Weird customers at closing time?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Why is it that the weirdest customers arrive 2 minutes before closing time and make the most absurd requests?

I operate a gas station and have several such examples. Just yesterday an older guy came and asked tar coating for the car underside (like this).

:confused: What the heck was this guy thinking? “It is 10:00, Saturday night, what should I do? Oh, why not coat the underside of my car with tar? Yes, that should be it”. :smack:

And he didn’t buy the damn can. He said the price is too high and claimed that he had ffound it elsewhere for 1/3rd of the price. Yeah, sure :rolleyes:

Another day a guy with four kids aged 5-7 and an equal number of bicycles loaded into his SUV came. He wanted to inflate the tires of all four bikes which meant he had to first unload them, inflate the freaking tires and put them back while all that time his four crotch fuits were roaming around the whole place :mad:
And he was damn incompetent at inflating the tires, since he was not pushing the inflator thingie hard enough on the tire valve and all the air was escaping :smack: I had to wait for him 30 minutes past closing time.
Please post your own experiences :cool:

2

I believe the majority of customers that do things like this do it because they get some sort of kick out of the power they have when they keep a store open. It takes a weird person to enjoy this, hence these people tend to be the weirder customers.

My experience- At a cell phone store I worked at long ago, a guy would come in, always at closing, and insist his cell phone was being monitored by unknown agents, and demand we reset his number, reprogram the phone, and everything else his user contract told him he could have done for free.

3

I worked in a pharmacy and we often had young guys hovering around the condom aisle, trying to work up their courage to approach the cashiers. It was a small, personal kind of place and I somewhat sympathized, but I wanted to kick them and say that they were only drawing attention to themselves by being so annoying.

4

Years ago, I was working in a gift shop. It was Christmas eve and the store closed at 5 pm. I was off that day, but I heard about it later: a customer came in at 4:59. The store had a policy of never telling a customer to leave, so he spent the next hour slowly shopping and picking up all his gifts, while the employees had to wait around for him to finish.

5

We had two guys come in one day at 5:25 which was 5 minutes before we closed. They just “had” to have some printing done that night. Being as customer service oriented as we were, we obliged and went to work. At about 6:00, one of the guys actually has the audacity to say “Wow, it’s 6 o’ clock - you guys are working late”. Well no shit Sherlock, I wonder why.

After that day, I made a lot of changes on how far I would go for customers. The way I figure it, I’m not helping the customers I do like when I devote my resources to entitled assholes.

6

It was worse in the days when they kept the condoms on shelves behind the registers and you had to ask the little old lady cashier for them.

7

Especially when you went to pick up your date that evening, and discover that little old lady was there, visiting her granddaughter!

8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URiFTm-EGQs :smiley:

But it is even more hilarious if the nice little old lady asks: “You want ribbed or extra thin? Strawberry or Banana flavor?”

9

Methinks lots of folks take mood-altering substances and then go late night shopping.

10

Kids have it so easy these days!

11

I posted this four years ago. I don’t think I can improve on it.

When I worked at the video store, I turned closing on time into an art form. At 9:59, the floor would be vaccuumed, the videos would be shelved, and the money would be counted. All I had to do was shut the door and turn out the lights, and I would be out by 10:00:03. The only thing that would fuck up my plan is if a customer walked in at the last minute. Even then, I had mastered the art of “Here, watch House of Games, you’ll love it, no charge, buh-bye.”

Until Greenpeace came in. Fucking Greenpeace. The very thought of them makes me want to drown a seal in motor oil.

Not that these people were rude. Just dumb as ferns. Lobotomized ferns.

Five of them came in at around 9:45. Naturally, they couldn’t agree on any movies to watch. All they could agree on was that they wanted 4 movies. No, 5. Wait, no, just 4. Or 5. Can we use your phone?

So I stood there and watched this moronicized greenery argue endlessly about every single film they wanted watch, but no, I’ve seen that, and that one doesn’t look very good, and on and on and on until the wee small hours of the morning. It was rather amazing to see snails racing up and down the sidewalk as these green fucks debated the merits of every single movie in the store. Twice.

FINALLY, these fine young tributes to indecision came to a tentative agreement and approached the counter. Then went back and looked at more movies. Then approached the counter again. Then off to the racks. Then back to the counter. By this time I had stabbed them with imaginary knives about a million times. Several civilizations rose and fell in that time. Species evolved then went extinct.

At long last, they were ready to begin the rental process. These 5 movies. Oh yeah, they’d need to rent a VCR as well, was that something we could do? Fuck! That’s kind of a long process. Made even longer by the fact that none of them had ever really seen a VCR before, so I had to instruct these mental colossi on the skills of plugging the damn thing in.

Worlds formed.

At long last, they were all set. Just ring them up, and they can ooze on out. “Account number?”, I inquired. In lovely dulcet tones, they answered my question with a question: “Oh, do we need an account to rent here?”

Goddam fuckity fuck fucksterino on a goddam son of a fuck! Starting a new account was a 15 minute process. Fuck!

At quarter past infinity, I finally got them all signed up and checked out. All I had to do was collect the money and then kick their sorry asses out the door. After all, I was getting mighty intrigued by the anti-gravity cars I was seeing passing by outside. What other technological wonders had I missed? Who was president? Had we colonized Jupiter yet?

My friends, let me tell you a little something about the kinds of people who work for Greenpeace. They aren’t in it for the money. They’re not rolling in cash. In fact, asking 5 of them to come up with $23.63 between them is a rather amusing thing. Crumpled ones, loose change, and buttons was what I saw the most. And even then, they were short by about $23.00.

“Uh, I think Bob back at the house has his mom’s credit card. Can we use your phone?”

So I killed them. All of them. Got arrested, was convicted of cruelty to morons, got life in prison. Died of old age before serving my first week.

12

You can’t blame it on the time of day.

I used to work at a women’s clothing store, which always closed at 6 PM, unless it was Sunday, when we closed at 5 PM. We would have women coming in at 5:55 on a Saturday night, wanting to buy a new wardrobe, from undies to coats. Once they got in the door, they would congratulate themselves and each other on getting in before we locked the doors, so they KNEW that they were keeping us working late. They felt that if they got into the store by closing time, that they were entitled to shop for as long as they wanted to, and it didn’t matter to them if we had kids in daycare who needed to be picked up and be fed.

The real kicker was the couple who came in on Christmas eve, at about 5:45. Apparently he couldn’t think of anything to get her, so he was gonna take her shopping. However, they were absolutely amazed that we hadn’t kept merchandise back just for her to look at. We’d had a particularly successful season that year, so we were out of just about EVERYTHING. They were pissed. Very pissed. The woman kept asking if we had stuff in the back, and we kept saying that we had put everything out, look, the shelves and racks are only a quarter full, see? They also expected to find everything on sale. And apparently neither had bathed for a couple of days before, so not only did they keep us overtime, but we had to smell them, too. I will never understand why people think that they don’t need to be freshly bathed (within the past 24 hours) when they go clothes shopping.

I am SO glad I don’t work retail any more. And yes, I am always careful to check the store hours before I enter, if it’s around 5 or 6, I don’t assume that the store is open until 9 or 10 PM.

13

I’m a bouncer. Almost every customer is weird at closing time and usually drunk and/or otherwise chemically altered.

It’s not really all that difficult to grasp and yet the same drama is repeated time and again.

Beginning around 3:45AM on Friday/Saturday nights.
“That’s Last Call Everyone” = Order your last drink and/or a single shot. That’s it. No getting a couple of beers just for yourself.
While you are drinking your last drink, the bartender will be cleaning, restocking, possibly going into the back office to count the nights ring. You will not be getting another drink. Do not ask. If someone else does, don’t make an issue of it. You will not win.

I will be by the door, which will now be locked. I will have closed the security shutters on the windows as a sign that no more customers will be admitted. No, I don’t care that your friends are inside. If I’m feeling benevolent, I may let you come in to use the restroom, but you will not be getting a drink. If you try, you will be escorted out. Trust me.

I may let someone in and they may get a drink. Why? Because they’re almost certainly people who work here on other nights and have just closed whatever bar they were working at tonight. I do this because sometimes I and the other staff go to their bars after we close.
Is this fair? Maybe, maybe not. I don’t care. It’s 4AM and I’m really not interested in fair.

OK, we’re done cleaning, it’s around 4:30AM. Time for you to go. No, I don’t care if you haven’t finished your drink. Yeah, you paid for it, but you’ve had over 30 mins to drink it. You can either drink it down or leave it. No you can’t take it with you. No you can’t have “just one more”.
“That’s it folks, finish 'em up, it’s time to go” will be shouted. I may walk around and politely tap people on the shoulder and say “We’re closing up, do me a favor and finish up”. The music is turned off, the lights are fully turned up. I will call a car service for anyone who asks.

Well, now it’s 4:45AM. I’m now getting a little irritated. You’ve been working on that last drink for 45mins. If you haven’t convinced the person you’ve been hitting on for the past 3 hrs that you’re a rock star, another few minutes isn’t going to help.
“That’s it for tonight. We’re closed. If you don’t work here or sleep with someone who works here you need to leave now” will be shouted. I will go to every person that I don’t know personally and tell them “Let’s go. We’re closed. We want to leave and we can’t go until you do. It’s time to go. Now”.

You will be outside in 5 mins. One way or another. I’d prefer that you walk out on your own, but if you’re still here and still giving me attitude, odds are you wont. Trust me, it won’t be fun for either of us. I don’t want to manhandle you, but I do want to go home. Yes, I could call the police and have you charged with trespassing. I won’t because it’s way too much drama. The owners don’t want the hassle or the attention. The police don’t want to deal with it, they’re too busy locking up all the folks who decided to drive home after that 8th Jaegerbomb.
So I will “escort” you out if I have to. No, I won’t get into trouble from the police or from the management.
No, you can’t talk to my boss. Why? Because either they’ve gone home already or because they’d rather not talk to obnoxious drunks at 5AM. Got a complaint? Come back tomorrow when you’re sober.
If you try and fight, odds are things will not go well for you. You may be younger or in better shape, but I’m sober. That alone makes a HUGE difference. I’ve got a great deal of experience when it comes to fighting drunk people. I am also quite large and strong. I absolutely hate to fight. I’ve just given you every chance in the world to act like a rational adult and it’s ended with you taking a swing at me. OK, that’s the way it’s going to have to play out.
There will be pushing, shoving, slapping, falling, punching, grabbing, gouging, kicking, and/or me choking you unconscious. The other staff may get involved. The police may be called. You will be assumed to be an asshole by the responding officer. It’s 5AM, you’re drunk, belligerent, you wouldn’t leave and got physical with me. I’m a well known individual with an extremely good reputation, a spotless record and am a licensed security guard. Everyone in the bar will back my side of the story, which is simple, as it’ll be the truth.
You will be put in a cab, driven home by a friend, start walking home or get tossed into the back of a squad car.

I’m now sore, pissed off, and dealing with the adrenaline shakes. The entire timetable for going home is now pushed back at least 30 mins because of the drama and I just want to go home. In addition, I know have to be extra alert for the danger of getting jumped when walking to my car. Not just tonight, but for at least a week.

Lovely.

This happens just about once every month and sometimes as often as every week.

The customer is not always right. Sometimes the customer is an absolute ass.

14

I worked at a fast-food burger joint (Braum’s) in high school. We closed at 10:30 weeknights, 11:30 weekends. Of course, there’s a lot of cleaning and restocking to do before leaving the kitchen for the night and the shift managers would be harping on us well before closing time to get things cleaned and ready for closing, so that we wouldn’t have to stay as long on the clock after closing. Business would slow down the later it got, so there was usually plenty of time to get a lot of the cleaning done before closing. I often worked the grill, which was a large, table-sized griddle that had to be scrubbed vigorously to remove the day’s accumulation of cooked-on grease. It was quite a chore. And at least once a week, someone from a nearby bottling plant would come over about 5 minutes before closing time and place a group order for about 20 to 30 burgers and fries. :smack:

15

And now I have an acute case of the giggles. I shouldn’t laugh, I’m sure your job is a royal pain, but I can just imagine someone getting an entitled attitude at 4 AM.

16

That could be one of my sisters, who is (or at least used to be) extremely bitchy to department store personnel.

Back when I worked at Sears, we had a store manager everyone hated for irrational reasons: the manager she had replaced was insanely popular. The hated store manager won everyone over when she got on the intercom on Xmas Eve, half an hour after store closing, and told the customers that the employees had families too, and thus they absolutely had to leave in the next five minutes–and then enforced it.

To answer the question from the OP, I had a customercome in once at 5:58 or so on a Sunday (we closed at 6 on that day) to buy about $500 worth of housewares–PAID FOR IN LOOSE CHANGE.

17

One thing I noticed about Christmas shoppers is that a great many of them don’t really do much shopping outside the season, so are inexperienced. This is extra true for last-minute X-Mas Eve shoppers.

I remember getting about a 50-50 mix of people who really did need just one thing, and were quite thankful for getting it, and people who people who would lie about just needing one thing, then wander aimlessly, not realizing they were the only one in the store. (Sometimes, turning the lights out didn’t even phase them.)

18

That excuse only works if they’ve never shopped for Xmas before. AFter the first time they should get a clue.

19

This was sometimes a problem at the bank I worked for. One particular time I was locking up and leaving when a young woman arrived. “Please?!? It’s an emergency! I only need five dollars!”

Sure, lady. I’ll go back in, disable the undisablable (new word!) security on the vault, use my special safecracking skills, all the while violating not only bank policy but federal law, so you can get your precious five dollars.

20

At Harris-Teeter (a grocery chain), we used to close at 10 and there was a customer we called the Frog Lady who would always show up at 9:45 or so and start a serious shopping trip. One time, after we closed, the store manager did the quick-walk-through-the-store-checking-for-customers at 10:15 and found her reading magazines on the rack. This kindly old man was PISSED OFF but was still so nice that he kept his anger in check as he told her to take her stuff up to the check-out. I can’t say with certainty that Frog Lady did it on purpose. But on Sundays, when we would close at 9, she’d be there at 8:45. And when we went to 24-hour service, she just started coming in the afternoon and was never there at night anymore.

The standard Operating Procedure for closing was that the front end manager or designee would lock one set of doors completely and turn off the “In” door on the other set. Then she’d stand there to keep people from trying to sneak in the “Out” door. Of course folks would try this and she could get quite an earful. I was bringing in a cart from the parking lot once and she was laughing her ass off. Turns out a guy had tried the sneak and had gotten really loud and nasty at her. But he was standing on the threshold of the door which meant that the door didn’t “know” that he was there. So as he turned around to stomp away the door closed on him, hitting him in the face and causing a bit of a comedy scene as he tried to extricate himself.