My dad, a (now-retired) district supervisor for the Washington State Patrol, had a great sign on the wall behind his desk:
A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.
Closely related to the “last minute shoppers” are the “10-15 minutes late to work every single day” people. When a single man who has no children and only works one job simply cannot get to work on time, it’s poor planning and poor time management.
My rule is that I won’t initiate contact with a place of business unless I’ll be trying to conclude my last action there by closing time. That means no going to restaurants unless you’ll probably be able to set the money/credit card down for the bill before closing, and for places that have lines and relatively short final transactions (supermarket, post office, bank), no getting in line after closing time. Sure, I may be out a little after closing time, but at least the employees have a bit of control over things.
I expect to be able to do anything that I can do at a teller window, yes. I do not expect to be able to dash into the lobby at 5:59 and open a new account, visit my safe deposit box, etc. If I can’t be in and out in less time than it takes to cash out a drawer, it can wait till the next day. As Phase42’s daddy said, lack of planning on my part ain’t an emergency on their part. The sign clearly states that the lobby closes at 6pm, at which time they’d be perfectly within their rights to throw my butt out of their lobby, served or unserved.
A scenario where you have an appointment with someone is different. You have, in essence, a contract whereby they have agreed to serve you on that day. If they have to stay late to fulfill the terms of that contract, well, them’s the breaks. A walk-in service like a bank, shop, or restaurant doesn’t have that sort of contract, and they aren’t obligated to stay late to serve you.
The restaurants where I’ve worked have listed their closing time as the last time that you can (ostensibly) get seated and fed from the kitchen. I never cared about people coming right before close, provided they weren’t assholes about us being out of some things. If they really lingered over their coffee and dessert and then poked around about checking out, I could finish up all my closing work and get out before the manager chained the door and went into his office to go over the cash drawers. (If you didn’t get out before the chains went on, once you got done you had to sit around and wait until the drawers were done before you could go home. And they got mightily pissed if you waited to clock out until you could actually leave.)
I worked in retail for a time at Spencer Gifts. The corporate office decreed that no customer be told that we were closing and the just let them get the message by the fact the doors were being half shut and we were cleaning. Usually, it worked OK.
But one case . . .
It was Christmas Eve on a Sunday. Closing time was 5:00. Someone came in at 4:45 and proceeded to spend an hour doing ALL his Christmas shopping. Everyone glared at him, but he was oblivious. He just went about his business until he had leisurely picked out everything he wanted.
A real jerk, double so because he was doing all his shopping at Spencer Gifts. :wally
I took MadSam’s post as illustrating the contrast between what “open” is in different industries.
If I go to the bank that closes at 5:00, I expect to have to finish my business by 5:00. That is, I expect that they are going to tell everyone, “The bank is closing in 5 minutes. Please finish your transaction and be ready to leave within 5 minutes.” If I go to Target and they close at 10, I fully expect them to make me leave by 10:00.
However, a sit-down restaurant that “closes” at 10:00 usually doesn’t kick out all the customers at 10:00. They stop letting people in at 10; or they stop taking dinner orders either at 10 or at 9:30 or earlier, so that people can have a reasonable amount of time to order and eat. Although if they can order at 9:30, they are probably not going to finish by 10:00. I worked in many sit-down restaurants and when we “closed” at 10, no server ever expected that that would mean they would clock out and be done at 10. There were customers to wait for and clean-up to be done - closing just meant we didn’t let anyone new in.
In fact, any restaurant I ever worked at (only sit-downs; no fast food, no takeout-only), the norm was to expect to stay at least 1.5 hours after “closing” time - to close out your last tables and then to clean up and cash out. If you were able to leave earlier than that, it was a bonus.
I can’t imagine that any cook or chef would regularly expect to leave at 10 just because the restaurant closed at 10. If so, he would be very naive about how restaurants worked.
You can’t even compare them. Cleaning up a doctor’s office or closing out a bank drawer don’t even come close to the work needed to close up a commercial kitchen. Everything has to be washed, food put away, floors mopped, bathrooms cleaned - the list is endless.
I worked in retail many years, too. I spent several years at a high-end jewelry and gift store and we’d get the Five-minutes-before-closing people all the time. They’d just breezily say, “Go ahead and close up, I’m just looking!” Insurance regulations prohibited us from removing things from the showcases (to be put in the vault) while customers were still in the store. (IIRC, all customers had to be gone and the front doors had to be locked.) This wasn’t a chain mall store; we had some high-priced baubles. The fact that we just stood there, letting them look at things, only encouraged them.
While I have had times when the last hour of business was completely dead and I was able to get everything cleaned up and put away before closing time, and was out the door at maybe 5 minutes after closing, that was definitely not the norm. When I worked closing shifts, I typically expected to be there for at least half an hour after closing. Half an hour is a reasonable amount of time to close down and clean up most kitchens.
What is truly aggravating, though, is a night that has been dead slow for the last two hours before closing, and you’ve taken the opportunity to get a lot of things done ahead of time (there is really a lot that can be done to clean up and still be able to prepare orders). Then, fifteen minutes before closing, a party of fourteen people comes piling in the door. At the very least, preparing the food for that group is going to almost completely undo all of the cleaning you’ve done.
Of course, I’m probably going to be finished cleaning up after these guys long before the server is done with his or her work. Once I’ve put the food up, I can start finishing my closing procedures. But the server has to wait until the customers are finished and gone. If it’s late at night, and the server is a woman, I’m going to have to stick around until she’s done anyway, because my personal ethics won’t let me leave her alone while I go home.
I’m a breakfast cook these days, so I don’t have the “closing time” issues any more. What I get instead are the people who think they’re special and that I should make exceptions for them. For example, my restaurant serves breakfast until noon. This is printed right on the breakfast menu. Why does breakfast end at noon? Well, for one thing, there is limited refrigerator space on the line. I will keep the breakfast items in the refrigerator closest to my work area during breakfast hours. At noon, I move all of the breakfast foods into a different refrigerator, and move the lunch foods into the convenient coolers. Preparing breakfast after noon requires digging all the breakfast stuff back out of the other refrigerator.
There is also the fact that many lunch and dinner items to not play well with breakfast foods on the grill. When I have been sauteeing meats and vegetables on the grill, the sauces leave behind a residue that makes the grill unsuitable for cooking hashbrowns - your hashbrowns will end up with a bunch of little crunchy black bits in them. The part of the grill I use for cooking pancakes and french toast during breakfast is the same part of the grill I use for grilling hamburger buns and garlic toast during lunch. If there are pancakes there, I can’t grill hamburger buns. And I’ll assume most people don’t want garlic in their french toast. You don’t want hamburger buns soaked with bacon and sausage grease.
But there will be certain people who will continually ask for breakfast after noon, and no matter how many times they’re told “no”, they’ll keep asking every time they get a new waitress who they think won’t know any better.
Here’s what I think the problem is with these kinds of people: going out to a restaurant is the one chance many middle-class people have to feel superior to somebody. Hey, we’re all just lowly cooks and waitresses, most of us making less than $20,000 a year (I’ve never made more that $16,000). So the people who make $30,000 - $40,000 get to look at us as “servants”. It’s fun for them to bark orders at us, and to inconvenience us. They think we’re so desperate for their money that we’ll jump through hoops for them. They don’t care that their lack of consideration makes us have to work twice as hard for no more money, or that their coming in late means the single mother waiting on them has to pay her babysitter extra because she’s going to be late picking up her kid.
I never go into anywhere that is close to closing. Makes me nervous, makes the clerk hate you.
Like mentioned above about bars in Washington, here in Kansas there are clocks in every bar set 20 minutes fast. When that clock reads 1:30, last call is called. When that clock reads 1:50, everyone is OUT of that bar. ATB will shut you down (usually for good) if anyone is drinking after hours, and most patrons respect that and leave when asked.
I’ve been a bad patron. Having never worked in the food service industry, I’ve always assumed that restaurants that were open and ready to serve as long as you arrived before closing. I never imagined that a 10pm closing meant that the staff was expected to go home at 10. Restaurants have a lot of clean-up to do so I thought that staying 30-60 minutes after closing was the norm. I guess I’ll have to only go to 24-hour restaurants after the theater, then.
Honestly, Ruby, it also depends on the situation. If the place is still full of patrons, you staying or leaving is of no consequence. If you are the single lonely table with 5 people standing around at the bar waiting for you to finish, well you get the idea.
Maybe it is part of their job description to wait around for you to finish, but finishing up promptly is a nice thing to do for service workers. The janitors in office buildings are paid to sweep the floors, but that doesn’t mean you should just drop trash in the hallway instead of the trash can.
It really wouldn’t bother most servers to stay after hours waiting on late diners if most of the diners would simply understand that we’re staying later for them, and tip accordingly. It’s has never bothered me to stay later for polite, appreciative customers, but when the restaurant closes at 10pm and eight 17-year-olds come in at 9:50 and want large pizzas, appetizers, salads, what have you, stay there yammering at each other until dang near 11pm…yeah. That bothers me. From a group like that, I’m lucky to get $2.
Then there was the lovey-dovey couple. They stroll in at 5 mins. 'til close, order wine and appetizers, and say “I’ll let you know when we’re ready to order,” and then get so immersed in their conversation that they seem to forget they’re in public. Then, as I’m trying my best to get all my sidework done, they’re impatiently waving me over to place their dinner order. Food comes out, they eat, they ask for to-go boxes, then the bastards order coffee and dessert. At this place, we weren’t allowed to do anything to make the customers feel rushed, but even my manager was standing there with me at the bar glaring at them after the servers and even most of the kitchen staff had already gone home.
So, I guess the moral of the story is to be polite and courteous if you find yourself in such a situation. If you’re hungry, by all means, eat. If you must have something from the store, go get it, but fer Pete’s sake, hurry up about it. Browsing can wait until tomorrow, and there’s carry-out in most restaurants.
I’m another Doper who’s worked in food services (dishwasher and short-order cook), and I’ll add my voice to the list of people who hated it when people would come in 5 minutes before closing. We did get paid until we actually left, so yes, we’d get paid more for staying longer. But if normally the last customer left before or at closing time and I could get out of there 1/2 an hour later, to suddenly have to stay an hour to and hour and a half past closing time was really annoying. I understood that I didn’t have a set leaving time, but I got used to leaving at a certain time and would plan to go home or go out or whatever at that time, not an hour later.
Maybe this is because last minute customers (oh, wait, that’s right they’re “guests”) put me in a bad frame of mind to start with, but customers who came in right before closing always seemed more demanding or arrogant or snobby than those who would come in earlier. That just made it even worse.
It hasn’t meant that the staff could go home at 10 at any of the places I’ve worked. I have also not been lucky enough to work anywhere where the kitchen stopped taking orders at “closing time.” Most places I’ve worked have taken orders right up to closing, and even taken orders AFTER closing - you just had to be in the door by closing. They gave people another 15 minutes to order. Boy did the kitchen staff love that.
Every restaurant I ever worked at has also forbidden any cleanup that is visible by any customers sitting in the dining room - no matter what time it is or how long after closing they are sitting there. Close at 10, people still lingering at midnight? Tough - you just stand there until they leave. Cleaning up would make them “uncomfortable.” (After 2 hours of dawdling, they can go sit on a spike for all I care. Being uncomfortable because I’m cleaning up is the least of my concerns for them.)
I remember one story a coworker told me about a customer who came up to him ten minutes before closing time on Christmas Eve (they closed at 8 pm) and asked about buying a Christmas tree. A fucking Christmas tree at 8 pm on Christmas Eve?
Or the woman who stood around and bitched at us when the electricity went out and we had to hurry up and take everyone through before the auxiliary power shutdown (the registers would only work for a half an hour after a power outage). We were all ready to slap the living shit out of her.
I just went through this with my employees at my coffay house. My night manager came from a higher end resturant background and couldnt bring himself to herd the customers out at closing. Mind you, these guys are perfectly happy to leave when we suggest it, but he didn’t want to ask.
When I finally sat down and explained how much money we were losing in overtime every night because of it, and that if I had to come down there every night and do it myself there would be hell to pay he finally tried it and saw that our customers are pretty nice about such things. They are a great bunch of people.
In actuallity, by the time we closed, people were done with their coffee and coffee accessories…they were just hanging out BSing and some of them had already been there four or five hours.
I did read past this quote, obviously you are a person in a position to say a thing or two about working late hours for zero compensation. You chose two examples that struck me.
I have walked into my branch a lot of times, close to closing time. I would never think to ask to get to my S.D. Box, but if I need to get a deposit verified, or need some other kind of counter service, I’ll go for it. I have in fact walked out of my bank- as well as Post Office- when a long line indicates that I’ll be part of the problem, not the solution. However, banking and eating a meal are two entirely different dynamics. If you work all day and are not permitted time to bank during lunch ( if you even get a lunch ), then walking in at 5:55pm is your only option. It doesn’t speak of rudeness or irresponsibility or lack of planning. It speaks of real life, baby.
OTOH, going to the Dr. is at the far end of the scale. I’m pretty sick today. It might or might not be the flu, I have a virus that is in my eyes as well ( got drops for that yesterday but eeeeeeeww they’re burning like they are on fire ). It’s been snowing steadily for 15 hours. If I can get out of my 300 foot driveway and get to the Dr’s office, you bet your sweet bippy that I will take ANY appointment they give to me. If it’s a 4:20pm and they close at 4:30 and the Dr. is running 30-45 minutes behind, guess who isn’t gonna fall on the sword and leave at exactly 4:30pm??? Medical treatment is not a Service Industry in the same way that getting a Chokeazola Fried Platter is at Chili’s. It just isn’t. There are legal and ethical ramifications involved. You have committed to treating someone, you do not turn off the lights at 4:20 and whisk em out the door unseen at 4:30pm.
I worked at an IHOP. It was a 24-hour place. The concept of cleaning up and clocking out were never connected in my mind. I got to clock out, but cleaning was an ongoing issue and there were always more folks there on the day shift as I left the graveyard and went to bed.
Aside from ONE time at the end of a terribly long work day with no lunch break ( where we walked into McDonald’s at about 9:50, and by god made those guys make us up a lotta food cause it was our freakin’ first meal of the day that had started at 7am ), I truly try NEVER to abuse the last hour in a meal service place. That’s awful- it is abusive and will guarantee at the very least, poor service and at the very worst, phlegm in your chimichangas. :eek: ( C’mon, restaurant folks, fess up… )
A normal non-food retail store? I’ll measure my time need against theirs. If I can get in at 9:50 to Staples, run for 3 things, be in line at 9:55 and out when they are looking to lock up, I can live with that, ok? We’re not talking about scraping fat off of steam tables here, we’re talking about finishing out the day with a few keystrokes so the computer can dump, be backed up and closing out the lights and setting the alarm. If the manager of Staples demands that the entire shut-down sequence has to be completed and his employees out the door and off the clock at 10:00 pm exactly, it appears to me that he’s not fit to be a manager, since the posted store hours to the public is 7am-10pm. N’est pas? One allows one’s workers to quickly shut down a retail store. And, one makes allowances rarely. I have spent hours in there, making manuals up and buying binders and doing everything right there. Would I walk in, start xeroxing up a storm and using 3,4,5 reams of paper in the process- at 9:30 pm? No freakin’ way. That is abusive, and I’d expect a manager to come to me and shut me down, asking me to return tomorrow to finish the job.
Okay, having just Previewed this post, I will agree that poor planning is not the problem of a store. If I really walked into Staples at 9:50 with a list of 3 things, I’d be a bit of a jerk. That’s shopping, not an emergency. RUNNING in at 9:50 cause your spare printer cartridge died upon being opened cause it was “past expiration date”, that’s a really good reason to hit Staples close to the close time. Buying printer cartridges at Wal-Mart is a guarantee that this will happen, because of the long lag time in shipping and storage assocaited with that chain. That transaction would take less than 3 minutes, cause it happens SO much that Staples keeps the cartridges immediately up front, facing the cash registers. Coinkydink? I think not. 
Cartooniverse
Oooh, this is good. I can’t believe I didn’t include this. Sorry to doublepost. 
Many years ago, on a Good Friday, we took our two small kids to the Bronx Zoo. The wife was off of school, and it was a good day to go. Off we go. We get there around lunchtime. Now, I live a bit more than an hour’s drive from the Bronx Zoo, not counting wicked NYC traffic.
We get there, unpack our lunches and proceed to eat. We were big fans of the Playtex Snap N Tote Cup. The lid snapped over, sealing the juice. ( Usually…heh ). Not 15 minutes after we arrive at the Zoo, my son pops his cup into his mouth as he is standing next to me. I’m sitting, getting lunches out. He falls over, and that rigid spout tears up into the upper palate in his mouth. Suffice to say, a very messy bloody scene. I get to First Aid in record time, the guy cleans out son’s mouth and says, " You can go to Jacoby Hospital, and sit for 12 hours, or you can drive home and be seen by the Pediatrician, cause this thing cannot be sutured anyway". Okay, fine. I call the Pediatrician. Now, it’s about 1:30pm on Good Friday.
The receptionist who answered told me to hurry in because they were closing early for Good Friday. Ahem. I told her I was in the Bronx Zoo at the moment, and her response was that I probably didn’t have enough time to get there. What??? I told her to stay put and tell the Dr. we were on our way in. When we got there, at the…hour of what, 3:00 pm realistically? Maybe 3:15? The lights were all off. The door was unlocked, and the one receptionist was there behind the desk, steamed and curt and rude. Meanwhile, I walk in with both son and myself nicely coated with blood. ( Head wounds bleed, even if they don’t really amount to much in the end ).
When I got the Dr. alone, I explained what had happened, and he examined my son, who really had a tear in the hard palate, and was not in any imminent danger. I then explained why the damned lights were OFF out in the waiting area, and what his receptionist had said and done. The Dr. was furious.
She no longer works for the Dr. You do not treat ill or injured people the same way you treat someone who has a hankering for a Mudslide and tray of mozzarella sticks. I don’t particularly care what holiday it is. Not in that line of work.
In the traditional retail and service trades, yeah. Cut the guys some slack and don’t go pushing the hours past where you ought to unless you have a very tasty reason for doing so.
What I haven’t seen yet is where a corporation buys out a restaurant for a private party. What are the feelings about the hours worked there? A company buys a place for the night, how long does it go? Are there the same controls in place, do you throw folks out at some point after normal closing time, or are those things negotiated on a party by party basis?
