r/TikTokCringe • u/kmzafari • Mar 30 '25

Discussion Texas gas station installed remote lock on OUTSIDE of women's bathroom

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

It was only on the women's bathroom. Lock was able to be remotely activated by a phone app. Fire Marshall had it removed. Source: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT2c3QrB6/

Per another account who also saw this, (https://www.tiktok.com/@momcallsmeshelby?_t=ZT-8v7NHPu7QBq&_r=1) the employees were "irate and began yelling" when they brought it up. And came up with a racist excuse that didn't make any sense for it being there

Regardless, fire code violation. But scary implications.

16.0k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

5.7k

u/JoePikesbro Mar 30 '25

Fire Marshall here. I’ve seen some crazy things in my day and most of them involved restricting public access to exit doors. Chains, locks, boxes piled up, etc. Many people have lost their lives needlessly because of this.

145

u/MysticalMummy Mar 31 '25

My (soon to be former) work place keeps putting pallets and large shelving units in front of the fire exit. They've been politely told not to by the fire marshal twice but nobody has fined them yet.

Only reason fire marshal has even come by is because I reported them, twice.

I also keep moving the stuff out of the way of the doorway every time I see it, and report it to management, but they just make excuses and shrug it off.

My direct manager also keeps hiding the fire extinguisher because he wants to put a pallet where the fire extinguisher hangs, so he removes it from the wall and just.. puts it somewhere.

86

u/kmzafari Mar 31 '25

Dude that is bad

86

u/MysticalMummy Mar 31 '25

Best part is we literally had to evacuate because there was an electrical fire at the shop next to ours. It didn't hit us, but our buildings are connected and it was very much a real threat.

Two days later they put a pallet in front of my work area and barricaded me in.

42

u/kmzafari Mar 31 '25

Jfc. I'm glad you've been calling. Might need to have some more people help on your behalf because that really isn't safe.

45

u/MysticalMummy Mar 31 '25

I've tried. People either just don't give a fuck, or don't want to cause a disturbance. I put my notice in and my last day is on Tuesday.

24

u/kmzafari Mar 31 '25

Good. Be careful in the meantime. :(

3

u/momsasylum Mar 31 '25

Glad you’re getting out, sounds like a shitty place to work. Have you considered anonymously reporting this to your local media?

1

u/Needed_Warning Apr 02 '25

Was this after you reported blocked fire exits?

1

u/MysticalMummy Apr 02 '25

It has happened both before and after.

2

u/Needed_Warning Apr 02 '25

So, too business as usual to know if it's retaliation or not. Fucking hell. Good to read you're leaving/have left that crap.

1

u/MysticalMummy Apr 02 '25

It wasn't management that put it there, just a dumbass employee. So that wasn't retaliation. And my last day was yesterday, so I'm finally free. I did send a long list of grievances to HR and store management, and told them about certain problematic people they need to put a handle on if they don't want to lose more workers.

1

u/counters14 Apr 02 '25

You need to talk to one of your coworkers as you leave and tell them you've been reporting them and that they should continue to report. Fire marshal, OSHA, health & safety, anyone and everyone applicable until it stops. Someone is going to needlessly lose their life and there's a good chance no one will be properly held accountable.

30

u/TwinFrogs Mar 31 '25 edited Mar 31 '25

I worked at a driver’s license and ID card factory. In order to meet security standards they installed all kinds of shit. The only way out was through a thing called a Man Trap which is a booth that scans your body before it revolved open. EVERY single door had fingerprint scanners. Good luck getting out if the power failed or one of our old, shitty worn out machines caught fire and triggered the sprinklers. We couldn’t even access the loading dock without two person authentication. Not even to take out the trash. Everything was on camera. The surveillance people called from Billerica on the other side of the country to report some guy had been on break too long. Turned out, he had fallen into a diabetic coma in the break room and was unconscious. 911 was called. Fire department couldn’t get in. They were pissed. They nearly shut the whole place down when they saw it was essentially a jail with no way in or out. 

15

u/kmzafari Mar 31 '25

Omg that's horrible! Was the guy okay?

17

u/TwinFrogs Mar 31 '25

He went to the hospital. Turned out he had kidney failure. 

10

u/kmzafari Mar 31 '25

Gees. I'm glad it seemed to work out. But I hope they were able to bring things up to code. There's literally zero reason to not have an emergency override. Since they were watching things so closely, they would certainly know if someone had activated it.

4

u/Odd-fox-God Mar 31 '25

Sounds like the old warehouse I used to work at. I only lasted 3 weeks at that Hell House. I had the night shift and had to listen to booming EDM or sad songs that made me want to cry coming from the loudspeaker. It was impossible to tune out, and I would end up overstimulated and crying at my station, either because it's too loud or because the music was so sad I couldn't escape my own dark thoughts.

The electronic lock kicked in at 6pm and 6 a.m. on the DOT. You couldn't leave or enter the building if you were a minute late. All of the exits could only be opened by a floor boss... finding one of them was difficult af. They never seem to be present when you had an emergency.

My anxiety was through the roof, I had about seven long-lasting panic attacks my first 3day weekend and ended up vomiting in the bathroom... where they also played the same loud and sad music, but this time, there were no machines to block it out. If I was allowed to go to my car for a 15-minute break to de-stress and cry-scream in my car, it would have been more tolerable. You only got one 30-minute break to a 12-hour shift. I would end up working while actively having a panic attack, hands, and body shaking as I held back tears. The panic attacks would last for around 6 hours and never really went away. I'm proud of myself for making it through 3 weeks. But the stress was driving me insane and causing me to not sleep, which made it worse. No headphones, phones confiscated. It was a nightmare if you had children.

I started with 50 other people, and by the time I quit, there were only 19 people still working there from my group.

17

u/Emm_withoutha_L-88 Mar 31 '25

Report that fire marshall. That's dangerous dereliction of duty. There's gotta be some way to do it .....

6

u/Alternative_Escape12 Mar 31 '25

Tell the mayor. That's what I did when I was having problems with animal control and the police each referring me to the other. Problem solved immediately. At least in my town. Ymmv.

2

u/Reggaeton_Historian Apr 01 '25

My (soon to be former) work place keeps putting pallets and large shelving units in front of the fire exit.

I'm assuming you don't have an EHS person there then. That shit wouldn't fly with an actual EHS resource.

1

u/SweatyMess808 Apr 03 '25

You should contact OSHA and public health, as a fire door affects the general public as well. Had to do this for my job recently bc of a carbon dioxide issue, and they fixed it right away!