Holiday Cheer Just Makes Everything Worse

I work at a grocery store and we are normally open eighteen hours a day. I normally work nights because I prefer it, so I’m always part of the closing shift.

Today is Christmas Eve. We normally close at midnight, but we closed today at 10:00 pm. We had forty people in the store at 9:45, so we were forced to lock the doors at 9:50. I was outside gathering all the carts, and my God, so many people were coming in the last ten minutes and fighting with my manager over the fact we closed the door early.

This normally always happens at midnight. People come at 11:55 and we deny them. What made tonight different is just the number of people cussing and trying to force their way in. It got to the point where customers started fighting with each other — the customers that defended us and the ones that were complaining.

We want to go home; it’s Christmas Eve. We literally were open from 6:00 am to 10:00 pm. Why come at 9:55 and fight us about it?

I didn’t end up leaving until 10:45, and my managers are still there closing everything. People have no idea what we actually go through. It’s ridiculous. People see the closing time and take it as a personal challenge to come a few minutes before.