on management like napping inside the heavy machinery.