A Sudden Flood Of Laundry

(I work as an attendant at a coin-op laundromat. It’s open 24 hours, but we only have staff inside from about 9 am – 4 pm most days. One of the services we offer is a drop-off laundry service where customers who do not want to wait around can drop off their laundry, and we will wash, dry and fold it for them for an extra charge. However, because staff is only on-hand until 4 pm, our policy is that any laundry that is dropped off after 2 pm will be done the next morning and be ready by noon. One day, it’s 4 pm and I’ve just locked up the office for the day, when suddenly a car screams into the lot and a young woman rushes out, carrying several huge canvas bags full of laundry.)

Customer: *exasperated and out of breath* “Wait! Don’t close! I need you to do this laundry!”

Me: “Okay.”

(I re-open the office and begin to prepare a drop-off slip, assuming she wants me to do it the next day.)

Customer: *dropping laundry in front of me* “I need this done within an hour.”

Me: “Oh, I’m sorry. That’s going to be impossible today.”

Customer: *shocked* “What? But I need this done in an hour!”

Me: “I’m really sorry, but our office closed at 4. Any laundry dropped off after 2 has to be done the next day, because it can take a long time to get certain orders done. And your order looks quite large, so there’s no way I could get it done within an hour, anyways.”

Customer: “Bull-s***! My washer and dryer at home could do all of this in a half hour!”

Me: “I’m sorry, but I’ll have to disagree. You have a huge load of laundry.  It’d probably take me two hours or so to wash, dry and fold everything there. If I may ask, why not just do the laundry in your machines if they’d supposedly get it done so much quicker?”

Customer: “You’re just lazy! You’re lazy! I don’t want to do my laundry. I want you to do it!”

Me: “I’m sorry, but I already clocked out and the office closes at 4 pm. The policy is no orders after 2 pm can be done the same day. And I’m hardly lazy. I did a shift that was nearly 20 hours straight last week in order to work on a huge order from a local flood-zone. Then I came in for another 10 hours the next day to finish it.”

Customer: “So you’re lazy AND a liar!”

(The customer turns and storms off, inadvertently slipping on the floor and falling to her knees because she is stomping around haphazardly. She stands up, turns, and screams at me.)

Customer: “Your lazy a** isn’t leaving until you scrub this flood! I just slipped on it because your lazy a** won’t clean it! I’ll have you fired if you don’t fix this!”

(I had literally just mopped up about a half-hour earlier and gotten it very clean.)

Me: “Okay.”

(I mopped the floor a second time and put down a “Caution: Wet Floor” sign while she glared at me. She finally stormed out after unsuccessfully trying to get me to do her order again afterwards. I was finally able to leave an hour after closing. In that hour, she made no effort to do her own laundry, even though she needed it done ‘in an hour.’)