Are y’all making a distinction between retail sales and food service, or are you lumping them both together? Because in my particular example, I believe there were circumstances which warranted my complaint of not being able to close my store at its appointed time.
And before you bring it up, no, I didn’t leave the store after I locked the doors. There were always orders to write up for the next morning or stock to enter into the computerized ordering system. The fact that my customers didn’t leave the damn wallcovering tables until I dimmed the lights and made the closing announcement and then demanded I figure their order rankled then and it does now when I think about it. It was damned inconsiderate.
We also tried the Border’s Guy announcement in our store. It fell on deaf ears. No one ever budged until we started dimming the lights.
This has been a most interesting thread, BTW. Is anyone keeping score?
I used to work at a Subway long, long ago. I was the closer. I had no choice, it was either be the closer or have no job.
Our store closed at 10:00pm. I got paid, no matter how long I was there, until 10:30. Yes, that is not legal. I suppose I could have complained about it to the Workforce Commision, but it would have meant not having a job.
So, in order to get out of there by 10:30, I had to start cleaning the dining area and bathrooms well ahead of closing time. I also had to wash every container, prep bread, meat setups, salads, and vegetables for the lunch shift the next day, clean the cold table and hot table, clean the softdrink machine, sweep and mop the entire store and take the trash out, not to mention the closing paperwork. I did as much of this stuff as possible during the last 2 hours the restaurant was open, but if I had customers during the more critical phases, I was fucked. Often I would be at the fucking store until midnight.
Needless to say, as soon as I could find another job, I was out of there.
I got my revenge on inconsiderate customers when I was working in Loss Prevention for Best Buy. I was responsible for closing the store front and keeping customers from coming in after our posted closing time. Not one single “just for a second/I know what I want” piece of shit got into my fucking store. I was immovable. I was a rock. My store managers loved me, as did most of the employees that got to leave on time instead of staying late because inconsiderate assholes.
Shit Sofa King, I know exactly what you’re talking about, unfortunately. Thank fucking god that I don’t have to deal with that shit anymore.
Demise, that Subway situation just stinks. My condolences on having to go through that.
This, though, is a strange attitude to have. I understand not letting folks in as the store is closing. But “piece of shit”? “Inconsiderate assholes”? You do understand that those folks are the ones that helped pay your salary, right?
No, they didn’t. The nice people that came into the store during store business hours paid my salary. The dozen or so people that tried to come in after the store closed would just cost the store money in employee wages.
Besides, technically I paid my own salary in the loss I prevented.
Thank you thank you Demise and Couch, I was beginning to think I had fallen into one of those nightmarish “customer is always right, worship the customer!” brain washing corporate training videos…
No, the customer is most certainly not always right. But s/he sure as shit is right when s/he walks into a store/restaurant during said store’s normal posted business hours and expects to get served. Preferably without getting attitude about it.
well with THAT attitude Jadis, you’ve probably had a loogie sandwich or two around closing time.
Like I said about 20 TIMES already, i’m not arguing the customers RIGHT, i’m arguing that it’s not very NICE nor is it very CONSIDERATE to waltz into a resterant 5 min. before they close to enjoy a nice leisurly sit down meal. Are my posts going through or something?
well with THAT attitude Jadis, you’ve probably had a loogie sandwich or two around closing time.
Like I said about 20 TIMES already, i’m not arguing the customers RIGHT, i’m arguing that it’s not very NICE nor is it very CONSIDERATE to waltz into a resterant 5 min. before they close to enjoy a nice leisurly sit down meal, ESPECIALLY with an “you’d better serve me and PREFERABLY NOT WITH AN ATTITUDE” kind of air. Screw you and the high and mighty horse you rode in on.
What you just said to lezlers, Jadis, should apply to me, too.
I understand completely what you’re saying. If you come in during posted business hours, expect to be helped/served/etc. I think my beef is when people come in a few minutes to closing, knowing it’s a few minutes till closing, and still spending a half-hour or more there. If someone comes in at that time, is polite and gets in and out rather quickly, it’s not too big a deal.
I used to work at a gas station. I had to close (the only shifts I could work were the evening ones, so either I closed or I had no job) (and yes, the station should have been open 24 hours. But we’d have a whole 2 people come in after 11 pm, so he just had us close up). The thing is, if I’m scheduled to close at 10pm, I was only paid for my work until 10pm. A few people come in in a stream, holding up our being able to close, and I’m not able to even lock the door until a half-hour later. I wouldn’t be paid for that half-hour, even though I was working. My boss’ response? “Try to close a couple minutes earlier if you have to, I don’t care”
Heh. So I could be stuck working an extra hour, and I wouldn’t get paid. That is the only reason I hate when people come in after I say, “Ma’am, we were supposed to close 20 minutes ago” and they insist on getting everything, even though another station was only five minutes away.
The only reason customers come in after closing time is because YOU LET THEM COME IN. If you don’t want people coming into the store, lock the door. Open the door to let people out, then lock it again.
Look, there are three main attitudes you can have when you walk into a bookstore five minutes before closing.
I’m here to get something I want and get the fuck out.
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I don’t know what the fuck I want. I want help; I want to browse the trees for edible bugs and motherfucking roots.
Why do you, Jadis, the educated consumer, have to put up with the preliminary bombardment? Because you are the wolf amidst the sheep. You obviously fall into class 1), so you personally wouldn’t dare to inconvenience an entire staff of a store just so you could decide between the gardening book or the golf book.
To put it another way, business hours END at the stated time. If you come in near the end of that stated time, you should understand that you have entered in a period of curtailment for which retail slaves are often not compensated in either wages or lost life.
So get what you want, get the fuck out, and have a little bit of respect for your formerly friendly servant, who is trying very hard to get the fuck out of that place, too.
Jeez, you give some people a little authority and they just roll in it like dogs in shit. Are you perchance related to the guy who worked at Virgin Megastore the week that Friend’s car was in the shop?
11:15 pm. Friend has told me he will be out by 11:30. I park and walk up to the door, trying to spot Friend so I can let him know I’m there. Unterkommandant sees me and unlocks the door.
Unterkommandant: We’re closed.
Me: I know. I’m giving someone a ride.
U: You can’t come in.
Me: I didn’t ask to come in. I’m waiting for Friend to come out; I’m his ride.
U locks the door without replying; I go back to my car. About two minutes later, he marches out and knocks on my window. I don’t roll it down.
U: (raises voice to be heard) You’re gonna have to leave.
Me: (rolling window down) I’m gonna leave as soon as Friend comes out.
U: We don’t allow people to hang out in our parking lot.
Me: I’m giving…someone…a ride.
U: If you don’t leave I’m calling the police.
What could I do? I backed out, drove around the block and came back to find Friend standing in the lot. “Oh, that guy,” he said when I explained. “They just don’t like people grouping up in the parking lot; they don’t want dealers or gangbangers.” Oyeah, I look so much like a dealer.
Nothing held him up, Sofa. I’m talking about the employee’s automatic assumption that if I was in their parking lot after closing, I had to be up to no good.
Jadis, that is PERCISELY why I got OUT of customer service, and why i’m an overly considerate customer. I dealt with high and mighty attitudes like yours for 8 years, that was my limit.
Sofa, right on, you said it better than I could’ve.
Point the first: I’m falling in love with Sofa King in the Pit this week. We should have hot wild monkey sex.
Point the second: Retail blows. It blows hard because of about 10% of the customers who are inconsiderate autoinflated rectal pumps. They have almost every right to be. (I draw the line at abusing other customers. I’ll take abuse but you elbow one of my other pewcious dawlings in the chest one more time and I’m assaulting you with the cash register.) However, for those of us who properly learned our lesson about customer service, it is possible to be considerate to the current taskforce! No one withers and dies if you treat your service people like people with intact souls! I promise!
Point the last: I love people. I’m also pretty resiliant to the soul battering that customer service entails. There are still actions that will earn my wrath as a person, one of them is ignoring that I am a person beyond my service to you. Expecting me to stay beyond schedule (and while I work close its not called close, I’m scheduled to a time, that time is the listed closing time, get the fuck out.) is treating me as an extension of the store. The corperation I work for allows for this, you as a human being do not have to as well.
Well, then, Rilchiam, you may be confusing the “security mind” with the “small mind,” which is what I have as a result of my retail experience.
See, I just want to go the hell home when the boss told me I could go home. If I have to chase people away to do it, I happily will. Loiterers, bums, and criminals? Eh, they were just people to dodge on the way out.
He wasn’t security, Sofa. He was a cashier or manager or whatever and he left the store to confront me; I wasn’t in the store. He actually created a dangerous situation by doing that.
