A woman and her children come in five minutes before we close — we close at midnight, and I am beyond exhausted — to return a bunch of pants that didn’t fit her kids. Apparently, I miss a pair of jeans, so I have to go through and rescan the pile to see which one I missed.

Customer: “Just hand me the jeans and I’ll match up the barcodes from the receipt to see which pair you missed.”

Me: “That won’t work; it will just be easier if I go through and scan them all to see which pair pops up that wasn’t previously returned.”

Customer: “No, no. Let me do it so you won’t accidentally miss the pair again.”

Me: “Ma’am, that won’t work. The UPC numbers on the receipt for whatever reason are different from the ones on the actual tag. You will be here for years, and the numbers will never match up. I’ve worked returns here for two years now and I know this, so please, just let me scan.”

She purses her lips and finally just lets me scan through the jeans once more. I toss the various jeans into different piles once I’m sure they are not the missing pair.

Customer: “Honey, let’s all keep the jeans in one pile in case you mess up again. Being tidy and organized would have saved you some trouble in the first place.”

Me: “The jeans are in different piles because they need to be. Some can be put directly on the floor. Some can be marked down and sold as clearance because they are online-only items. The rest are to be sent back to the warehouse. I need to keep them separate so they don’t get all mixed together and things end up where they are not supposed to. Please just let me finish as I only have a few pairs left.”

I finally scanned the missing pair and returned them. We were probably a few minutes past close by then and I was eager to get them to leave. The woman called her daughters to come to join her, and I saw in horror that they had decided to go clothes shopping and not just wander the store, and they each had a huge pile. Because all the other registers had been closed, I had to check her out. Also, because she paid cash, I had to recount my drawer because it had to have the exact number of bills and change in there noted for the cash office.

I was one of the last people to leave the store that night.

Related:
Not Very Closed Minded, Part 47
Not Very Closed Minded, Part 47
Not Very Closed Minded, Part 46
Not Very Closed Minded, Part 45
Not Very Closed Minded, Part 44

A customer comes in ten minutes before closing time, yapping away on her phone. We have already made several announcements. After paging the store to say the store is closed at 11:00 pm, we wait for the customer to come up so we can ring her stuff up and everyone can go home.

We waited for around ten minutes. I find her on the wine aisle still yapping away with a few items in her arms.

Me: “Ma’am, we closed at 11:00.”

Customer: “No, no, let me finish my phone call first!”

We are nice enough to let her do that, and ten minutes later, I walk up to her again.

Me: “Ma’am, it’s time to check out so everyone can go home.”

I’m about to page for the manager on duty to come up to the front, and he would love to tell her off. She comes up five minutes later, still yapping on her phone. After I ring up her items and tell her the total, she shoves her card in my face and stares at me, expecting me to take her card, all while still chattering away on her phone. I clench my jaw to not say anything stupid.

Me: “You need to swipe your card on the machine.”

She puts her phone down.

Customer: “Don’t play dumb with me.”

And then, she immediately went back to talking on her phone. Wow, really, lady?

Fortunately, she eventually swiped her card on the machine and then told us, “Have a good day,” while continuing to talk on her phone as she finally left the store.

It was 11:40 pm when we finally left.

I work at the front desk of a clinic. One of our clinicians stops by the front desk.

Clinician: “When [Patient] arrives for their appointment, please call me at 130.”

Me: “Wait, for tomorrow?”

Clinician: “No, this afternoon.”

Me: “But it’s already 4:00!”

Coworker: “They mean extension 130, [My Name], not 1:30 pm!”

Me: “Oh. That makes much more sense.”

Me: “As soon as you get us the pricing database, we need five weeks to build the online quoting application. If we get it this week, we can do a September first launch.”

Four weeks later…

Client: “Here is the pricing database. Sorry for the delay. So, we are still good for the September first launch, right?”

I work in a small boutique store; only one person is needed as staff for a normal day, so it’s just me when a semi-regular comes in. In the past, she has been nice, but she is always shopping for her fully adult son who is more than capable of doing so himself.

One day, after she’s come in and talked a bit, it’s approaching closing time. Her son is working in a nearby-ish store but finishes at the same time I close up. The mother wants him to try stuff on, and despite our polite conversation, I get this gem.

Mother: *In a tone that is kind of joking but not really* “I’m sure that if I just hang about, you won’t be able to close!”

Me: *Giving a polite smile* “Haha, no, I close soon.”

Mother: “If I just stand right inside your door, you won’t be able to close it, and he could just come right in, right?”

Me: “Ah, no? I close in a few minutes. If he can make it, he can, but he’s always welcome to come on his breaks or another day.”

Mother: “Oh, no, that’s too much trouble. What would you do, lock us both in? Trap us?”

It’s somehow not too much trouble to threaten to hold me captive, though?