You need both common sense and listen to your screen when stowing HAZMAT. Not every Amazon facility is able to carry HAZMAT items or they might be able to have some, but other items are prohibited. Usually anything with a rechargeable battery such as a vibrator is allowed at most if not all facilities. Usually when the computer tells you it's a HAZMAT item, as far as I could remember, it didn't allow us to stow them. I do know a few times one of the decanters when our facility still had them did put something into the system as HAZMAT by mistake and problem solve had to come over and fix it. That does happen here and there. Then you'll get items that are HAZMAT but are incorrectly put into the system and when that situation happens, you need to notify the manager. The system won't warn you at all that it's HAZMAT, but it is. The managers are supposed to take the HAZMAT items away and return it to the receiving dock where they have people working at a desk to get rid of the HAZMAT items and send it to either another facility that does have the proper permits to house the items or return it back to the vendor.
Unfortunately at the facility I'm at, I've seen a lot of stuff going on in there regarding HAZMAT that they shouldn't be doing. The first major problem is that for whatever reason, they got rid of our decant/receiving department and usually these folks were the first line of defense to prevent certain HAZMAT items from even getting on the floor. Now they're bringing crap up onto the floors still on shipping pallets and not even broken open or in totes and they're just plopping the items at stations. After the work comes upstairs, the problem solvers have to put those items we just got into the system and a lot of the problem solvers that replaced the jobs of the decanters are completely oblivious to what is HAZMAT and what isn't and we've found a ton of crap in our facility that isn't even supposed to be in there. This creates a problem because we actually have stowers in there that are literally that dense and stupid that when they scan the item and see that the HAZMAT warning doesn't pop up, that they can stow it-that's not how it works. You're not supposed to stow something you know isn't supposed to be in there and YES, the computer CAN BE wrong. Computers are only as smart as you program it or tell it to do. If you don't tell the computer something is wrong it won't flag it for you. At this point, this is when your training kicks in and if you know you were told that the item isn't supposed to be in there, that's when you get someone to get rid of it.
Then there was another problem that I noticed. The reason why a lot of HAZMAT stuff was getting into our facility was because of the deterioration of the training going on at the facility that I'm at. I found out about it by mistake. When the facility first opened, all of us were trained correctly by Away Teams. They even hung signs up all over the facility both in Inbound and Outbound as a friendly reminder for everyone as to what is allowed in and out of the facility and what isn't. The signs even have an email address on them that we need to use to contact whoever is responsible for these items to properly deal with these items. Once they had left after their tenure was up, that's when the quality of training started to go down hill. What had happened was, I had applied for an internal transfer and we were sent to the Day 1 room to wait for our trainers. Not only were transfers in the room (both internal and external transfers) or newly hired managers or managers transferring from other buildings, but also new hires to. Since me and a few others were internal transfers and were familiar with that facility's HAZMAT policies, we were not required to take the HAZMAT training all over again which consisted of them going through a Power Point presentation and taking a HAZMAT exam (which you needed an 80% or higher passage rate to even start working in there-they will make you keep retaking that exam until you pass it). Unfortunately, that day, there was a lot of crap going on, so our trainers were running late, so they told us to sit to the side while they give all of the external transfers (especially those that came from facilities that allowed these items) and the new hires the training. This is how we were able to see what was going on. The guy giving the training was plowing through the Power Points-even skipping slides- and not even telling them everything they needed to know about HAZMAT items and how to properly deal with them. Simultaneously, he also handed out the test which he wasn't supposed to do-that was supposed to have waited until after he was supposed to thoroughly go through the Power Point-which he didn't. All of them began working on the exam and MOST OF THEM had NO CLUE what the answers were supposed to be. He was barely even done with the Power Point when he collected the exams and most of them didn't even finish the exam. The few answers all of them were able to complete were mostly wrong too. Once he concluded the Power Point, he didn't even grade them-he just passed all of them. He literally pencil stroked it in that they passed. What this schmuck just did was improperly train employees on HAZMAT which is in violation of 49 CFR 172.702 Subpart H and 49 CFR 175.704. We wound up just getting a bunch of people into the facility that were completely clueless as to what to do with these items. He just put the company at risk for a $508/employee per day fine doing that and he's lucky that day no inspectors came through the facility and caught him doing this. This whole time, I was getting angry at the new hires as to why the hell we got all of this HAZMAT stuff in here not realizing that they were being told wrong or not being told at all on how to deal with this stuff. After seeing all of this, now I know that it's not their fault-they had yahoos like him improperly training them.
Another problem I've seen was how managers handle these situations. We've been getting a lot of new-hire managers or managers coming from other facilities that allow these materials. They're either not trained correctly on how to handle these items, they forget that they're at a facility that doesn't allow it, or they have no clue on how to properly process them (never mind the fact that we have signs hanging from the ceilings telling them what to do. They don't know that they have to isolate the item, send it to ISS or problem solve to flag it in the system so that they could have someone retrieve the rest of the HAZMAT items, and get it sent downstairs to the HAZMAT desk in receiving to have the items either sent back or sent to another Amazon facility that has the proper permits. Some even have the convoluted idea that because it's in the facility, it's OK to have it and just ship it out. That's not how it works. These managers having this convoluted way of thinking are putting Amazon at risk for getting a penalty of $84,425 per HAZMAT violation per day that they find up in the building. If whatever they have in the building causes folks to get ill or it causes serious injury and/or death, the fine increases to $194,961 per violation per day. If these managers cause Amazon to get these sorts of fines, you know that they'll get fired. It's for one against federal, state, and/or local law to even have that in the the facility and we might not even have the proper shipping labels to even stick onto the boxes so that the truck drivers know what is in there. On top of that, in some areas that the facilities are located at, that municipality might not even allow companies to have it. Usually this is due in part because that municipality might not have a HAZMAT response team if something might happen inside of a business. If a fire or chemical spill breaks out, firefighters need to know what's inside of the building so they can properly handle the situation. Also, depending on what kind of HAZMAT items emergency responders are dealing with, the EPA or similar regulatory agency might have to get involved to help with the cleanup. This way they know what to expect. It also creates exposure risks to employees too.
I don't know if your facility is having the same issues, but given the fact that you were actively stowing stuff you know weren't supposed to be stowed, I suspect that you either weren't trained right and given what I've had to deal with and what I've seen at my own facility, I wouldn't be surprised if you were. Next time, if you aren't sure, just get rid of it.