The Original Poster (OP), known as u/loltyIer1, posted about the situation in Reddit’s “Antiwork” forum where it received nearly 60,000 upvotes and 5,100 comments. The post can be found here.
Fire Safety
While it is unclear where the OP is located, it is against the law to block a fire or emergency exit in any commercial or residential building in the United States and other places in the world.
Robert O’Brien, the vice president and co-founder of NY Fire Consultants and co-owner of the NY Fire Safety Institute, told Newsweek this image portrays a serious violation of fire codes.
“In New York state and most any other area that I know of around the world, that’s a violation and it’s a very serious violation,” O’Brien said.
He explained that if there were to be a fire in that store, it would be difficult for customers and workers to exit the building with the door blocked.
Especially if there was heavy smoke, O’Brien said the door being blocked could cause “mass confusion.”
“Firemen if they had to couldn’t even get in there, it is stopping the firemen from getting in,” he said, “let alone people getting out. It’s a serious fire hazard that should be corrected immediately.”
The Fire Hazard
In the post, the OP shared an image allegedly taken at their place of work. The image showed an emergency exit door being blocked by several heavy objects including boxes, large posters, and industrial racks.
The OP explained that they are a minimum wage employee at a grocery store, although it is unclear the name of the store or location.
“The fire exit has been blocked like this for months and my boss threatened to fire me after he saw me taking this photo,” the post read. “What should I do?”
Above the blocked door was a visible exit sign as well as an alarm on the door handle and a fire alarm with a safety guide.
Yet, there was no actual way to access the alarm or door handle unless someone was able to move the large items out of the way.
According to O’Brien, the OP should contact the local fire marshal and anonymously report the violation.
“A fire marshal would most likely issue some kind of monetary summons for that infraction,” O’Brien said. “The penalties to [the boss] if somebody was injured or killed in the store would be huge.”
Redditor Reactions
More than 5,100 users commented on the post, many urging the OP to contact authorities about the situation.
“The easy solution is to contact your fire marshal,” one user said, receiving over 23,000 upvotes.
“Fire Marshals love this sort of thing,” another user said. “A coworker at a former job called the Fire Marshal’s office for something similar and they showed up that same day.”
“Nobody ever thinks there’s going to be a fire until there’s a fire,” another said.
“Doesn’t even need to be a fire. A colleague of mine had a bad accident in a warehouse. He dropped a TV on himself,” another said. “It took the ambulance crew an hour to get him out because the fire exit was partially blocked. He got a £100,000 payout because of it.”
“As others have said already, call the fire department,” another said. “That’s a major violation and they’ll need to fix it immediately, along with potentially being fined.”
“Contact the fire inspector. Ask them to make a surprise inspection,” another commenter wrote. “Also find another job. An employer who threatened you over this is almost certainly doing other things for which they can be fined.”
“Contact the fire marshal, and brag about it to everyone at work. If they fire you it’s a clear case of retaliation and you get a lawyer and sue them into oblivion,” another commented. “Also, why would you continue to work for a company that doesn’t value your safety?”
Newsweek reached out to u/loltyIer1 for comment. Newsweek was not able to verify the details of the case.
Other Viral Posts
In another viral “Antiwork” post, a boss was slammed for firing an employee after she gave birth and another was criticized for giving a pregnant employee only one week of maternity leave.
One boss was applauded for their “kind” response to an employee who said they were dealing with personal issues.
