Very Closed Minded

(My friend and I both work in gastro-service in this town. We spend the evening at another local cafe. When we finish up, we notice we’re the last customers left, so we decide to pay quickly as we know how annoying it can be to wait around for just two customers.)

Me: *paying at the till* “By the way, when do you guys close?”

Server: “Oh, at 9:00 pm, so not for another two hours.”

My Friend: “Oh, good! We thought we’d already overstayed the closing time and you were just waiting for us to finally get out.” *laughs*

Server: “Oh, no, we would never do that! It’s fine for guests to stay longer; we’d just have to start cleaning up around other parts of the cafe.”

Me: “Sure, but it’s still bothersome to have people who just won’t leave.”

Server: “It’s fine, really. We’ve got a lot of things to get done; we wouldn’t throw anyone out just because it’s closing time.”

Me: “Listen, we both work in gastro-service, too. We know how it feels.”

Server: “Oh! Oh, thank God. I couldn’t think of another nice way to answer this without sounding patronising.”

(We stayed for another half-hour, chatting about our work and the troubles you sometimes get with customers. The server seemed really relieved we weren’t going to make any trouble.)