Unfiltered Story #216429

Years ago I worked at a very large convenience store/gas station that was actually 3 businesses in one. There was a convenience store/gas station section, a video rental section where I worked, and a tanning salon all inside this one location. We were all trained to be able to run every part of the store.
Each shift had at least 3 to 6 people working because it was so large it needed at least one person for each part of the store to run it.

One night employee #1 and employee #2 called in and said they weren’t coming in. I called the manager and asked him to call up one of the other employees to come help me. He told me to run the store by myself and hung up on me,
The video store and the tanning salon both closed at 10 pm. It was now 6 pm, so I locked up the tanning salon and put a “Closed” sign on the door since it was the farthest away from the convenience side of the store and the one that had to have a person running it because of state laws and insurance liability etc. I was still able to check out videos on the convenience side of the store, so I placed a sign on the video counter telling customers to come check out their videos with me where I was.
I was fairly busy that night, but I felt everything was going smoothly until …

Female Customer: “I want to tan but the doors are locked.”
Me: “I’m sorry, but I’m here by myself tonight and there is no one here to run the tanning salon.”
Female Customer: “The salon hours say open until 10 pm. I still have half an hour to tan and YOU need to open the doors for me so I can tan!”
Me: “I’m sorry, but I’m here by myself and I can’t leave the counter to set the machine or monitor them while you’re in there.”
Female Customer: “I came ALL the way over here to tan and I WANT to tan NOW!” “I’ll set the machine myself.”
Me: “I’m sorry, it’s against store policy to allow you to do that.”
Female Customer: “I can’t believe this. You just don’t want to do your job!”
Me: “I’m doing my job and the job of 2 other people who didn’t show up tonight.”
Female Customer: “I’m going to complain to your BOSS about YOU!”
Me: “Ok, that’s fine with me.”

She stormed out and I thought no more of it since I was sure my boss would understand there was no way I could have run all three sections of the store by myself that night. The rest of the night went smoothly and I was very happy to see the night crew come in.

The next time I was scheduled to work, I came in and the boss handed me a sheet of paper for me to sign. He had written me up for closing the tanning salon early and not allowing that customer to tan. I explained my reasons why I had to close the salon but he said I should have called someone else to come in.
Me: “But boss, I don’t have the other employee numbers, they are here in your office, plus, when I called you, you told me to run the place myself.”
Boss: “No I didn’t. I don’t remember you even calling me.” “It doesn’t matter, I expect you to sign this and give it back to me at the end of the night.”

I went back out to work, but didn’t sign the form. I clocked out after my shift that night and ripped the paper up and thew it away. My boss never asked about it.
A few months later, the store was sold to a new owner and my boss was out of a job. The new owner was a very nice person and I worked happily for him for quite a few years.