“IT’S LIKE THE F*CKING ‘TITANIC’ IN THERE!”

The ten months I worked at the Macy’s store in Mission Viejo, California was honestly the most perfect period of my professional life. I’ve never loved a job THAT much! Some have come pretty close (looking at you The Men’s Wearhouse), but my time at that Macy’s was honestly like a blissful dream where everything was just as it should be. Despite my limited time there, I made some of the absolute best friends my life has ever known (many of whom I look forward to seeing again VERY soon) and gained some truly wonderful memories that I’ll never forget – like the one I’m about to share here.

It was late summer 2014 and by this point, I’d been at the store for roughly four months, I knew my team extraordinarily well and we were all already very close. I was the Sales Executive over the Men’s Sportswear area of the store, which consisted of the entire first level of our three story “Men’s Building” (this Macy’s had two buildings, a men’s and a women’s). One of the largest departments in both sales and area on my floor was Levi’s, the denim brand that has dressed America since 1853.

Now when I say this Levi’s area was large, I mean HUGE! It took up an easy 20% of our total floor space! We’ve all been in a department store before, so just imagine an entire floor of whatever building your envisioning being strictly men’s clothing, now picture a 1/5 of that space being dedicated to a single brand. It took up a LOT of square footage! Levi’s and Macy’s also invested a LOT of money into this area! We had state of the art fixtures, wall decors, televisions that played the hottest music videos, and a fanciful dressing room where this lil’ story actually occurs…

Now with our store being super close in proximity to Camp Pendleton military base, we would get a LOT of Marine Corps men in there shopping and on this late summer afternoon, one such gentlemen was in the Levi’s fitting room trying on some clothes. I was working in the men’s active area (think Nike, Adidas, etc.) with another associate, which happened to border our Levi’s department, so I was fortunately very close by at the time of the incident.

As I was moving a large fixture across the floor, I could suddenly hear what sounded like rushing water in the distance. I instantly stopped dragging this chrome beast and looked over at the associate with me. We both said nothing, but it was quite clear from the looks on our faces we were both hearing the same ominous sound: a river rolling in the background. I started to walk towards the noise with the associate trailing right behind me. I moved slowly because I was unsure of what I was going to come up on because whatever it was, it wasn’t supposed to be.

Well, thank goodness for our cautious pace because no sooner had we entered the atrium of the Levi’s fitting room did a young man wearing nothing but his black boxers come barreling out the entryway right towards us screaming, “IT’S LIKE THE FUCKING ‘TITANIC’ IN THERE!”

The associate and I stopped dead in our tracks as this young soldier who had been holding his personal clothing and shoes ran past us and tossed everything in his arms down on the half moon bench that lined the wall and proceeded to get dressed. I told the associate to stay and make sure the customer was okay and I walked with caution and curiosity into the true fitting room area. This kid was right, it really was like the fucking Titanic in there.

You know the scene in the movie, shortly after the ship has struck the iceberg, where Jack and Rose are making their way from the lower decks to the upper levels and come across a lone boy crying in the hallway? They first try to bring this boy with them, but the father shows up and grabs the kid and runs in the total opposite direction against Jack and Rose’s pleas to not go that way. Well, the dad runs down the hallway towards a set of doors that both explode open right as he reaches them from a flood of gushing water that comes straight at him and his son, engulfing them in the moment, never to be seen again. THIS is what that soldier was describing about our fitting room.

There was a HUGE portion of the back wall missing and water, from a burst pipe, was just rocketing into the fitting room area as fast as it could. I immediately took out of my phone upon seeing this carnage and called my store manager, whose office was in the women’s building.

“Hello,” he answered cheerfully as he always would.

“I don’t know what to do but a pipe has exploded in the Levi’s fitting room and water is rushing out all over the place!” I yelled over the sound of the river forming before me.

“Can you just put a bucket under it for now?” My boss asked me sounding incredibly unphased by anything I had just said.

“A BUCKET!?!” I remarked in complete shock. “WE ARE SO FAR PAST THE POINT OF A BUCKET IT ISN’T EVEN FUNNY!” I hollered for emphasis, but also from increasing panic. “I NEED YOU TO GET OVER HERE AND LOOK AT THIS! IT’S LIKE THE FUCKING ‘TITANIC’ IN HERE!” I added, after all, that boy really did sum up the situation best.

“Okay, I’ll head over, in the meantime, call loss prevention and get them over there too,” my boss said as he hung up the phone and made his way across the mall in my direction.

“Loss Prevention here,” the young man said answering the phone.

After explaining the situation to him and saying he needed to get over here right away, this kid replies with, “can you just put a bucket under it?”

I about died. When someone says a pipe has exploded and endless gallons of water are protruding from a now destroyed wall, why in the world would the recommendation be placing a bucket under it!?! ESPECIALLY WHEN THE SCENE WAS DESCRIBED AS “THE FUCKING TITANIC!?!” I was so damn shook that this was the same response I now got two times over. PLUS! This was Macy’s! Where in the world was I going to get a bucket from!?! The closest thing we probably had was either a small trash can or the mop bucket! Neither of which would’ve done shit to this titanic sized flood!

My store manager and loss prevention both arrived soon after and together we were able to shut off all the water in the building, thus ending the steady stream that had now flooded my entire Levi’s department. As the water was gushing from the pipe and into the fitting room, it began creeping out from under those fanciful walls, so I had to have my entire team keep pulling the fixtures back further and further as the water spread across our floor. By the time the valve was shut off, we had Lake Levi’s right there in the front of our store greeting everyone as they walked in. It was a moist mess.

A bunch of workers arrived that evening and repaired the pipe, but that area of the store was closed for a couple of weeks as a result of the flood. It took several specialty teams to recover us from the dampened damage that had decimated our Levi’s department, but when they were all done, it was better than ever!

I figured the 110th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic was the perfect time to share this lil’ story here. Melissa and I LOVE that movie and watch it every year around this time and I always love sharing this story that left me with what was my only truly traumatizing moment from my time at Macy’s Mission Viejo and one that me and that black boxered soldier will surely never forget.

Well, as always, THANK YOU SO MUCH for reading! I really appreciate you greatly! Please feel free to leave me a comment below as you know I LOVE reading and responding to them! I’ll of course be back next week with another all-new post, so until then, I wish you all, all the best!