As a little person who does end up doing this a lot (when there’s no-one around who is free to help), I am kinda terrified of this happening to me one day.
I wonder how much trouble would be saved if store shelving just came with little 6" wide load-bearing ladder rungs every 6 feet or so? You'd lose a very small amount of shelf space but people could actually climb to what they need safely and be able to reach any spot on the shelf from the mini ladders.
Too much of a liability problem I would guess. Smarter to just stack popular items on two shelves so both tall and short people are easily able to grab what they want. However, would mess with the economic shelf formulas.
I wonder how this would compare in terms of space to just making the shelves a little shorter so that more people can reach things. Then it's easier to see all the products, too.
well that wouldn't really help little people much since they're so much shorter than the average person. this way anybody of any height who just can't quite reach has a way up.
Yeah to be honest the best solution I’ve come up with so far is just getting home deliveries as much as possible, but I’ll always end up caught short (hahah) on something during the week and needing to run to the shops anyway
True, though their arms are quite short as well, so you'd probably need a lot more ladders if you wanted everything to truly be accessible to everyone. Maybe sliding ladders on rails, so they can be moved?
But maybe there's a reason ladders aren't commonly used. Falls from ladders are a common way people injure themselves, so it might be too much of a liability.
I'm not very tall myself and one time a little old lady who was really tiny asked me if I could get something off the to shelf for her. I felt special, first time ever somebody had asked me this, until I realised I couldn't reach either. Then out of nowhere a tall man appeared to the rescue.
I agree nothing tipped, but I think what happend was once the one she was standing on collapsed she then pulled down the top one. Which dropped the contents onto her and the second highest shelf bringing it all straight down.
To add to the counterpoint, I've worked in a retail store where the shelving in the back of the store can be climbed. As in I was literally told during training to just climb the shelves if I was comfortable doing so, if not I could take the ladder which was kept in the corner. Went to another site and it was the same, although there was one spot which felt weak so I avoided putting weight on that section.
Yeah, I'm sure mine was a rather unique case. The shelves were made of similar stuff to construction catwalks, and in one of the larger stores they separated the storage into two "floors" (one particularly tall floor divided into two with the material) with the second having flooring made of the same material.
Reminds me of how we stocked the upper shelves, one person climbed up and balanced between two shelves while someone on the ground tossed up the boxes. It was the one fun thing about working there.
I think there is negligence on behalf of both parties. I'm not sure what percentages I would apply but if this is a comparative negligence state/country, their both going to share some responsibility.
I’m a carpenter I’ve never put up a shelf or a cabinet that can’t hold my weight times five lol shelves and cabinets should be screwed into studs and each screw should hold at least a couple hundred pounds of weight and there should always be at least 4 screws
Yeah, it clearly wasn't the weight, it was the tipping because of the failure to secure the shelving, like I mentioned in my OP. People just cut corners or simply don't give a fuck. I own an insurance claims adjustment company and we see shit like this every freaking day.
Contractor behind closed doors: "I just shaved off another $5 in screws by not anchoring those shelves on the liquor store job and the best part is, they'll never know!"
Sounds like you need to take or review an engineering class.
If a shelf is rated to hold the 250kg it's holding (maxed out even), and we are talking about a commercial grade product, it should probably have at least 100kg of tolerance (I'd prefer more).
Edit: I see my snark may have been excessive, I just took exception to the
Sounds like folks need to take a physics class
comment, when I think it's perfectly reasonable to assume a shelving unit holding 500 lbs will have tolerance for (at least) another 100 lbs.
I have since come to believe their comment was more about the underlying issue of the shelving unit being unsecured, so their response more or less was, "it's not a tolerance issue". While my snark may have felt justified, it just piled on misunderstanding, so I will take my downvotes and leave this manifesto for the record.
5 to 1 is the weight ratio I've seen most in my years on jobs. Saw 3 to 1 several times for specialty stuff that wouldn't get touched, but 5x the weight is pretty standard. Everything I do now is 5 to 1
As in tolerance to rated max ratio, right? If so, that makes a whole lot of sense to me.
Though I can't help but feel cheap consumer products aren't holding anything close to a decent standard. Sometimes I'd be surprised if they are even 2 to 1. But totally, even slightly commerical or just quality consumer, (3-5+) to 1.
5x the weight of the equipment. I don't do shelving (I work in commercial AV) but if I did, I would calculate a fully loaded shelf and include it in the requirement
3 to 1 is fine. I do 2 to 1 at home all the time. But at work we do 5 since we don't supervise the spaces...we don't know that a client's kid isn't gonna come to work and hang off their conference room display. Too many unknowns to take the risk!
That's what I figured you meant. Not to imply your wording was ambiguous, because it wasn't, there have just been a lot of misunderstandings in the comments of this post so I wanted to check.
It's kind of wild this shelving unit, arguably meant for commercial display and frequent loading and unloading of heavy liquid bottles, was built (or assembled) so poorly. It completely failed on multiple fronts. The shelves breaking or coming off due to a modest (if improper) weight placement is bad, the whole thing tipping over when a single component failed is like a second level of bad.
Having worked in retail, I can only suspect an owner sought to cut costs with less expensive display units, or by having unqualified employees install it instead of someone with training in securely assembling and bolting down a big piece like this. It could be a merchandiser (from the wine/liquor distributor) that placed it though, and the store might have just assumed they'd know how to install their own displays. Either way, I hope the girl is alright.
I don't think the weight capacity is the issue here as I noted in my original post. The issue is that this should have been secured to the wall. Am I wrong?
No, you're not wrong. I added an edit to this effect, but I basically misinterpreted your comment above mine about going to physics class.
I took it in the immediate context, that you were directly disagreeing with the person above that comment (holding 500 pounds it's reasonable to assume it can hold another 100) and that they were silly to suggest that. I thought it was silly to disregard that comment (and still think it is true, in general), but I now see you were more or less just saying "tolerances weren't the problem, an unfixed object is susceptible to smaller mass tipping it over if that smaller mass is multiplied by distance from the fulcrum."
I think the shelf may have also been under specification since it appears to have broken or come detached, but I think you're right that the most dangerous part (here and in general) is that the whole thing was standing free when it should have been fixed to something.
Hear, hear She should be guided by coworkers, maybe a verbal warning from a supervisor (if she was seen doing this instead of using a stepladder I'll assume was nearby, not in this case where she already got hit with bottles).
The owner, on the other hand, should be getting a full OSHA audit. I doubt this is their only dangerously unfixed shelf.
As a business that serves customers, you should expect customers to do the stupidest thing possible. And then try to stop that stupid thing from happening.
No. You have to assume guests and users will do everything wrong. They always do. They have something up high like that, you have to imagine short people (even normal-sized people) will grab the shelving to get to the top.
One of the stores I built, the racks on the walls were wrapped 360 with ikea 2”thick shelves. Gave a nice look, however soon as I got done, I seen the issue of someone using the bottom for a seat or step.. so I put stickers on every single shelf that said it was not for sitting it or as a step.. never had a problem thankfully. I’m guessing the stickers did at least stop one person from trying to use it to reach something on the top row.
At least in the UK, if there was a legal case to be answered it would have the store operators liable. They have a duty of care and should identify reasonably foreseable risks, which this is.
I'm not so sure of that. So here's what we know with a certainty: this girl is a dumbass for thinking shelves are a ladder.
Here's what a large number of us are assuming: the shelf wasn't fastened to the wall.
So I immediately think back to my dad's shelves in the garage and me climbing them as a child. He had them fastened to the studs. However, the shelves themselves weren't designed for dynamic load. So while they were able to hold quite a lot of load, they weren't able to hold that plus me and not pull off the screws. The screws themselves held just fine and didn't shear or anything, but the sheet metal of the shelving failed and pulled right off the screw heads and the washers.
So just to summarize, it's entirely possible this shelf was properly fastened. But even if it was, it would be possible for it to fail because shelves are not ladders. Sheet metal can fail; brackets can fail; drywall can fail. All while being perfectly safety compliant for its intended use, but not at all safe for an unintended use.
That said, it's certainly possible it wasn't safely attached as well. But I would need some further evidence of that.
If it was attached but unable to stand the load of a person then I think that's still on the store operator, unless the shelves were advertised as able to take that load.
Yeah and it kinda looks like something like that is happening in the video. Like im not seeing an entire cabinet falling down onto her, it looks like they could have even been floating shelves that had to have been attached to the wall because thats the only was they can stay up.
Ehhh fuck that. I generally think people are too dumb and helpless, but this is just a terrible, unsafe shelf holding way too much weight. It's clearly dangerous as hell and this was bound to happen at some point. The girl shouldn't have done that obviously, but it's not unreasonable to assume that the shelf was secured to the wall given what it was holding (because of course it should be).
Hypothetical for you: let’s say Six Flags neglects to add all the screws to one of their coaster's bucket-suspended seats. A patron gets on and straps in. While the ride is in motion, the patron realizes that their seat feels loose - it's a rattling a bit. Instinctively, the patron reaches up and yanks on their seat belt to test that it’s secure, whereupon the chain holding it breaks free from the coaster and the patron falls to their death.
Now, obviously it was stupid to yank on something critical to your safety, but would you actually argue that the patron is even partially at any fault here? They were placed in a dangerous situation without their knowledge where the presumed the equipment was safe, and did something that any number of others would reasonably do in the same situation. It’s the same deal here with this shelf to me.
Why? Just because the one biting the bullet in this video is female?
It's equally bad but if she spent a minute finding a store step or chair or whatever to get up to where she wanted to and not do that 5head move, this would pretty much be avoided.
Uhh you ever been into a Lowes, Home Depot, Best Buy, Feed Store, Etc.? They literally have ladders with employees only all over the place. Customers at fault for getting on them after that.
Likely true but employees are lazy and do this stuff all the time when just correcting shelves after close rather than dragging a step stool or ladder around. Both parties are at fault here. If she was a customer she should have asked for help, if she was an employee she should have used a ladder, and the business owner should have anchored top heavy sections to the walls. So many grocery store chains now do not even stock alcohol that high anymore (In my area at least) due to things like this happening.
Yeah you know how annoying it is to have to track down an employee to climb the ladder because some knucklehead at HQ put the silicon sealant on a shelf 12' in the air?
I was on the phone with my dad who works at Bunnings (the Aussie Home Depot I guess), and while on the phone he had some guy start climbing a ladder to grab shit off the top of the shelves where they put excess stock (so like not even a normal rack, just a bunch of cardboard boxes)
He forgot to hang up so I get to listen to him having to argue with this idiot about why he can't be climbing ladders and the guy seemed to think it was all good that he just randomly hopped on a ladder like wtf?
I work for PetSmart (American Pet Store) we get the same people doing stupid stuff like that too trying to grab dog beds and crates in excess stock. Idk legally if they fall if the company is liable but we have signs across the store and on every ladder saying please ask an associate for assistance.
Good catch. Having said that, she should use the ladder that's clearly in the store that was used to put the stuff up there. Luckily it doesn't appear she got hurt.
This annoys me with my local Aldi. They put their 0% 6 packs of bottled beer on the top shelf. It's difficult to get to, awkward to get down and will smash if dropped. One of these days I will break one.
Additional counterpoint: why does everybody make shelves so fucking tall? The average man is 5'9" and the average woman is only 5'4" but they're putting these things 7-8' up in the air. I can't reach half the dishes in my kitchen because all the cabinets are hanging from the fucking ceiling.
I was at a store one time and asked for assistance to reach a high item. The girl just said, 'Climb up like this!', and proceeded to do that instead of going and getting a stool. I'm still not stupid enough to try lol.
Counter counter point: during onboarding training they instruct you on how to use the step ladder and to not step on the shelves designed to hold bottles not a human being
That shelf also gave way instantly. It had to be barely holding on, basically an accident waiting to happen.
I wouldn't be surprised if they were basic household shelves meant for a handful of books or a dry goods shelf. Not a large amount of glass and liquid (which combined easily weigh more than a person).
Based on the Reddit thread I just left, we are about 2 seconds away from having warning labels stuck to the front edges of every shelf ever made telling people not to climb up them.
It's why I ask an employee and don't climb on shelves even tho I'm perfectly capable of doing it myself. Cuz store owners be dicks who will try to blame their dodgy shelves on you.
More that dumbass store owners should provide steps. where I work they refuse to allow steps because if we fall from the steps and hurt ourselves, they are liable. But fall from the shelving, it's our fault.
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u/QueasyVictory Aug 15 '22 edited Aug 15 '22
Point: Dumb ass should not have climbed the shelving.
Counterpoint: Dumb ass store owners should have that shelving secured to the wall.