I agree with this completely. Apparently, though, I’m representing the Evil Forces of Capitalism[sup]TM[/sup] in this thread by suggesting employees are supposed to serve customers right up until the posted hours of the store or restaurant end.
Um, no. I could have gave a fuck what you were doing in the parking lot, as long as it wasn’t actually a crime. No, instead, I was just tired of people who thoughtlessly made my and my coworkers lives miserable by being selfish, inconsiderate pricks.
If you read a little better, you may have noticed that I specfically said: “Not one single “just for a second/I know what I want” piece of shit got into my fucking store.” Why you think this somehow relates to people waiting in the parking lot, I’m not sure.
I’m sorry, but I fail to see exactly what is so “high and mighty” about my attitude. You seem to feel this sense of entitlement to snub customers (if not to their faces, then at least in harboring resentment in your head and in your posts here) at the end of your shift because they’re infringing on your ability to clean up and go home early. The only point that I’ve made here is that if I patronize a business during that business’ standard posted business hours, then I expect to be able to receive service and preferably without a put-upon sigh of disgust from the employees.
If I impose upon a business’ employees beyond their standard posted business hour, then I will take any chastisement you care to deal out. Until that point, I expect to be treated with respect. The employee’s post-closing problems are not mine. If you think that staying open until a certain hour isn’t worth your time, or the business’ time, then take it up with management. If they agree with you, they’ll change their policy (in the case of having the grill of a restaurant open right up to the minute of close) or hours (in the case of the tour guide who didn’t want to lead the last tour of the day) and I, as a consumer, will respect that decision.
Basically, I keep hearing that I shouldn’t patronize stores close to the end of their business day because it’s an inconvenience to the employees. To that, I respond with a hearty BULLSHIT. The business is in business to provide me with some sort of service. If they don’t want to provide that service during the hours that they themselves have set, then they should change their hours, change their policies, whatever. But stop trying to tell me that I shouldn’t expect service from a business that’s OPEN for business!
Yeesh.
And the congregation said, “Amen!”
By Zweisamkeit:
I wouldn’t be paid for that half-hour, even though I was working.
This is illegal. Your boss could get into very big trouble for this.
I was in a Borders right around closing time. I was walking down the stairs behind the counter where they have the PA system to make those announcements. As the guy was going through the thing, I stood behind him and in a loud rough whisper said “Get. Out!”
Apparently I said it loud enough for him to hear and he had to stop his announcement because he was laughing at what I had done. It was a good couple minutes before he composed himself to go on. I considered it a job well done on my part.
I do want to point out again because it has come up in this thread several times. The state I live in is not at all forgiving of employers that do not pay their employees for their work. Employers have gotten in some really deep shit for doing this despite their ‘reasons’.
It is a CRIMINAL act. Employers who coerce hourly employees into working for nothing are criminals and need to be punished.
Yes, some employers do expect their minions to work off the clock. And they usually end up getting caught.
Many years ago I had a retail job, where I was an hourly employee. I was paid an hourly rate, but was told I could not “work” more than 40 hours a week. Since I was an Assistant Manager, I couldn’t just walk out when I’d worked 40 hours. Plus, I’d get fired.
No overtime for you!
If I worked 36 or 37 hours, I got paid for 36 or 37 hours.
If I worked 42 hours, I got paid for 40 hours.
If I worked 48 hours, I got paid for 40 hours.
About 4 years after I quit, I got a letter in the mail with a nice hefty check informing me I had been part of a class-action lawsuit and the check was my settlement and back wages owed to me for time worked.
The company went bankrupt.
I laughed all the way to the bank to cash my check.
Jadis, I’ve found our misunderstanding out. I’m thinking resterant’s here, because it’s what I know best in the customer service industry. If you walk into my resteraunt 5 minutes before close, anything after SEATING you would be AFTER THE RESTERAUNT WAS CLOSED. Taking your order? AFTER CLOSE. The cooks cooking your order? AFTER CLOSE! Me bringing your food to you? AFTER CLOSE! Me waiting for you to eat your food at your own leisurely pace? AFTER CLOSE! Me bringing you the check? AFTER CLOSE! Me waiting for you to pay me? AFTER CLOSE! You leaving? WAY AFTER CLOSE! The only thing you ACTUALLY did BEFORE close was walk your inconsiderate ass in. Everything else was done AFTER CLOSE. If someone comes in 20 minutes or more before close, the whole service routine has already started. That’s fine, we’ll finish. But when ALL that happens during business hours is you walking in? That’s another story.
So I can’t even think nasty thoughts in my head huh? So are you going to complain to a manager if you’re convinced I may be THINKING bad thoughts about you? Gimme a break.
lezlers, I’m not sure where the disconnect is occurring here, but let me try to state my position (and, I think, Jadis’ as well) succinctly.
If a restaurant has a sign telling customers that the grill (kitchen, whatever) shuts down before the dining room, only an inconsiderate idiot would try to order a full meal five minutes before close. Nobody is saying they would do so in that circumstance.
However, if there’s no indication that the restaurant doesn’t want customers to order food five minutes before close, then it is NOT inconsiderate of the customer to expect the employees of the restaurant to do THEIR JOB. If a restaurant says its business hours are 8 a.m. till 10 p.m., a customer can reasonably expect to walk in to the restaurant at 9:55 p.m. and get the same service and food options as a customer who walked in at six p.m. Why wouldn’t they? The restaurant is still open for business, and still allowing customers inside.
I defy you to show me an employment agreement that says people engaged in customer-service jobs only have to serve customers when they feel like it. YOUR JOB, as a server/cook/busboy/whatever, would be to serve customers that enter the establishment during the restaurant’s business hours.
You are perfectly free to complain that it’s not fair. And the owner/manager is perfectly free to fire you and hire someone else who understands the basic principles of customer service.
Where did anybody say this?
Jadis did, read his post again.
My point was you are not ordering food 5 minutes before the resteraunt closes, you are WALKING IN 5 MINUTES BEFORE THE RESTERAUNT CLOSES. Unless you break out into a run, dive into a table, speed-read a menu with your waitress standing right next to you, there’s no way you’re going to get your order in within 5 minutes of setting foot in the place. Thereby making the server stay AFTER CLOSE just to wait on YOU. No one else, just YOU. How is that being considerate? It’s after close! You walked IN before close but EVERYTHING ELSE is occuring AFTER close.
Good god man, what is so hard to understand? Yes you CAN walk in, but NO it’s not a very considerate thing to do! You have the RIGHT to do a little monkey dance around the parking lot but that DOESN’T MEAN YOU SHOULD! Jesus H. Christ!!
Ye gods lezlers, but you have some serious reading comprehension issues.
You can think all of the nasty thoughts you want, but you’re not going to convince me that you’re not an idiot for doing so when you’re clearly vilifying customers for doing exactly what they’re entitled to do. You’re creating your own unhappiness by convincing yourself that you’re being victimized by being forced to do your job.
Nice strawman with the “complain to the manager for merely thinking nasty thoughts” thing there. Too bad that’s not what I said. :rolleyes:
And for the record, I’m female.
And unless the restaurant in question has a policy that the kitchen closes X minutes before the published closing time of the restaurant itself, that person walking in 5 minutes before close has every right to do so and expect to be seated and served dinner with the same level of service as the patrons that were there 2 hours before closing.
Now if that same person that comes in 5 minutes before closing decides to take 20 minutes to order, linger over the dinner for 45 minutes, and then sit and drink coffee with dessert for another 30 minutes on top of that, then they are being inconsiderate assholes who should have come in earlier.
When one works a closing shift one should expect that sometimes they are going to stay later than other nights. That’s the way it goes. Some days you get lucky and no one comes in right before close, some days you get someone that does. Sure it sucks, and later you bitch to your co-workers, but it still doesn’t change the fact it was not rude of that customer to come in 5 minutes before close.
For the record, I’ve worked retail, ‘fast’ food, an espresso bar/deli type place, and at a sit-down restaurant, so I know what I’m talking about.
Psst- for the record, you’re right about Jadis.
She is a class A pain in the ass when she wants her proper service. Why, we went the other week to get sushi and I was all like "Hey, Jadis- wanna try some sushi? And she was all like “OK, let’s go to Wegmans”. So we went there and they were just about closed up and she was all like “HEY, buddy boy- I hope the hell you aren’t putting away that there raw fish and sticky rice and chewy seaweed! My friend Zette and I are fixin’ to have us some freaking sushi!” and I was all like “Jadis- you’re flippin’ out, girl! You gotta get a grip!” and then she jumped over the counter, grabbed the sushi chef’s filet knife and said “HEY! You get slicin’ that there tuna pronto, shushi boy, or I’ll make paper thin slices outta your testes!” and I was all like “WHOA! Jadis! You’re an animal!” and she was all like “And don’t be gettin’ cheap with the California rolls, neither!”
OK, that’s not really what happened, but suffice to say that I know Jadis and I know me, and neither of us are self-centered, selfish bitches. OK, maybe bitches, but not self-centered or selfish. I have a feeling that we are all just disagreeing on semantic…symantec…definitions here.
Sometimes you just gotta take a deep breath and let it gooooooooooo…Ahhhhh…isn’t that better?
Zette
(psst! The above incident happened just like that, but I’m afraid Jadis will hurt me for telling. Don’t tell her I told ya. None of yas)
LOL Zette, the comic relief was much needed. 
And 'scuse me MS. JADIS… now, the person you were referring to, that takes 20 min to order, lingers ect. is the same person I’m talking about. I don’t know who the hell you were talking about. That’s the situation i’ve had in mind during this entire debate. For what it’s worth.
Sorry, it was Mauve who said that.
Perhaps this is the crux of the matter. You had a specific instance in mind, which hacked you off (apparently justifiably, because the patron[s] in question lingered unnecessarily after closing time). I was speaking (and I’m certain Jadis was, as well) in the general sense, which is why I was dumbfounded that you’d argue against a customer wanting service when the restaurant didn’t specify that service wasn’t available.
Any patron that comes in right near closing and lingers deserves scorn. We would just start closing up right around them, trust me, vacuuming the area right around their table is a good way to get people to stop chatting over coffee. 
I also think a lot of these problems are due to poor management and poor closing processes. People are not served after closing hours without the management allowing it, either through action or inaction. Sometimes the mgmt just needs the balls to tell a customer (or allow the staff to tell them) “no, we are closed”
Band name!
(Oooh, this is my first!)
Sauron,
Hence why I said multiple times that I thought we were talking about different things. Bear in mind that in a sit down resteraunt situation, it’s hard NOT to linger…an average sit down resteraunt “experience” usually runs about an hour (from start to finish, at least the ones i’ve worked in). My thing is that if you are aware that the service is going to take that long, (about an hour) you are aware that the resteraunt is within minutes of closing, why would you still go in there? Why not just go somewhere else? THAT is what dumbfounds ME.