For those of you who thought you could only be locked OUT.

I work on the sales floor of Target. Usually, I close. This means that at the end of the night, around 11 or so, the LOD (Leader on Duty, aka manager) arms the building, that way if anyone breaks in, an alarm goes off and police are probably notified. I don't the specifics, but the point is that the building get armed, and you can't open the door until the LOD puts in his code, which will unarm the building for about a minute. Just enough time to get everyone outside so we can go home.

On Friday, Ally and I were working in softlines (all the clothes areas) and when everyone was done zoning, our LOD had everyone bring up all the abandon (merchandise that guests left lying around somewhere in the store where it doesn't belong. This gets sorted and then put back on the shelves later, except for perishables, which get defected out of the system) and then we were all leaving. However, in softlines, instead of bringing the abandon up to Guest Services, we take it back to the fitting room to be sorted out there into Infant's, Ready-to-Wear, Men's, etc. So we took our two carts of abandon back to the fitting room and put away all the empty hangers and then took up our empty carts back up to the front of the store. We put our equipment away and got ready to head out.

We were maybe-- MAYBE-- five minutes behind everyone else. As we got up to the TSC (break room/ employee entrance and exit/ locker room/ LODs offices), we paged the LOD overhead to ask him to come let us out. Nothing. We paged him one more time. Still nothing.

Ally went to go get a walkie and try to get him to come up from there, and I went off to see if he was in his office or anyone else's. His office was locked, so that wasn't really a good sign. He wasn't in anyone else's office, also not a good sign. He wasn't answering on the walkie, a pretty bad sign. Ally was a little concerned, but to be completely honest, I thought it was awesome. She was ready to just walk out and let the alarm go off, but I was pretty sure there was something else we could do.

I told her to call her mom (who also works at Target) and get the number of the softline's TLOD (Team-Lead on Duty, which is a step just under LOD) and maybe she could come let us out. And if she couldn't, then she might have the number of someone who could.

So while Ally is talking to her mom trying to figure this out, I remember that they have our numbers all on the system. They have to so that they can call us to ask us to come in early or to pick up an extra shift or whatever. So I go to the computer behind the desk in the TSC (which was already logged on) and I sit there looking at the icons on the desktop. None of them look promising to have a list of numbers. So I open up the start menu and see Excel, which would be a PERFECT place to have a bunch of phone numbers. The 2nd most recent open file there was filed as ETL's Numbers. (I don't really know what ETL stands for. But it consists of all the managers and the general store manager.)

At this point, Ally got off the phone with her mom (who had just given us the softlines TLOD's number) and we called the LOD that night.

"Hello?"
"Hey, this is Samara."
"Are you guys still in Target?"
"Yes, we are."
"Ok, I'm still close-- (he lives about a half hour away)-- I'll be right back."
"Sweet, thanks."

We waited there for a few minutes and he came to let us out, apologizing profusely. Apparently he had let the "last person" out and when everyone got into their car and drove away, he saw two excess cars in the parking lot. He waited around for a few minutes in the parking lot to see if anyone else came out of Target, and then left to go get gas and go home. Cue phone call. Although he was a little confused about how we got his number... Muahahaha!

And that's the story of how Ally and I got locked inside Target.