The Retail Diaries

Code Adam. No retail associate wants to hear this announced in her store. The complete and utter panic one feels when this phrase is said is unexplainable. With memorial day shopping ahead, I began thinking about all of the children that will be out of school and headed to the store with their parents. This thought is stressful and it makes me anxious, because I know I will not only be a retail employee, I will become a babysitter, also. Too many times I've seen parents walk away without their children in hand; too many times I've had to ask, "Where are your parents?"

For those of you unfamiliar with Code Adam: It's named for little Adam Walsh, who at 6 years old, disappeared from the department store where he and his mother were shopping. His mother searched frantically for him for hours, but he had already been abducted from the store within the ten minutes she had left him. More than two weeks later, his body was found. Because of this tragic event, Code Adam was created and it's used by thousands of stores today. The procedure is as follows: 1. Get a detailed description of the missing child, 2. Announce "code adam" and the description of the child, 3. All employees stop what they're doing and immediately start searching for the child; All exits are blocked to ensure the child does not leave the store, 4. Once child is found, reunite him with his family; if he is not found within 10 minutes, call the police, 5. If the child is found with someone other than his family, call the police and delay the departure of the stranger, 6. Code adam is canceled after the child is found or when police arrive.

As someone who has heard "Code Adam" announced, and who has participated in the frantic search for a child, I can say that minutes feel like hours, and the sheer terror in the parent's eyes is enough to bring tears to your own eyes as you look underneath fixtures and inside bathrooms. The feeling is unlike any other. With that being said, what follows are some of my experiences with parents and their children in retail....

It's almost closing time in the pet store where I work, and in strolls a mother with four children. Her oldest child wants a hamster and so runs to where the small animal cages are. She pushes a cart with a baby in its car seat inside, not far behind. But as I pass by, I notice her other two children, both very small, have their own agenda. One must be four and the other two, and they are cute little boys, with many questions. One points to our reptile cages, "What's in there?" I tell him there are lizards in there, and he better keep up with his mother. But instead, he and his brother catch sight of our fish and bolt off in that direction. I look on, amazed, that their mother hasn't even made an attempt to keep them near her. I have other tasks to complete as my co-worker helps her son pick out a hamster, but I could never forgive myself if something happened to those little boys, so I follow them. So curious are these children as they pound on my tanks and try to climb my ladders. "No, honey, get down." "No, sweetie, don't hit the tanks, it hurts the fishies' ears." "You better get back to your mommy." My co-worker, a little bolder than I am, tells their mother she should get her kids. Her response: "They're ok," as she waves her hand in dismissal, "nobody will take them." Did she just say what I think she said? Is she serious? Look at those boys, they are so cute and so innocent, talking to strangers and following me around.... what's wrong with her?! So I played babysitter while she finished her shopping, and I can happily report that they all left the store together. But I can't help wondering how many other stores she has gone into and acted in the same way, ignoring her smallest children and letting them wander around by themselves. I know not every retail employee would have done what I did; in fact, I know from working in retail, that most workers would walk the other way and continue their tasks. I only hope she is right--that no one will ever take her children--because she will only have herself to blame.

Not all of my experiences are like that, and in no way am I saying all parents ignore their children in the store. Sometimes parents simply get distracted. But as easily as they are distracted, so are their children...

I'm merchandising jewelry when I hear the page: "Code Adam". It's a little boy, dark hair, red shirt, about 4 years old. My heart drops. I see his mother at customer service, nervously holding her hands together, fear in her eyes. I immediately start looking underneath fixtures, in every fitting room, in every corner where I think he might be able to squeeze through and hide. I can only imagine what she's thinking and feeling, and it must be a thousand times worse than what I'm feeling. I just might be sick. I'm so upset, I'm shaking. A co-worker tells me his mother turned around for one minute to look at something, and he was gone. I overhear one of our managers trying to console her, "It's ok, all of my employees are looking for him. These things happen, and we'll find him." It must've only been 5 minutes, but it still seems like hours to me. I'm still looking down every aisle, moving clothes on the racks to see if he's inside, double checking the fitting rooms...."Code Adam canceled." A co-worker found him hiding under one of the racks in the men's department. I've never felt so relieved in my entire life. I can only imagine what his mother felt.

This is what Code Adam is all about: successfully locating lost and missing children in the store and returning them to their family. This mother was smart in going straight to customer service to let someone know her child was missing. And I must say, our store was right on with the procedure. However, my next account at a Wal-Mart store was not so exemplary...

Walking through Wal-Mart, I see this woman running around the toy department. (I was shopping; I was not a Wal-Mart employee.) She's shouting a girl's name, and she looks horrified. I realize she's searching for her little girl, and I run up to her to stop her, "Tell someone, they have Code Adam." She replies, "I did, she is looking for her in the toy department," and she runs off frantically. I have to admit, I'm a bit surprised. Wal-Mart proudly displays the Code Adam logo at their entrances. I wonder why their employee has not paged Code Adam yet. I mean, this little girl could be anywhere; Wal-Mart stores are huge! It's like finding a needle in a haystack. Not to mention, there are 3 front exits, as well as the exits from automotive and lawn and garden, plus any back door they have through receiving. I decide to find another employee to help because either this toy department employee is frantic and has forgotten protocol or she hasn't been properly trained. Either way, she obviously isn't worth tracking down to ask. Luckily, I don't have to find another employee, because the little girl is found by her mother. She had wandered off toward the book section by the registers. Her mother was in tears, hugging her daugther close to her. I am glad this is a happy ending. However, I also wonder why no Wal-Mart employee stopped this little girl. She was obviously by herself, wandering around the registers...surely someone noticed her and decided her mother couldn't be far off--a decision that could've been the difference between life and death. If I was that mother, I would've been fuming. How can Wal-Mart display all of those pictures of missing children in their entrances, yet their employees pay no attention to the children inside their stores??

All of my accounts are different, but they all luckily have happy endings. However, don't make the mistake of thinking "it can't happen to me." It can. Just look at these statistics:
800,000 children are missing each year; that's about 2,000 children reported missing each day
114,600 attempts at abduction by strangers are reported each year
4,600 of these attempts are successful
76.2% of children abducted who are murdered are killed within 3 hours of their disappearance

As a retail employee, I deal with parents and their children every day. I've been a babysitter for those who are disorganized when they come to the store with children; I've been one of the employees in a frantic search for a missing child when his mother got distracted for a minute; I'm also just a concerned parent, myself, reaching out to other parents who've lost their children. Code Adam is the greatest resource a parent can use when a child is missing in the store. For more information, use these links to my sources:
Connect With Kids
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
Security Solutions--Code Adam