Caution: Wet Floor

Being a janitor is tough. The higher ups always look down upon you and the hideous messes and smells you got to deal with on a daily basis are genuinely nauseating. I used to be a cleaner myself, it wasn't nice. Yet, this isn't a story about me and my shitty work experience, no it involves the workplace death of Stan West, who slipped and fell off a flight of stairs in a Runcorn warehouse. Stan smashed his head against the ground as he fell, bursting it open into an explosion of gore and blood. Ghastly! What a way to go, at least it was instantaneous. The poor man didn't feel a thing, perhaps fear as he fell and the uncertainty of survival but that was fleeting. A moment of panic before eternal slumber. There are worse ways to go, that's for certain. Now, what does any of this have to do with a janitor you may ask, well it is because the floor overlooking the whole warehouse was wet with soap, as if being recently mopped and cleaned of footprints. Now there is absolutely nothing wrong with keeping the workplace clean, none whatsoever. However, the janitor on duty had forgotten to do one crucial thing; leave a wet floor sign up! It is such a simple yet important thing to remember, believe me, I know. When you've got so many responsibilities as a warehouse cleaner, it is unfortunately very easy to forget the little things like leaving warning signs after cleaning up a spillage. With that in mind, the workplace death was investigated intensely. At first, everyone believed the incident was a terrible, unfortunate freak accident. That it could've happened to anyone. However, as detectives dug deeper and deeper into the case, they discovered that Stan West wasn't the nicest worker on the team. He was a ruthless supervisor, the type of guy who was too young to be in charge, which meant his ego often got the better of him. The dead man was only 23 years old and often had a mouth on him, as in he yelled and screamed a lot at his underlings, including the lowest of them all, the janitors. It was Lucas Red who was on duty as janitor the day Stan died. This was significant, because Stan seemed to have the biggest rivalry with Lucas who had worked for the company for almost ten years, while Stan had only recently started, ending his career two months into the job after his unfortunate passing. Lucas was well respected despite his rank among everyone else who worked there, mostly because the old geezer was polite and knew everyone who had been working at the place as long as him. Nobody liked the young, cocky university students who walked into these old workplaces and began barking orders. A lot of the time, these young smart asses made things worse instead of better and they always thought they knew best because of their fancy diplomas and degrees, etc. It is a common sight in warehouses like this, the veterans get on with the job because they know best, while the new bosses scream the place down trying to manage everything. It is a vicious cycle and Stan West was the worst of the worst. The very same day that Stan had died, he was barking orders at lower ranking staff members, most of which were even younger than him and allowed this abuse. Stan got high and mighty, demanding Lucas clean up after their mess. The janitor did as he was told begrudgingly, then an hour or two later, he forgot to leave a wet floor sign outside of Stan's office, which was on the second floor, beside the stairs overlooking the whole warehouse, which was where he soon unfortunately fell to his death. Not once had Lucas ever forgotten to put up a wet floor sign until that fateful day. Of course, nobody could prove for certain that Lucas did this on purpose, even I have forgotten to put up wet floor signs in my very own cleaning career, so it's very easy to fumble the ball like that from time to time. The rest of the staff vouched for Lucas too, "not our precious Lucas!" They protested, "couldn't be our friend Lucas, he wouldn't do that!" The police were at a loss, the evidence couldn't stick. Nobody except for the suspicious detectives believed Lucas could've ever been that sneaky or insidious. Eventually the case ran cold, Lucas was let go of his position as Janitor due to the "accident" and everyone who loved him actually threw him a leaving party, there was cake and a big massive thank you card. The woman cried, hugging and kissing him farewell, the men hugged him and shook his hand, wishing their old friend luck. Perhaps Lucas really did just forget to leave out a wet floor sign, it may have even happened because the janitor was either so upset or angry that a simple thing like that had simply left his mind. We'll never truly know if Stan's death was an intentional murder or not, it will forever remain a mystery.