Exactly. There was hunter green taffeta sliding around everywhere. To this day I don’t understand why they didn’t just have me measure off five 6 yard lengths, or whatever length they needed for their bridesmaid dress pattern, instead of insisting that it all be in one long 90 foot slippery piece.
Exactly. There was hunter green taffeta sliding around everywhere. To this day I don’t understand why they didn’t just have me measure off five 6 yard lengths, or whatever length they needed for their bridesmaid dress pattern, instead of insisting that it all be in one long 90 foot slippery piece.
I see. Thank you.
She said that it was 5 minutes before close. It’s not that unusual that a resteraunt, fast food place, whatever will close down the grill a few minutes early since it can often take up to an hour to clean the damn thing (depending on the place)
My rule of thumb is: 20 minutes or less before closing, I don’t set foot in the place. Those people have things to do! Maybe I’m overly sensitive b/c I spent most of my working days in the industry. 
In high school, I worked the buffet/salad bar at a steakhouse chain. It was maybe 20 minutes before closing time one night, and two people came in to have the buffet. One of them raised a fuss that in the pasta section, there was only marinara sauce out there, and no sauce with meat. They insisted on having some meat sauce. I was told by a supervisor to heat up some meat sauce - which was frozen, and thus took quite a while to heat up. The reason that some hot foods were allowed to run low very near closing was because any leftover hot foods on the buffet had to be thrown out at the end of the night. (Cold foods could be sealed up in their container with plastic wrap, and were placed in the walk-in cooler for first use the next morning.) So I had to grab the plastic tub of meat sauce, put it in a microwaveable container, nuke it until a decent amount of sauce was defrosted, refrigerate the rest (I wasn’t going to heat the whole container), and nuke the sauce until it was hot. Then I put it out on the buffet (mind you, it’s now about 10 minutes to close), and the picky customer spooned a tiny bit of sauce onto the tiny bit of pasta that they’d taken, barely enough to call it a side dish. When I closed the buffet that night, I had to throw out most of the sauce I’d put out there.
Don’t even get me started on the chicken wings. They took 8 minutes in the deep fryer, which is forever in the minds of people who expect their food immediately. Plus they were so popular that when you brought out a fresh batch, if there was any activity in the dining room you probably should start a new batch frying immediately.
I’m in tune with most of the other posters here, but I’m on the side of the customer in this one. IF (and that’s a big “if”) there’s no sign saying “The grill closes early”, then it’s wrong to get mad a customer for ordering food that has to be cooked on the grill. If a business is open, it should serve its customers. I’d be hacked if I was in a store, brought my purchases to the register five minutes before closing, and was told, “I’m sorry, we’ve already totalled out the register and can’t take any more transactions today.” If that’s the case, then don’t list your store hours as 9 a.m. - 9 p.m.; list them as 9 a.m. - 8:55 p.m. (or whatever).
Cleaning the grill (or totalling out the register, or whatever) should be done once the establishment is no longer open for business. Unless, of course, there’s a sign or something similar notifying customers of a special circumstance or policy – such as the grill shutting down 30 minutes early.
Since the guy mentioned in the other post started the grill back up again for the customer, it makes me think he shut it down before he was actually supposed to, in an effort to get out quickly once the restaurant closed. It’s not supposed to work that way.
Sauron,
I see where you’re coming from, I really do, but with as many years as I spent in the food service industry I just can’t be on the customers side of closing issues.
It’s different in a store. When a customer is in there, obviously they’re going to buy something before they leave, it’s usually not a big deal to leave one register open. I’ve worked in retail (see above story). At most, you’ll be behind a few minutes if they leave right at closing. Hopefully they’d have enough consideration to give you a few minutes and not wait until the last possible millisecond to leave the store.
Food service is way different. You might see a sign on the door that reads “Close at 10” and seeings how it’s only 9:55 you will be thinking “allright! they’re still open!” What the SERVER will think is “GodDAMMIT! don’t come in here don’t come in here don’t come in here don’t…GodDAMMIT!!!” because see, that server could have gone home once their closing duties were finished. Half hour to an hour depending on the resteraunt. That is if they didn’t even start until after the place was OFFICIALLY closed. But now, because you just HAD to have that meal at five minutes to close, they’re most likely going to be stuck at work for an extra 2 hours, since they have to unpack things that servers had earlier packed away (you can’t expect EVERY server to stay right up until close “just in case”) wait for you to order, wait for the cooks to finish bitching at her/him for even letting you in in the first place, then wait for them to cook your food, wait for you to finish eating then to pay the check. THEN they can finish their closing duties. Of course you’ll probably want coffee or such since it’s now an hour after close and the server has cleaned the coffee machines. For all of this, you’ll probably end up leaving a 10% tip, being totally oblivious of how much you screwed up your servers night.
In a perfect world, everyone would be happy as can be to provide EXCELLENT service at ANY hour of the day, but the real world isn’t like that. Servers wanna go home. As close to closing time as possible. If that means starting their closing duties just a wee bit earlier, so be it. Sometimes staying an extra 1-2 hours just isn’t worth that extra $5 tip. All they can do is pray that some inconsiderate bastard that has never worked a day of customer service in their lives doesn’t decide they want to stroll in for a lesiurely dinner 5 minutes before the resteraunt closes.
I waited tables through most of high school and college, always the closing shift. 
I think there should be a law that says every U.S. Citizen must work a minimum of 2 months in a customer service job during the course of their lives. 2 months should be enough to cure most of the customer/employee problems caused by customer ignorance. It should be like paying your taxes.
Nope. Not buying it.
I never worked food service; however, I did work as a tour guide for a set of caverns near my hometown. A tour usually took an hour, give or take. The guide assigned to the last tour didn’t have as much to do in the closing-down portion of the day (such as mop the floors, clean the bathrooms, pick up trash on the grounds, etc.) as the other guides. However, he or she was stuck if somebody came pulling in to the parking lot five minutes before the last tour was scheduled to depart and bought tickets. The last tour usually left 15 minutes before the gift shop closed, so the tour guide would be stuck working for at least 45 minutes after everyone else had left.
So having last-tour duty could be a mixed blessing. If nobody showed up in time, the tour guide got the best of both worlds – he or she could leave at the same time as everyone else, and didn’t have to do as much cleaning work. If even one person bought a ticket, though, they were on the hook.
Again, I have no problem with a restaurant saying “our grill (or kitchen or whatever) closes 30 minutes prior to the dining area” or something similar. (Frankly, in the interest of fostering good employee relations, this would be an excellent move for restaurants to make.) If there’s no such notice, the ownership/management obviously wants stuff sold right up until closing. Customers should be able to eat (or take a tour) right up until the posted closing time.
leads to…
kind of mentality :rolleyes:
Two important points you’re missing here.
#1. If no one came for your last tour you got to leave early you didn’t have to stay late . Your schedule dictated that you were there until the last tour was scheduled. Therefore it really made no difference if someone attended the last tour or not. For a server, it makes a HUGE difference if someone comes in 5 minutes before close, that server will then have to stay an extra hour AFTER their schedule dictates they would leave, not at the same time vs. an hour early.
#2.
my post had nothing to do with what **management ** wants. When I worked for Nordstrom, the store would often stay open late because owners/management wanted to make more money, with no thought to the employees that wanted to get home to their families. If it were up to **owners/management, ** food establishments would often remain open long after closing in order to bring in more dough. I’m not talking what ownership/management wants, i’m talking about having some consideration for the people actually doing the work.
The logical side of me says yes, someone SHOULD be able to waltz into a resteraunt 5 minutes before closing and enjoy a leisurely meal. My compassionate however, side says no, i’m not going to make this poor server stay an extra 1-2 hours so my selfish ass can give ownership/management an extra $20 that the actual server will see maybe a cent of. I’ll take my ass to a 24 hour joint or a place that isn’t closing in the next 5 minutes thankyouverymuch. :mad:
I will come down on the customer side of the food service arguement. What time a closer gets out is not the customer’s problem, end of story. (And yes, I’ve worked in food service).
If the place closes at 10pm, then you should be able to get food until 10pm. If they want to close the grill early, they can post a sign to that affect, otherwise the customer gets their food. When I worked at Mickey D’s, we used to close almost the entire grill area up, but leave a cooking space available that wasn’t totally cleaned yet and a set of utensils out- it kept from having to do a total close at 11pm, and kept the food coming, which was the purpose of being there.
The owners of the food type places where I’ve worked cared about happy customers, not employees hurrying up to get home to their families. If someone doesn’t want to work that late, they shouldn’t be a closer, IMHO.
Zette
I’m not talking about Mickey D’s, or anyplace that it takes a total of 10 minutes to take and prepare an order. I’m talking about full service resteraunts. Trust me, it’s different.
OK, I belive you (I’ve worked in full service restaurants, too), but still- if the restaurant says they serve food until 10pm, then should should expect to serve 'till 10pm. If they are OPEN until 10pm but the kitchen closes at 9:30 (to avoid the very issues you raise), then that’s different, IMHO.
Zette
Sorry, sent last response too quick…
No, it’s not the customer’s problem but it sure was nice when a considerate customer would walk into the resteraunt I worked in, note that there was not any other customers in there, ask what time we closed and when we said, quite nicely since there was a manager breathing down our necks, “at 10” at 9:55, and would say “oh, well I won’t keep you then, bye!”
It’s good to know there are still some considerate, non-self absorbed people out there.
Basically, it boils down to this: just because you’re ABLE to do something, doesn’t mean you SHOULD do it. Because you CAN waltz into a resteraunt 5 minutes before they close doesn’t mean you SHOULD waltz into said resteraunt. The fact remains that it’s just not a nice thing to do to the employees. End of story.
So, does this mean you’ll be throwing me up against the wall personally if I say it?
I’m definitely on lezlers’ side on this one. I was the dishwasher who left after everyone else for a couple months one summer. Just because you CAN come in and have a leisurely dinner at five minutes to close doesn’t mean you SHOULD. That extra $4 on my paycheque doesn’t make up for missing the last bus and getting home two hours later than usual. I also agree that everyone should have to work entry-level, bottom rung jobs for at least six months in their lives. It would do away with a lot of thoughtlessness in a lot of areas, I’m pretty sure.
I once had a supervisor tell me that exact thing while she was training me, and it’s certainly true in my case; but there are those who figure, “Hey, I don’t have to [wash the dishes, clean up the mess I’m making on my table,etc.].”
I think it comes down to management’s policy: would they rather serve the customers’ convenience and pay the staff for the extra time, or close promptly and get the employees off the clock?
I was referring to general policy, not a specific instance, for what it’s worth. I stand by my last post. If the staff wants to get out, the kitchen should close before the restaurant. If not, then that sucks. I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. Even though you put a smilie after your insult, it was still pretty damned rude. I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree and I’ll work on my “non self-absorbed” personality skills. I’m pretty much the most self absorbed asshole I know, so that could take a while.
:rolleyes:
Zette
Thanks feather, I was beginning to think I was the only one
Sorry if I overreacted Zette, your post did seem rather haughty though. It brought back a lot of “bad customer” memories. It’s the whole “oh, you’re here 2 extra hours because of me? OWELL! not my problem!” kind of thinking that bugs me. I think we were arguing two different things as well, I agree with you that the customer has the right to get food up until close, I just don’t think that means they SHOULD. But anyways, I really am sorry for being rude, forgive me?