If my retail experience is any indication, acknowledging customers in this situation is a bad idea. Before you know it, the conversation turns to “I just need one thing!” Or “I promise I’ll be really quick!” and you have to become the asshole to tell them no… Even though the store hours are clearly listed on the front door.
Or if you agree even once, the conversation could easily become “but you did it for me/my friend last time!”
I’ve literally had people sneak into the store using an exit, then act all indignant because I tell them to leave. You give some of these fuckers an inch, they’ll take a mile.
My favorite way out of that situation was to tell them that the registers were automatically shut down at closing. Literally no way to ring up a purchase. It worked most of the time
They did it for me last time is the bane of all service jobs. I managed a pizza place for years that would sometimes get up to over 200 food products per hour. You could see about the first 20 of them at a time on the screens. There was no way to indicate modifications that weren’t available in the POS. I personally trained every new employee on phones and till.
I would tell them you’re going to talk to a lot of assholes. There will be the person that wants extra cheese on their cheesesticks. You have to tell that person no. You cannot sell anything that can’t be entered into the computer.
Every day during the insane dinner rush I’d either get employees coming over to say hey extra cheese on the cheesesticks on order 215. We’re on order 175. There is no way those cheesesticks are going to get extra cheese.
No time to correct the employee, no time to call the customer back. Or the other which was worse. The customer would escalate the call to me. “They did it for me last time!”
I’m stuck on the phone with this piece of shit and I can’t be firefighting. The fires grow. Sometimes they get so bad we have to stop production to get back on track. This means we get so far behind that I’ll have to stay an extra hour or two to right the ship. For no extra pay. The customers get pissed as the wait and delivery times increase. Escalations to management increase. The whole place is engulfed in flame. Next thing I know I’ve been there for 12 hours for no extra pay.
Wasted my fucking mid 20s to early 30s there. It permanently ruined my mental health. It turned me into an alcoholic.
I could rant endlessly and I have so many stories.
The customers get pissed as the wait and delivery times increase. Escalations to management increase.
One rule I try to remember is that overserving Customer A means underserving Customer B.
This is also true for traffic, where being overpolite to the person in front of you means screwing over the people behind you.
I would be yelling out every 15 minutes or so when it got really bad- “carryout times are now 40 minutes. Delivery times are now an hour and a half.” And the people we had on phones because they were incapable of making food properly are telling customers yeah it’ll be ready in ten minutes. It’ll be there in 30 minutes. I trained them and emphasized in crew meetings that the absolute minimum time if we are completely dead will be 15 minutes for carryout and 45 minutes for delivery. They didn’t care. They worked their 4 hour shift and went home. Can’t blame them for not caring but damn have some empathy for your comrades.
Nurses would regularly call and immediately ask for me. Because they want to place fifteen different orders all for cash. This would fuck everything up and be late at night when I’m half of the kitchen staff. I’m on the phone with them for 10 minutes. 10 minutes at 30% production actually will fuck a restaurant. Not to mention it screwed our ticket average which meant I’d never get a bonus. The driver would get there and they’d hand them a wad of cash. It could have been done in two minutes as one order but they wanted each person’s food to have their name on the box.
I began to dislike nurses at that job. Now I work with them regularly as a hospital installation contractor. Now I hate them. Sorry to the nurses out there who aren’t burned out and care about their patients.
I actually heard this interaction between two nurses the other day that restored some faith-
Nurse A- I can’t find an iPhone charger do you have one?
Nurse B- No I don’t have one and no I don’t know where one is
A- How do you charge your phone then?
B- I don’t have to because I work instead of staring at it all day.
When I worked at McDonald’s I used to keep the DriveThru headset on after closing while I was doing paper work to tell people “sorry, we’re closed” if they drove up to the speaker board. (Mind you, the building lights and menu board lights are off at this point. Something we call a “clue”.)
That stopped after one too many people screamed “FUCK YOU!” into the speaker board (for us following our posted hours and me politely informing them instead of ignoring them.)
You quickly adopt a policy of “just ignore them and they’ll figure it out.”
There’s also a lot of stores with a policy that tills can’t be counted or processed unless everyone is accounted for and all doors locked, if you have to reset that process it can be an extra hour of work.
These days I’m usually against the death penalty, and I know it seems a bit harsh to advocate for this… but people entering in an exit door should be absolutely blasted with an Anti Aircraft gun (thanks Kim Jong Un for the idea!). It absolutely rustles my jimmies.
My wife worked at a rental office for an apartment building and had the same experience.
Everyone should work food service and retail at least once in their lives. It would give perspective to, and teach respect for, what those workers have to endure.
The worst part of retail/food service is the inescapable feeling of dread when you stare down the endless abyss of being stuck in that job day in and day out, forever, until you die. Only by resigning yourself to that fate does one gain the perspective needed to truly sympathize with the working class.
And that’s why I went to trade school at age 30. “I gotta get out of these fuckin places.”
It was a good move
Fucking SAME. I bartended and served through college (my degree doesn’t pay well due to YouTube tutorials that have flourished in my industry, lol ouch) and after, and then finally at 30 I started temping in manufacturing, which led to me permanently hired at a huge company with ridiculous benefits, and am now a supervisor in engine assembly that will make 6 figures in 3 years.
I desperately wish I had gone into trade school when I was 18.
fuck the draft, make everyone spend a year or two in the service industry after high school
From the bottom up. No skipping washing dishes, cleaning out the walk-in cooler, scraping grills, cleaning fryers… Yeah, front of house has its own difficulties, but it’s a lot easier than the grunt work in the back.
I don’t think we need to compare. Both suck, and both teach valuable life skills. Back of house how terrible you can be treated by corporate overlords and management with some of the worst jobs. Front of house teaches you how terrible you can be treated by the general public. I have both scars on my hands from molten grease and I’ve been screamed at by old ladies because corporate raised the senior coffee price from 49 to 53 cents. Both show you how awful different things can be.
I don’t know. Some people who experience abuse and escape it become far worse abusers when they’re in position to do so.
This is very true. I was at my retail job and a customer walked up to me while I happened to be leaning on my workstation because my back hurt. The first thing he says to me is, “when I had a fast food job, if there was time to lean, there was time to clean!“ I looked at him, and then I turned around and walked away. He had this stunned look on his face. I walked into the back room To cool off a bit before I walked back onto the floor. It was probably five or eight minutes. When I walked back out, he was still standing there, at my workstation, waiting for me.
I went to lunch.
Food service and retail needs to exist, (commercial sales) call centers should be banned and their owners shunned from polite society.
Sales call centers I would agree with you. Costumer service ones are necessary.
Having worked both retail and call center, no, they’re not in the same league. People can be assholes over the phone, absolutely, but it’s quite different from face-to-face. Someone threatens to kill me over the phone, I can say “I’d like to see you try” and hang up, and the worst that happens is I get fired. In person, they can carry out the threat.
They mad because they wouldn’t acknowledge them or service them after the placed closed? What fucking Karen.
I’m sorry, but… no. Like, if you don’t know it’s closed and people do see you and just say nothing, that’s just… not nice. It takes three seconds to shake their head or say we’re closed something.
LONG EDIT: Trying to explain myself a bit as this got many negative comments. (I also said most of this in responses to people answering this).
I originally thought that they didn’t know the store is closed, and just tried to put myself in their shoes. In that case, it just doesn’t hurt to clarify by the staff and I can get the frustration of being ignored. I personally also had situations where I was confused because a store closed an hour earlier than it said on the door and online, and I was really grateful for the staff to clarify. Of course, if they know that the store is closed and just demanded some kind of personal acknowledgement, this is pretty ridiculous behaviour. And I personally definitely wouldn’t behave like that (or even write such a review).
I also think that it’s still good if the staff responds to someone knocking at the store. This doesn’t mean that they are an “asshole that demands to be served”. I personally also did this at one point because I lost my wallet inside the store. Luckily, the people there were really nice and opened it so I could search for it. I was really thankful, and the day would have been really horrible if they ignored me.
In the end, I think this also might be a cultural thing. Many people answered with stories of awful entitled customers that demanded ridiculous things. If this is your base experience, maybe you have other prejudices against someone knocking at the door.
As a customer, I always see a store worker as a human and engage respectfully, and most people I know do the same. I hope this is true for most people. Therefore, if someone knocks, it seems reasonable that they have a valid concern and / or are confused.
But of course, if someone would do that just to push a store worked and asking them to do something they can’t do, that would be absolutely awful behaviour.
Here’s a tip I’ve found useful: if I show up somewhere after closing time and find that the door is locked, it’s because the store is closed.
What if it’s after closing time, it’s locked, but the people inside are nodding at me?
Hey, I edited my post. I’d appreciate if you could tell me what you think about the edit. But to summarize it, I thought that they didn’t know the store is closed and tried to put myself in their shoes (in that situation it wouldn’t hurt to just clarify it). Of course if they knew that the store is closed, and just wanted some personal acknowledgement, that’s ridiculous. And if they wanted to push the worker to still serve them or something like that, that would have been really awful.
Some people here told awful stories about customers, and if that’s the baseline, I can understand why you have a bad prejudice against someone knocking at the door. This might also be a cultural thing. But I still usually think that it’s not good to ignore them (and you can never know their true intentions), there can be valid concerns (e.g. I once lost a wallet inside a store and was very grateful for the staff to help me).
Fuck that bullshit, she knew they were fucking closed. They shouldn’t have to explain it. I am sure there was a sign on the door. No this woman wanted them to waste time acknowledging her so she could spend 10 minutes explaining why they should service her after hours.
They were busy doing clean up after close so they could go home. Just by reading her review I can promise you she bitch if they had shaken their heads. I stare at dumb bitch too who was probably banging on the door trying get them to let her in.
I’m jut copy pasting my other comment:
They stated it was closed, not that they knew it beforehand. And while I personally wouldn’t behave that way and definitely wouldn’t make such a review, I just tried to put yourself in another person’s shoes. If they know that the store is closed, of course this is pretty ridiculous behaviour, but I originally thought about someone not knowing the store is closed and being confused, and then it just doesn’t hurt to clarify.
I personally also had situations where I was confused because a store closed an hour earlier than it said on the door and online.
Like, if you don’t know it’s closed
They literally stated that they knew it was closed
It takes three seconds to shake their head or say we’re closed something
The signage on the door explains the hours of operation, and the door is locked. Why should that have to be explained?
They stated it was closed, not that they knew it beforehand. And while I personally wouldn’t behave that way and definitely wouldn’t make such a review, I just tried to put yourself in another person’s shoes. If they know that the store is closed, of course this is pretty ridiculous behaviour, but I originally thought about someone not knowing the store is closed and being confused, and then it just doesn’t hurt to clarify.
I personally also had situations where I was confused because a store closed an hour earlier than it said on the door and online.
“Just kept tossing their hair and looking at me.”
Are we sure the employees weren’t shaking their heads at the customer and they are just an idiot? I’m also assuming the doors were already locked, or they would have just walked in, and the hours are typically posted on the door. I feel that should be enough of an indication the store is closed. People don’t need to have their hands held through everything I life. Expecting a little independence from them isn’t being not nice.
People like you and the reviewer need to work a service job, at least once in your lives. “Closed”, I wonder what that means?? The registers are all shut down, there’s no cash. If it’s a food place, the grill is off. They are not serving customers. So no, just because there happens to be glass or bars you can see workers through, they are not required to acknowledge people on the street or “be nice”. They are trying to get home at a somewhat reasonable time!
PTSD from having to literally stop people from entering grocery stores after 11:00p in a previous job…
I originally thought about someone not knowing the store is closed and being confused, and then it just doesn’t hurt to clarify. Of course if they were aware that the place is closed, then this is pretty ridiculous (especially such a one star review is just awful). I personally also had situations where I was confused because a store closed an hour earlier than it said on the door and online, and I was thankful for the clarification.
Maybe this is also a cultural thing (I’m not from the US), but it seems like many customers there are… worse. I personally always see the service worker as a human and try to be as respectful and appreciating as possible, and would assume most do the same. If I were knocking (because I am confused or didn’t see the signs), I’d just say something like “Oh thanks, I’m sorry I didn’t know” (honestly, them doing nothing also tells it, I’d just find it a bit rude), but never in my mind think about trying to talk them into doing something for me. Apparently some here assume people in the US would do that.
But honestly, I still think that not acknowledging the customer is not the best idea, although for a different reason. I once lost a wallet in a restaurant and also had to knock. Luckily the staff there was really nice and they let me in to get it, but I’d felt pretty awful if they didn’t.
Nope, you never engage. Never ever engage. That flaming asshole who’s too self centered and ignorant to read the hours posed on the door they’re banging on and refuses to accept that the store is closed for EVERYONE including them, isn’t going to be polite, honest, or responsible. If you engage, they will immediately punish you for it. Don’t ever make that mistake.
You don’t work for the customer, you work for the store. It’s not always a crime to go along with a customer, but it’s always a negative when they want to push you to violate policy, change prices, complain about Mike in sporting goods for having a mustache, or ‘‘I’ll be real quick I sware’’ shopping when the store is closed. They will always punish you.
I eventually figured out that when a customer gets shitty, more than half the time if I say ''I work for the store and I’m responsible for [the dumbass shit you want me to do], if I violate store policy I’ll be fired" they suddenly realize this isn’t a game, and stop acting like a can of smashed assholes.
I get it, but I’d also like to share an experience I had a couple years ago. I looked up the closing time online for a Taco Bell, or some such fast food place, that I don’t frequent. I then order online and head to the store to pick it up. I get there less than 10 minutes later. The store appears to be closed but there are people inside.
I was left confused because I didn’t know what the hell was going on. Also, I’m at the drive-thru which does not have posted hours. And to make it even better, they charged me for the order so I’m left having to deal with getting the money back on my own.
I think you shouldn’t just prejudge and categorize someone without knowing their thought process. Just because someone knocks on the door after the store is closed, it doesn’t mean they’re a “flaming asshole”. E.g. I also also knocked at a store at such a point because I lost my wallet inside the store. (Luckily, the people there were really nice and opened it so I could search for it.) Most customers are just… people. Maybe that’s a cultural difference (I’m not from the US), but as I customer, I always see a store worker as a human and engage respectfully, and at least most people I know do the same. Doing something like pushing them to do something they can’t do is awful behaviour, but I don’t see why you would expect that from a customer or think every customer is an asshole like that.
And about the original comment, I thought they weren’t aware that the store is closed and just confused, and then it doesn’t hurt to clarify. Of course if they wanted to be served after hours, this would be pretty ridiculous.
(And I personally also had situations where I was confused because a store closed an hour earlier than it said on the door and online.)
The best solution I have seen to this was the guy I worked with, sick of people shaking the doors repeatedly while we were redoing signage after close exclaimed at some door shakers: “what the fuck you doing bro?!” Those of us in the store lost it and the customers walked away embarrassed. From your comment, I can tell you have not had a job that works with the general population directly like retail. You lose patience pretty quickly with others trying to complain to get their way, push boundaries, and sometimes just be assholes. You should try it sometime. It is quite enlightening.
No, it isn’t. I also originally thought that they were not aware of the store being closed, which makes me more sympathetic towards the customer. But if they really just wanted the staff to personally tell them no, it’s really petty. (although I don’t think it’s deserving of the hate they get here, I don’t like this groupthink of all people turning onto one, especially if you never know the background and thought process of a person).
It doesn’t say why they were there, but we’ve all left a phone, jacket, bag, keys, something and had to go knock on a door and it sucks when they ignore you.
It takes fewer seconds for assholes like you to fuck off though, sooooooo…
Do you really need to personally insult me -.-
I personally wouldn’t behave that way and definitely wouldn’t make a review, but it just takes a bit of empathy to try to put yourself in another person’s shoes. Especially when I thought about someone not knowing the store is closed and being confused, it would be good to just clarify (I personally also had situations where I was confused because a store closed an hour earlier than it said on the door and online).
And even if that’s not the case here, there’s no reason to directly villainify and insult me without knowing any of my thought process.
I’ve worked retail and food service and I would go to the door and let people know we’re closed.
(a) I have no problem saying no to people, and (b) sometimes there’s an emergency or something and they need help, or they’re trying to notify us of a problem we can’t see.
I haven’t found my time saturated by this basic courtesy. Maybe I’ve lived in nicer areas, but in all my years of service experience I haven’t seen the waves of assholes people talk about.
Thanks for the nice answer. I see it the same. I can imagine this is a cultural thing, and if you have that many bad experiences with customers, I can get why you have a prejudice of someone knocking at the door, but as you said, there still are important reasons why someone might do this, and you never know their true intentions.
However, I originally didn’t think that they were aware that the store is closed (I experienced the same when a store closed earlier than stated on the sign and online), in which case it’s just nice to explain them. But if they knew about it and just wanted some personal acknowledgement or even trying to still get served, of course that’s really awful.
(I also edited my post to make this more clear).
My initial instinct is to agree with you, actually, but according to the rest of the thread that’s a bad idea, because most people aren’t as nice as us. I’ve never had the displeasure of that kind of job.
I’m impressed with how downvoted this is. RIP.
I responded to every other comment with a clarification, maybe read one of those. Summarized, I originally thought they weren’t aware of it and it doesn’t hurt to clarify, and just tried to put myself in their shoes. But if they know that the store is closed, of course this is ridiculous behaviour.
Although I generally think it’s still better for the staff to acknowledge such a customer, e.g. I lost a wallet in the store before and luckily they helped me get it.
It also seems that a lot of customers in the US(?) are pretty awful which means that a person behaving like that might probably be respectless or even order the staff to still serve them, which of course is not okay. In my experience, if someone is knocking, they usually have a valid reason, why is also why I might see this differently than other people.
I actually don’t mind being downvoted. I think this kind of groupthink where everyone cheer each other on and the whole group gets to one strong opinion (that might not be that good) is really bad. And I take some kind of pride in resisting that and just posting an unpopular opinion I think is right. On Reddit I once had -200 for being against torture and death penalty (context: child rapist). The only thing that actually hurts me is being personally insulted (like by @butwhyishischinabook@lemmy.world). I don’t know why someone would just do that and not try to understand me first :/
Sometimes it’s just pure obliviousness and you really need to speak up.
One of my embarrassing moments was shopping at a teacher store to supply my ex’s classroom. We were kind of enjoying the afternoon so taking our time, no big deal. Then the store people started coming over more frequently to ask if we needed help. No thank you. Eventually we make our way to the register and were shocked to discover the store closed half an hour ago. wtf, why didn’t someone kick us out, or at least stop being so damn polite and tell us they were closing since we clearly didn’t realize it? I’ll never forget the cringe of keeping people so late, and we were just enjoying leisurely shopping that could have finished long since
I worked retail at a store that had a rule that we DO NOT rush customers out if they come in before we lock the doors. We were NOT allowed to mention we were closed and we were NOT allowed to roll out merchandise to the aisles.
Corportate was confused on how our store had so much overtime when customers would regularly walk in a minute before close, stay an hour and buy nothing.
Worked at a staples store in the early 2000s and we’d make an announcement that the store was closing 30 minutes before, 15 minutes before and then another when we closed.
Nobody was rushed out by employees but we still let them know.
This is what I liked about working for McDonald’s. Oh it’s 12:01 and you rolled into the drive thru? Nah fuck off we’re closed.
As a customer, I only wished you’d have a screen or something other than the menu.
Or maybe hours posted at the box.
The McDonald’s by me likes to change hours- I’m. It there frequently enough to know how often but they still have the “open 24” signage as you pull in; so it’s more or less impossible to know if they’re just busy or actually closed.
I worked at fuddruckers in high school, and the owner would jump over the counter and haul ass across the restaurant to lock the door in people’s faces. It was amazing.
Surprisingly, the restaurant didn’t last long.
At my store (which I worked at for 23 years and miss dearly), I would always let my regulars come in after closing if I could still serve them. If they had cash, I’d ring it up the next day.
That was one of 7 stores I worked in over the years (same company).
The other 6, hell no. Once they realized that I’d open the door after closing those bastards were coming up to an hour after I locked the doors. Same jerks every time yelling and cussing at me, “Well yer still here yuh faygit I don’t see why you won’t let me git a beer!”. Sometimes I’d stay late and hide in the office to watch a little tv before going home. It was always the same jackasses beating on the door at 1 AM putting their hands and faces up to the glass with stupid looks on their faces. I stopped letting them in after it became a problem for me and no matter how many times I said no, they’d walk their drunk asses to that store to try me.
It is amazing how much culture can change over 40 miles of road. I mean it, it’s crazy. Even the meth heads were polite and reasonable when they were in the middle of a 3 week, no sleep, hallucination fueled nightmare. “Ah, man. I’m so sorry that I bothered you. There’s people following me across the road so I’m just gonna borrow a little of your light here until someone I know comes to get me. I hope you have a good night.”
In that one store every local was always polite. I had two memorable assholes there over 23 years. At the others I had so many I couldn’t tell you.
At my last job I wasn’t allowed to mention that my shift was over to a customer.
My favorite tactic used by several of the coffee shops near me is they start slowly turning the music louder. People naturally start leaving once it’s too loud to think or talk. Place I used to work at we’d turn off half the lights and everyone would just show up at the register no confrontation needed. People were fine with it a vast majority of the time but occasionally there would be someone who asked us to turn the lights back on so they could keep shopping
The thing is, you don’t know if the customer is just an asshole or oblivious. So, I could confront you and risk being yelled at (which I really don’t want to deal with at the end of a shift), then stand around waiting for a half hour, OR I could skip the yelling and just stand around waiting for a half hour.
I work at a restaurant inside a park. We open an hour after the park opens, and one of the store entrances is attached to the park welcome building. The doors for that entrance do not securely lock, and can be opened, with a bit of struggle, while locked. You know it’s going to be an interesting day when you have to kick people out BEFORE we open. We don’t turn the lights on until open, but every couple weeks people still manage to get in and expect to be seated.
You can hear them struggle with the door from across the room. They walk into a dark restaurant. You say “I’m sorry we don’t open for another 15 minutes”. Most of the time their response is not to apologize and leave. I’ve heard the open ended statements “Well we’re here now”, or “your doors were unlocked”, or even the more presumptuous “can we eat in the trolley?”. They are still made to wait outside and are inevitably mad about it.
I will choose to avoid confrontation anytime I can, as most of the time I don’t have a choice.
My boyfriend and I did this by accident in one of the big ass multi floor arcades in Akihabara. By default, service in Japan is so polite, and people are often very indirect, so the employees kept giving us subtle cues to leave that we were both oblivious to. Eventually, we caught on and were like, “Oh shit,” so we headed to the exit. Most of the employees had gathered to wave off customers as they left, but they all looked pretty pissed. We were the last two customers in the building, and they closed the doors behind us.
I still feel so horrible. It doesn’t help being foreigners and falling right into bad stereotypes 😭
As someone who works retail, I’m pretty shameless when it comes to kicking people out. I do it politely and with a smile but I have no problem telling customers we’re about to close or are closed.
I’ll never forget when my wife and I accidentally entered the 15 items or less line at the grocery with a full cart. Why didn’t they say no?
Like I said, I will never forget. When I realized I tried to take back our stuff but it was too late.
Former cashier here: not paid enough to argue with the person who does that on purpose. Maybe they even have a semi-good reason, like “the party starts in 5 minutes”.
I was at a grocery store where a guy went into the express 15 items checkout with a full cart (no excuses, it’s very clearly marked), he was unloading all his stuff while the person in front was finishing up and then when it was his turn the cashier dead faced stared at him, shut off the light and her register, and walked to the one next to it and started it up. It was amazing.
Whenever this is posted, a couple Karen’s crawl out of the primordial ooze to remind us they’ve never worked retail and are incapable of empathizing with the workers (I count 2 of them in this comment section right now). I could never work retail again, people like this are as soul crushing as the manager who will reprimand you because of their 1 star review
