Too Late For Your Sweets Request

(This is from when I worked at a chocolate shop. Our busiest holiday is Easter; we stay open extra hours every year to sell hundreds of chocolate eggs and bunnies. The shop is in a mall, and mall hours on Saturdays are from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm. There are restaurants, bars, and a few shops that stay open later, but most shops close at 6:00 pm. On the Saturday before Easter, we are too busy to close at 6:00 pm. Finally, we serve our last customer at around 7:00 pm. We close the doors and start our massive clean-up and close-out. At 7:15 — an hour and a quarter after closing time — a woman bangs on the door. Because I’m standing right there and the doors are not sound-proof, I turn to talk to her.)

Me: “I’m sorry, but we’re closed.”

Woman: “I just want to buy one of those candy apples! They’re right there behind you.”

Me: “I can’t sell you anything right now. We actually closed at 6:00 pm.”

Woman: “But they’re right there, behind you! I just want to buy one.”

Me: “I can’t ring in any purchases. We’re closed, and we’ve cashed out the registers.”

Woman: “How hard can it be to ring in ONE candy apple?”

Me: “We’d have to open the till again, then cash it out after the purchase. It would take almost 30 minutes. We closed at six, it’s been a really busy day, and we want to get home.”

Woman: “Let me give you a little advice. This is NOT how you run a business. You need to respect the customer. You are being so inconsiderate. I bet you’re out of business within the month!”

(It’s worth noting that selling one candy apple would have cost the store money, since they would have had to pay me for an extra half hour of work for a $3 purchase. Also, this happened 15 years ago. The store is still open, and it’s a very successful business!)

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