Retail during the holidays tends to bring out strange behavior in customers.

One retail worker recounts the time he was forced to work on Christmas Eve at a garden centre.

The store had already announced closing five separate times over the loud speaker, giving customers plenty of warning to head to the tills or leave. Yet one woman decided none of that applied to her and kept shopping anyway.

So when a manager approached to ask her to leave, she insisted she couldn’t be made to go while still technically inside, prompting a calm but firm back-and-forth about staff wanting to get home to their own families.

After several minutes of negotiation, she finally agreed to pay, but not before setting the stage for a public embarrassment she 100% deserved.

Keep reading for the full story.

Customer forgot we were human beings and had families

Christmas in retail is the worse. The music, the sheer amount of people, the glitter. Oh god the glitter.

This retail worker recounts the tale of a shift that made them question their career choice.

A couple years ago I was unfortunate to be working Christmas Eve. But we were open for a shorter time than normal, which was nice of the company to do. So 8-4.

Why people need to go to a Garden Centre on Christmas Eve I do not know. Why people need to go anywhere on Christmas Eve will always baffle me.

As was often the case during the holiday season, the place was overflowing with customers.

Anyway. It had been crazy busy, constant flow of people at the tills and entering the store, 8 hours of “Merry Christmas, do you need a bag?”

It was 3:55 and we’d done 5 tannoys to tell customers the shop was closing and they needed to go to the tills or leave.

Of course, being customers, they chose to hear only what they wanted to hear.

But typically, some people chose to have selective hearing and continued to shop. Our managers were on the shop floor slowly herding people towards the door.

This set the stage for a huge disagreement.

One woman (C) didn’t like this and started to kick off. My manager (M) was more than happy to deal with her.

M: Excuse me, you need to leave.

C: Well I’m still shopping and you can’t close the doors whilst I’m still inside.

(Wanna bet?)

The manager isn’t about to let this slide.

M: We will be open Boxing Day if there is anything else you want to buy, but please can you go to the tills to pay for your items so we can close.

C: I think it’s unacceptable that you’re closing early on Christmas Eve.

The manager reminds the customer that the world doesn’t revolve around her.

M: Well our staff would like to go home, and currently you are stopping them from spending what’s left of the day with their families.

Another few minutes of back and forth, and my manager convinced this woman to pay for her items at 4:07.

The woman was forced to capitulate, but not without making a scene first.

At this point, every member of staff had convened at the tills (like we did every night for security reasons). She was not happy about having to pay for her items in front of every member of staff, and claimed we had done it deliberately to embarrass her.

Maybe we did, maybe we didn’t.

Either way, this lady definitely deserved a little embarrassment.

What did Reddit think of this harrowing story?

Customers often like to try to pin their poor planning onto the nearest possible victim.

Some customers need to be thrown out by actual security personnel.

Why do the most desperate customers always seem to wait until the last minute?

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a man who is shocked to learn how little he has to do to keep his cushy remote job.

Some retail workers are unfairly forced to play the role of a parent.

At the end of the day, five warnings is more than generous, and choosing to ignore all of them doesn’t exactly build a strong case for special treatment afterward.

The manager’s response, calm, direct, and pointedly reminding her that actual humans wanted to go home for Christmas. It was the kind of comeback that minimum wage retail workers only dream about delivering.

Some bad customers get exactly what they deserve, and she was one of them.