Imagine working as a cashier, and you only have a few minutes left before your shift is over. If a customer came up to you with a cart full of purchases, would you happily scan their items, or would you tell them your register is closed?

In this story, one employee is in this situation and tells a customer their register is closed, but that made the customer pretty upset.

Let’s see how the story plays out.

Oh, you’ve already closed your register and your shift is over? Too bad.

I’d like to share something that happened to me last night while working as a cashier at a big box store.

It’s 8:55 pm, and my shift is over at 9. I’ve been working since noon so I’m pretty much burnt out and can’t wait to go home.

I’m using the last 5 minutes of my shift to take care of the typical end-of-shift business, such as emptying my garbage bin, wiping everything down, etc.

Suddenly a customer approaches with a full cart, and the following conversation ensues:

The customer was pretty rude.

Me: Sorry ma’am, I’m closed.

Customer: What are you doing behind the register then? I don’t see a closed sign.

Me: Well my light is off, ma’am, that means I’m closed. I’m just cleaning up before I leave.

Customer: You shouldn’t be standing there if you aren’t open! I just want to pay for my stuff and leave. You’re wasting my time by standing there not helping me.

There was an easy solution.

Me: Of course ma’am, well, my coworker right behind me at register 12 is open. He’ll be happy to help you.

The customer shoots me a dirty look, spins her cart around and walks off.

This type of interaction with customers is really not uncommon, so I don’t think much of it.

A few minutes later I’m done with my cleaning and I’m about to leave when I see the customer pushing her cart back towards me again. Followed closely behind by my supervisor.

The supervisor was on the customer’s side.

Supervisor: Trueretailhell, this customer tells me that you refused to serve her.

Me: Yes I did, but only because my shift is over at 9. It’s 8:59 right now, I really don’t have any time to take another customer.

Supervisor: Exactly. It’s 8:59. Not 9:00 yet. When have you ever been allowed to clock out early? Take this customer, and then you can go.

He then helps the customer unload her massive cart, all the while the customer is giving me the smuggest look I’ve ever seen.

He had to work late.

It takes several minutes to ring up all the items, and her total comes up to over $200. Oh, and she was buying raw meat which spilled its lovely juices all over the belt. So I had to wipe down the entire thing again before I could leave.

In the end, I didn’t clock out until 9:15.

And the icing on the cake: as I was finally walking out of the store, my supervisor called out, “Hey, trueretailhell. Don’t ever let me catch you saying no to a customer while you’re on the clock again.”

I just smiled and nodded. Can’t wait to get out of here.

What a horrible customer and horrible supervisor. The customer really should’ve gone over to the open register instead of making a fuss.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

One person suggests trying to get more overtime.

Another person recommends finding a different job.

A retail manager weighs in.

This was a pretty gutsy thing to do!

A good supervisor would have the employee’s back.

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