Closing time is usually uneventful for most retail employees.

But one night, a towering customer lingered after the lights went out, and his intimidating stature sent one startled employee into full fight-or-flight mode.

Read on for the full story!

When people don’t hear the closing announcement.

Like many retail establishments, my old job used to make the “We will be closing in X minutes” announcements.

I always liked doing this as it gave me a chance to ham out and say it in different tones of voice.

This closing routine started off normal.

This night, like all the others, I get on the PA and announce, “Attention shoppers, we will be closing in 30 minutes.”

Then I give the same type of warning for 15, 10, and 5 minutes.

They go to finish closing when they come across something unexpected.

At closing time, I would hop on the PA and say something like, “Attention all, we’re closed, get out, get out, get out, we all want to go home.”

At shutdown time, I lock the front door.

As I turn around, I come face-to-face with a huge burly guy who is just staring intensely at me.

They go into full fight-or-flight mode.

I go into a full-on karate pose (not knowing karate) and say, “Dude, I made announcements that we were closing, you need to drop your stuff and leave.”

They begin to brace for the worst.

He looks at me strangely, raises his hands, looks at them, and then holds up one finger.

I’m expecting to be beaten and robbed, and my mind goes into full panic mode.

The customer appears to get the message, but still behaves strangely.

He turns around and starts checking the aisles, then jogs down one. He comes back with a lady, and they both approach me.

As they walk up, he begins signing to her, and she looks at me and mouths, “Sorry.”

It’s then the employee learns the truth.

The gentleman (in the very recognizable tone of someone who cannot hear to modulate their voice) explained they’re both deaf and they couldn’t hear the announcements.

I had seen them in the store weekly and had never realized they were hearing impaired. Super nice couple, but that dude was scary looking.

These customers weren’t scary at all — they were just unaware!

What did Reddit have to say?

This story sounded downright cinematic to this user.

This situation must have been pretty disoriented for the hearing impaired customers.

This commenter wonders what would have happened if this customer acted as if he were in an action movie.

This situation wasn’t fun for anyone involved!

This employee learned that even the most routine moments can catch you off guard from time to time.

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.