You should have seen the utter outrage on the faces of the people we turned away from McDonald’s after closing one Thanksgiving.
In the public library last minute people are as comon as in retail. I can understand the desperate students who need to get their research for the paper due tomorrow. I was a guilty procrastinator myself once. Others, not so much so. We had one woman who after being told we were closing, proceded to take her sweet time picking out a DVD. Then after checking the DVD out, and paying a fine on her card, proceded to head straight for the restroom. Twenty minutes later, she finally wandered out, allowing us to lock the door and go home.
This is a problem we have with last minute-ers. Our restrooms are in the lobby, so a person can leave the circulation desk, go through the first set of doors, and head for the restrooms before we can stop them. Now we have to wait for them to evacuate before we can lock the doors and go home. :(Lovely double entendre.
When my husband and I are shopping and we hear the announcement that the store is closing in 15 minutes, we always say to each other in a sepulchral voice; “GET OUT!!!” The occasional passing store clerk has overheard this - I hope they enjoyed it. (We do go to the till and pay and GTFO. We’ve worked enough entry-level jobs to know that when it’s time to git, it’s time to git.)
I think that the person closing the store could have been a little more polite (i.e., I’m sorry - we’re closing; can we make you something to go?); however, I can also see it from their perspective. If it’s 5 minutes before closing time, it seems a little unfair to expect them to let you in to have a sit-down meal you could linger over.
Regardless, unnecessary rudeness from anyone stinks. Yeah, maybe you’re tired and I’m sure your day has been just as difficult as mine. But at least take a moment to politely tell me to go away and I’ll go.
Most libraries I’ve been to have a policy that all items MUST be checked fifteen minutes prior to closing. After that, sorry, no can do.
As well as most restaurants usually close the kitchen about half an hour before the restaurant itself closes.
McNew, that’s all well and good, but the problem is when people come in ten minutes prior to closing, and want to do a week’s worth of shopping, or whatever. Fine, if you just want one or two things, but don’t be an ass.
And we’ve also had cases where, after we locked the entrance door, but left the exit open for the last few people, we’d have people sneak in the exit.
Also, in the instance I mentioned above, we didn’t have a choice-people HAD to leave, because we wouldn’t be able to ring them out if they waited.
And Zoe, I addressed your point above-you should NOT reasonably expect a restaurant to be able to serve you FIVE damned minutes before closing time. Let the remaining diners finish-yes. Anyone else-nope. And even if they would, I think that’s an asshole thing to do-go to a restaurant right before close.
Agreed- didn’t mean to imply I was defending the shopper’s right to act in such a manner- I think I mentioned that once it was closing time, it’s their duty to GTFO. And I also have no problem with them being informed of the situation once they enter the store: “please be advised that the doors will be locked in ten minutes and you must be finished checking out by then”, or some such. I can get a lot done in ten minutes, but not if the employees have decided to get a jump on things and shut down registers or begin their closing duties early.
I worked for one of those 24/7/365 convenience stores a while back–a chain that’s so always open most of the doors don’t even have locks on them. We had a catastrophic power outage which affected half the city, and since the chain was too penny pinching to have backup generators of course the cash register didn’t work. So I called the manager and he told me where to find the emergency chain and padlock and I locked up the doors and put up a sign that said “Power Outage, closed until the power comes back on!” Sure as shit, I had customers banging on the doors and windows. I went up and told them “Hey, the power’s out, we’re closed until it comes back on.” Every. Single. One. Of. Them gave me some version of “But I just need some cigarettes/beer/a pop/just one thing…” Stupid fuckers, the CASH REGISTER DOES NOT WORK WITHOUT ELECTRICITY. I am NOT going to open up just for you to get your “one thing.” Not one thing, not two things, it will be NO things until the power comes back on. How hard is it to A) understand this concept and B) go without your “one thing” until the unusual situation is over? Entitled bastards…
On the other hand, during a really major league snowstorm we got in '96 that left thousands of people without power for days, two friends of mine kept another of these stores open for the entire time of the outage. They locked up the beer coolers and wouldn’t sell any alcohol, but they kept a cashbox under the counter, had two of them there all the time and after the power came back on they rang up all the transactions–and the register balanced! Now THAT’S some dedication! Of course, they lived in the apartments right across the street and since the heating in the apartments was all electric it was a bit warmer at the store since there was a backup propane heater in the store it was a large enough volume of space to safely use it inside. They earned many good karma points during that time selling diapers and bottled water and such to snowed in people who couldn’t get anywhere during the storm.
Amen to THAT. One job I had, we were slow on Christmas Eve, and it was decided who could go home early not by seniority, but by who had small children. I did not, and did not mind staying, but I’ve been there 10 years- ASK me if I mind staying becasue the temp who has been there two months has a litter at home.
What planet are you living on? Bars and bowling alleys maybe, but I doubt “most restaurants” close down their grills half an hour before closing time. The place I work at is open until 11:00 and I have to cook orders regardless of when they come in. I recently had to cook an order AFTER we were closed because a couple of douchebags walked in two mintutes prior to closing time. Funny thing is, they complimented their server about the burgers that I’d simply microwaved (instead of grilling as I’d just finished cleaning the grill)! 
Poor server though, she’d also had everything done and was ready to go.
Even ruder are employees that are rude to co-workers: a fellow cook told me that recently one of the servers put in an order for herself at…one minute before close - after she’d* watched him cleaning his grill! (Yes, we usually clean our grill prior to closing time - it’s pretty slow the last hour we’re open so we’re usually able to have everything done by the time we close up.)
- 'course she’s a mouthy, trashy type, but that’s another story.
I agree that a store should be open all the way up until its listed hours, but I can’t fault the employees for trying to shut down quickly.
A big mistake that I believe is on the part of a lot of managers is scheduling the shift to be over when the store closes. It’s not unreasonable for an employee to expect that if they’re scheduled for 9 pm, they should get to leave at 9 pm, even if that’s when the store closes to customers. If it takes half an hour to clean up, then the manager should properly be scheduling employees for 9:30. Sometimes the shift is listed as ‘until closing’, but that’s usually ill-defined and creates a conflict of expectations.
My office is ostensibly open until 7 pm. My coworker who’s responsible for processing customer orders would never, ever leave the office by 7, because orders would start piling in from multiple customers at 6:55 pm. Because they came in while we were open, he’d have to process them. 9-10 hour days were pretty constant. Finally the boss realized the issue and, because he’s a cool boss, made it company policy that the cutoff for orders was 6 pm. While we’re still technically open, my coworker now has that last hour of his shift to finish things up without new stuff cropping up.
Exactly. Don’t post my shift as 12-9 if there is no way in hell I will be walking out the door at 9.
Amen to that. Why such practices are not covered by fraud statutes is unclear to me. That kind of scheduling is a deliberate misrepresentation of what the employer expects, and when there is no pay for it, it’s doubly bad.
I used to refer to closing time on weekends & Fridays at the downtown public library in B’ham AL where I did research as Anatevka Time. As with many public libraries in urban settings it was the “home away from shelter” for many homeless people, most of whom were men, many of whom wore several layers of clothing and had long thick beards. When closing was announced they all rose and left en-masse, so many they had to form a line to get through the monitors, and it looked just like the scene I’ve seen in some productions of Fiddler on the Roof when, at the end of the song Anatevka where every actor not on stage forms a line and walks single file into “exile” through the audience. I never knew of any to give any trouble about leaving and most never caused trouble while there (though you’d sometimes get some who were clearly mentally ill or stoned and security would have to be called).
I’ve read a majority of the stories in this thread, and I’ve seen one glaring error that I thought I’d share with everyone: turning off the lights (even if dimming them or turning off part of them) or drawing the shades works wonders–it tells them yer done.
I once closed a paint store on a regular basis. There were quite a few times that I’d be required to stay late because a couple of folks would wander in and buy stuff after their working hours (and ours too). At the time, I didn’t have anywhere to go, so staying late was an option for me [sub]can you say “College student banking on overtime?!?”[sub].
Anyway, there were some times I really didn’t want to stay late . . . I just shut off half the lights in the store to give folks ‘the big idea’. I can only think of twice where a lady would sheepishly knock on the door asking for help–I would explain that we were closing up, and that she could come back tomorrow, and that lady did.
Yeah, turning off a few lights or closing the shades works wonders. Granted, it won’t prevent assholes from showing up, but at least you’ve given them due warning.
Tripler
Yeah, overtime for a college student is great. But not when it cuts into sleepytime between the two jobs.
I am about as cooperative and trouble free as a server or cashier could ask for. There’s been a couple times though, where I think WTF? I didn’t deserve that.
First story: I walked up to a grocery store at approximately 7 o’clock. I wasn’t sure what the store hours were, so I walked up to the door to look at the hours, and saw they closed at seven. But before I could turn around and go, TWO employees basically yelled at me to get lost, stop dreaming, give it up, whatever. WTF? So I can’t even look to see if you’re closed without being subjected to catcalls and ridicule?
Second story: I went to the courthouse which was brand new. It was about 3 pm. No hours were posted on the door. There was a security guard sitting at a station just inside the door. I tried the door, it didn’t open and he glanced up at me. I figured it was a security thing and that he would buzz me in, so I stood there for a while. In the meantime, he proceeded to utterly ignore me, as in not even looking at me. After a minute or so, I finally banged on the door, got him to look over and said “are you closed?” He nodded. Thanks, asshole. I guess I should have psychically known the courthouse closed at three that day.
A current Wachovia commercial has the company being praised for going above and beyond to help a customer, because employees spent their holiday getting a passport out of a safety deposit box for a customer whose son was going on an apparent pleasure trip to the Caribbean- like that couldn’t wait two days, and as a result, three families probably had their holiday ruined. :rolleyes:
Just a nitpick. I saw that commercial. I believe they went the morning after the holiday, so the boy could catch his plane later that day. No holiday ruined, just an early morning wake up call. Bad enough.
Hey, back in the day we had the cashiers check for the down payment on our new house in a safety deposit box (yeah we were stupid, but we were young and cute). Unfortunately the key to the box was in the moving van on its way across country. More unfortunately it was past closing time (getting the movers going took way longer than expected :smack: ) at the bank on Friday before Labor Day. Long story short some nice person opened the bank door, called another guy to drill the lock on the box for us and away we went. Yes, sometimes we all rely on the kindness of strangers. BTW, 27 years later, we still have the drilled lock.
Which is perfectly fine. Unfortunately, customers like you were few and far between.
When I worked at KrapMart, one of my coworkers told me about the time he worked Christmas Eve, when they closed at 8pm. Some moron came in about ten minutes before closing, wanting to buy a freaking tree. At that point, I think I would have told him to and dig up a shrub.
What’s the saying, “poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on MY part.”
I had something similar happen once. I was in a rather elite shopping plaza, mostly browsing, but I did make purchases at several stores, including a gourmet food store. Almost closing time, I’m ready to leave, and…where are my vanilla beans? In the cute little miniature handle-bag from Chez Gourmet*?
Go back to the stores I’ve visted since then.
“We’re closing.”
“Yeah, I think I left my bag here.”
“I don’t know what your bag looks like.”
“It was a little shopping bag from Chez Gourmet.”
“I don’t know if you left it here.”
:dubious: Go to next store, which was also closing, but clerk laughed and said, “Looking for a Chez Gourmet bag?” and held it up. 
Guess which store I never went back to. Yes, I know they were closing, but I hate it when staff acts as if they turn off their courtesy when the clock hits ten to six.