Comments on: Secret Codes in Public Places

By: Vincent Robinson

Vincent Robinson — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 16:07:43 +0000

When I worked for Wal-Mart in the late 90′s early 00′s, “Department 51 call (whatever extension)” was to get loss prevention to your department. If there was a fight or violent person in the store you paged the store number to the department. (example “0947 to the customer service desk”). This got every available male associate to the service desk pronto. If you saw a suspected shoplifter, you’d page “rotate security cameras to (department)”. Even though most of our cameras were just empty “dummy” domes and the few real ones we had didn’t even rotate! But it made thieves think twice! I’m sure it’s all different now. I heard the regular hourly associates aren’t even allowed to use the intercom anymore.

By: JJ

JJ — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 17:36:44 +0000

I’ve heard “Code Green” a number of times at a several different Walmart stores and it was always because the cashier needed change. Not exactly a hostage situation, eh?

By: James West

James West — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 22:04:19 +0000

the above was for Wal Mart by the way

By: James West

James West — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 22:03:58 +0000

Louis Profit is the loud speaker code for Loss Prevention and “Have you seen Bob” is for a shopper trying to sneak something out on the bottom of the buggy

By: Stuff that makes you go Hmmm #23 – Sending coded messages to programmers in public – The Blogs at HowStuffWorks

Mon, 29 Nov 2010 15:49:34 +0000

[...] Secret Codes in Public Places [...]

By: Dan

Dan — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 17:06:33 +0000

I heard somewhere that Code C is customer service.

By: NTHP

NTHP — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 00:00:15 +0000

Here’s a little piece of awesome:a McDonalds code; only one though, I worked there twenty years ago as a 16 year old…

When asking how long an ordered item such as burgers or fries would take to be ready, the cashier announces to the back, “3-to-1 on fries” or, “3-to-1 on Mac”. The response from the responsible “cook” is a number, relating to the number of minutes the item is away from delivery. It could be “2-point-5″, at which point your friendly McDonalds service staff will say, “That’ll be a three minute wait sir, is that ok?”

The term “3-to-1″ just means “how long” and has no reference to anything vaguely in triplicate….

By: Paris

Paris — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 15:47:46 +0000

Loose: “This screw is loose.”
Lose: *We lose a lot of inventory to theft.”

By: AMBTHomas

AMBTHomas — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 19:53:37 +0000

Since the changes they expect you to direct the parent to customer service and have them ASK a member of management is it okay to make the announcement for a code ADAM and if the person missing is an adult then the child is asked to stay in customer service but an adult is asked to walk around the store looking for the missing adult. If an employee does not comply they are automatically terminated. It is an unwritten rule about not following walmart policy. I used to work there and many parents cussed out many employees because of this rule. We thought it was stupid but the few ppl who didnt follow the rule were fired.

By: Bill Lindemann

Bill Lindemann — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 07:50:45 +0000

The reason for using “Dr Leo” is not immediately apparent. “Code Blue” presumably derived from the cyanosis (bluish skin color) that appears when blood circulation is impaired. Actually, “Dr Leo” would be a straightforward code for “security needed”, from the acronym for “Law Enforcement Officer”. Although, come to think of it, heart failure IS referred to as cardiac *arrest* …

By: Hosptital Codes

Hosptital Codes — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 21:54:43 +0000

A few corrected Hospital Codes Code Pink = abducted infant (sometimes code white) Code Silver = person with a weapon Code Orange = haz mat spill

By: EMT9999

EMT9999 — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 15:43:37 +0000

Code Adam comes from name of the host of Americ’s Most Wanted TV program Mr. John Walsh. His son Adam was abducted and his body never found and it prompted him to start the program in conjunction with the FBI’s Most Wanted program.

There has also been the child abduction code of “Code Annie” to signify the abducted child is a female and where “Code Adam” signifies the child is a male. It was done to make people more aware of what type of child to be on the look out for.

Having worked as a manager at Lowe’s Home Improvement, if there was ever a call out for Code Adam or Code Annie, employees were trained to proceed to all possible exits from the buildings as well as to enter the bathrooms looking for any signs of trouble. When entering the bathrooms the employee would announce they were a restroom cleaning attendant. If anyone was in the restroom, the employee would excuse themselves from the restroom and immediately call an LP (Loss prevention) or Senior Manager, MOD.

People have become more aware of trouble while shopping. If you see a parent grabbing a child by the arms or talking loudly to them, step in and see what is going on. Stop being afraid of someone saying something to you. You might just save a childs life. I have confronted dozens of people over the years and have been involved in domestic violence cases as a volunteer support counselor, stand up for those who have no voice!

By: messypants

messypants — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 15:25:43 +0000

“Code Brown”….we use that in the construction/home improvment
industry, usually when the boss-man is out in his truck wait’n for us to get to the jobsite and we’re stuck in the crapper tak’n a massive dump. “Code Red-Brown” is more severe and you better
get to your proctologist.

By: Troy M

Troy M — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:53:21 +0000

We have a local talk radio station that streams video from the booth. They call a “bluebird alert” and the sound of a chirping bird when there is a good looking woman in the studio so all the guys can go to their computers real quick to see her.

By: andy Tanner

andy Tanner — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:13:57 +0000

So, since walmart has changed their paging policy, and taken out most all of their phones from the stores, How is a worker supposed to make a code adam call or an accident call for help? Run half way across the store to do so while a person dies or perhaps a child is walked out the door while they try to get to a phone? they went overboard with these changes because of one, ONE little punk in New Jersey made one stupid teenaged page. I hope no one suffers because of walmarts stupidity. especially not a child.

By: Diane Thompson

Diane Thompson — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 09:09:26 +0000

So what does it mean when the grocery store constantly does a call for the CSEA rep?

By: Mark Savage

Mark Savage — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 16:54:29 +0000

Hi,
used to work at Kmart and other retail stores years ago and my son used to work at Walmart; most all make these security announcements like: “attention security, check dept. 51, or, security, check the toy dept.” As others have noted, most of the time, stores use the security alerts to hopefully frighten off would be thieves; I do know that when I was in management with Kmart years ago, we constantly had “security” ( whether they were working at the time or not ) announcements to check various dept’s. I hear these a lot in Walmart and my son told me they often make these random announcements for the same reason. Stores loose a fortune to shoplifting and its unfortunate, for the innocent ones like me and you are the ones paying for the thugs to walk out without paying for they’re goods. In one store I worked at, after inventory one year, they gave us a figure of 180,000 in loss for just the empty packages they found; if they took the whole package ( containers ) like many do, the figure was much higher. Every time retail stores find a way to help combat these low life’s stealing from them, the thieves find another way to get they’re items for free; its a cat/mouse game. Just like my friend with the highway patrol said: “every time the state buys a new speed detection device, someone comes up with a way to defeat, or help reduce the chances of they’re new speed detection devices being effective.”
I don’t know if its true or not, but one police officer once told me that one of the makers of one brand of speed detection devices also makes the detectors to warn drivers of this speed detection device they use.
I thought I’d also throw this in for humor; when at the Lumberton, NC store many years ago, they had a Code 100, which meant “pretty woman” in whatever dept they gave out; Code 99 was handsome man. The code 99′s were rarely used, but the code 100′s were almost comical they used them so much. You’d hear the code 100 ( say ladies wear ) and then see stock room doors open, male employees walking that direction, and others looking that way. Its probably no longer used, but we all used to get a good laugh out of them when I worked there.

By: angie

angie — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 15:38:49 +0000

in the hospitals in colorado, ‘mr. gallagher’ is used for emergencies.

By: Norman

Norman — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 14:47:08 +0000

I always suspected that they made random security code announcements just to spook anyone who might be thinking,or someone in the act of shop lifting without the knowledge of security.

By: Rick

Rick — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 10:52:56 +0000

At my hospital Code Brown means a patient has had an “accident”

By: Adam

Adam — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 03:06:23 +0000

I love this. At the theme park I used to work at (I worked in the games) we would say “my apron is ruined” when we received counterfeit and code brown means someone took a poop in the maze.

By: polymathamy

polymathamy — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:00:00 +0000

Code Orange in a school usually means a child has thrown up, named because of the orange color of the clean-up product used to absorb the vomit.

By: RochUni

RochUni — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 07:29:28 +0000

Working for a hospital emergency room in the USA for 3 years as a technician made me realize a lot of hospitals actually have a generic ‘status’ code system that they communicate every so often with other hospitals and ambulance services.

Green was low patient flow.
Red was that the trauma rooms were full.
Blue was that the patient flow was high, but no trauma rooms.
Yellow was that the trauma rooms were about half full.

This ensured that an ambulance with a gunshot wound victim or similar trauma could know with relative certainty where they should go to receive the quickest admission for someone requiring medical attention and they could call that particular hospital ahead of time to let them know they were coming.

By: Robin

Robin — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 20:59:01 +0000

I worked at Jordan Marsh (New England based Department Store) in the 80s, we had a system of melodious “Bongs” that you’d hear overhead which were standard codes for basic info like store closing time or to request security to your area. No one was allowed to make overhead announcements in voice, as I recall.

By: Ian

Ian — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 11:41:12 +0000

Great post. The color codes always make me wonder when I hear them at stores.

My mother works in a maternity ward and a Code Pink is a missing/stolen baby. Thanks to matching ID bracelets and locked wards she has luckily never heard a Code Pink called.

When I worked at Target the warehouse/backroom guys would always call out Code 13 and a location on their channel to point out attractive women… I’m pretty sure even they knew it was lame of them to do.

By: cole

cole — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 11:20:25 +0000

The real secret is, sometimes the codes have NO meaning. I used to work at wal-mart and we’d occasionally make announcements for code whatever to frighten folks who looked a little.. dubious if you know what I mean. Just to make people wonder if we were watching (of course we were). Interesting enough, I’ve never heard of Code C or Code 300.

By: Josh

Josh — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 05:54:38 +0000

I used to work on a cruise ship, the correct codes are

Code Alpha: Medical emergency.
Code Bravo: Fire. Only Fire.
Code Oscar: Man Overboard.
Code Green: Flood, usually resulting from busted pipes.

Code Brown: Inside joke amongst the crew. When someone had a Code Brown, this meant they where in quarantine due to diarreaha.

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 02:59:59 +0000

At the hospital where I work, and several others in this area I’ve been told of, “Code Blue” has been replaced by “Dr. Leo.” Due to the popularity of medical TV shows, many people are familiar with the meaning of “Code Blue.” The substitution of “Dr. Leo” is the result of facilities’ reluctance to advertise the (probable) death of a patient over their PA systems.

Also our code for an aggressive or threatening person is “Code Purple,” perhaps a variant of the “violet person” noted above.

By: danger

danger — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 23:56:02 +0000

I think “violet person” comes after
Code Blue, not Code Silver :-)

Or, more likely, that’s a spell-checked
tpyo for “violent person”.

By: Kristen

Kristen — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 16:47:33 +0000

Very interesting. I didn’t know where code Adam originated from, or that it’s been around so long.