Need Some Holiday Security

Our store has closed early on Christmas Eve. We are trying to get rid of the last-minute shoppers. The phone keeps ringing, on and on, with people asking if we’re still open. It has been ringing off the hook all day with questions about our holiday hours, which have been posted on the door for three weeks and are in the answering service the customer has gone through before they are transferred to the Customer Service desk.

Finally, I become exasperated. It is at the end of an eight-hour shift, thirty minutes after the store is closed, and I am exhausted and just want to go home to my four kids. I seize the phone, drop my voice into a more masculine register — I’m a woman — and snarl viciously into the phone. My coworkers are desperately trying not to laugh, as this is NOT our script for answering the phone.

Me: “[Store] security, can I help you?!”

Customer: “Oh, sorry to bother you!” *Hangs up*

I continued answering the phone this way, with the same results, until we left. It got us out the door much faster after that!