The All Day Hang Out Guy

[Music Mo-Gal]

wow i feel dumb.... THANKYOU!!!!!!!!!

I had a great first day on the forums, so much great input!

That is a great idea! I was just going to suggest that you lie and say that your district manager is coming in today and you can't have anyone loitering in the store, but the above is better.

[hefegrande]

yea im about to pull the plug on this guy its been 2 hours since he bought anything. and he's only spent 3 dollars today., HES BEEN HERE SINCE 8

[Balgram]

Now I'm extremely curious. Hope he doesn't yell too much...


And an apology to everyone. I often visit bookstores with no intention to buy. I don't sit down and read entire books and I rarely stay more than an hour or two...but I still do it. At least I don't DARE eat things and touch books I won't buy.

Whoops, I guess.

Let us know what he does!

[Seraph]

So is he still there? LOL

[hefegrande]

haha this was great....
he went outside to make a business call an i pulled the plug, so i'm totally pumped and waiting to see what he does... just then two of my good customers that come in and use my wireless stopped up so i had to plug it back in!!! It sucks but its not their fault..... I did tell him he couldn't leave his laptop and stuff plugged in and on one of my tables if he was gonna be going out making phone calls because i have customers who want to sit down and eat! Once my friendly local customers leave i'm pullin it! I'll update!

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

*goes to pop up some tasty microwave

[depechemodefan]

Good idea. I get really frustrated when people come into my bookstore and treat it like a library- or like their living room. There are people who literally stay from the time we open to the time we close, eating lunch and dinner in the cafe, sleeping in the chairs, reading books and never buying a thing...I saw one guy the other day with his feet propped up, shoes off, mouth wide open and snoring. But we're not allowed to do anything about it!!

...except every once in a while I will 'accidentally' stumble and bump into their chairs. "Oh, I'm sorry about that! I'm so clumsy! Did I wake you, you bastard?"

geez, I thought we had it bad at the library. Though now a days I can't keep people from eating in here, even though there are rules against eating or drinking in her, because they want us to be more like a bookstore.

[Sorianna]

Okay, so this thread's got me curious.

I spend a lot of time at my local McDonalds. I don't particularly like the food, but I've found the place is good for me to sit and work on my art. I think the most time I've spent there is 6 hours. I always make sure to buy food (usually at least $10) and am always polite and clean up after myself.

So I'm curious if I'm being rude or not?

[Jay 2K Winger]

I'm one of those people that likes to kill time in a bookstore as well. Mind you, I'm not the sort to spend ALL EFFING DAY in one, but I'll kill a few hours in one, and more often than not, I'll buy at least SOMETHING, whether it's a magazine, a novel, or maybe a comic book/manga TPB.

[hefegrande]

i dont think either of you guys are being unreasonable at all.. McDonalds is a much more public place than my little bakery, its just this guy and me in here for like HOURS, and hes here 8-5 just like me... I decided im not gonna make a scene today.. at the end of the day , i'm going to tell him that he can't do this anymore and that i have no problem with him coming and hanging out for a few hours if he wants to get a snack, but this is not his office! I'm still hoping he tries to argue with me, cause he'll get a piece of my mind if he does. I'll let you guys know how it goes, and thanks again for all the support and help!

[AnaKhouri]

It's totally fine if you sit and read or work for a while, as long as you're acting like you're in public. To my mind there are just some things you don't do in public and sleeping is one of those things!

It helps if you buy stuff too; businesses are out to make money and we will be much more inclined to overlook some hanging out if you give us some. What hefegrande is describing is at the upper end of ridiculous. Pay for your own damn Internet connection if you need it that badly!

[hefegrande]

It's totally fine if you sit and read or work for a while, as long as you're acting like you're in public. To my mind there are just some things you don't do in public and sleeping is one of those things!

It helps if you buy stuff too; businesses are out to make money and we will be much more inclined to overlook some hanging out if you give us some.

if this guy would just tip me for letting him hang, i probably wouldn't even be bitching about it! oh yea spending more than 7 dollars in 9 hours helps too.....

[MinimaMagistra]

A couple of points. One's not really important anymore, as AnaKhouri said mild abuse of the system is fine so long as it's done respectfully. Paraphrased. Me, I go to Borders, up the road, and sit in the manga/comics section for multiple hours, sometimes. I also recently spent about five hours in a Starbucks (amazingly enough, since they said their wi-fi was only a two-hour thing. Maybe it was the honor system and I totally failed it? Any green-aproned folks here who know?). I know that both of these are exactly what you guys are railing against, but... I don't feel bad. I've always, in my life, said that it's fine to break rules, so long as you respect them, first. When I read the books, I keep them in pristine condition, doing my best not to crease or smudge. Sometimes I buy, sometimes I don't. I'm a college student who reads a ton on a part-time job. I buy what I can afford (libraries don't always have what I want [I have library cards in three states]). When I was in the Starbucks, it was a city I don't live in, the library was closed, and there were plenty of empty chairs.

I also tend to re-alphabetize the manga, since all the other kids who come read it reshelve randomly. But I get a kick out of stuff like that.

This is obviously not the case on the OP, given that your guy's been there multiple days, but there are some folks who are your sort of modern-day nomads, van-dwelling and moving around at their whim. Unless they're going to pay a kind of ridiculous sum for satellite internet, free wi-fi's their best option. And it's available EVERYWHERE, but if you're in a really hot location, air-conditioned cafes with HOORAY-I'm-not-sitting-in-my-car seats are very appealing. Again, not saying this guy has an excuse. He sounds roundly annoying.

[tropicsgoddess]

Sounds like a cheapskate to me. During my hostess days, the restaurant had two sides: the lounge (the bar, stage and dance floor are there) and the other side was the dining room (which was separated in two parts by a sliding door). It was a couple of hours until closing time in the dining room and it was slow night in there while the lounge was more successful in garnering customers to the bar. This couple comes in the dining room and they camp out for a good hour and a half and their check was less than $50 dollars and they left a shitty tip to the server. I usually wait until the last customer in the dining room was finished eating before I would start cleaning the floor (we had one of those ..the quiet rechargeable kind), but after the server told me about how sucky the campers were, I started blowing out the candles on all the tables except theirs and then proceeded to whip out and vacuum the floor. It took them about half an hour to get the hint, but it was worth it...hell my boss didn't care since it was slow and was gonna let me clock out after I was done closing.

My thing is, give that SC a subtle hint to GTFO if he's been hanging around too long,but if that doesn't register in his thick skull let management know about him and implement something to keep him from doing so since the business is losing money from this SC.

[Supermarket Slave Girl]

I'm looking foward to see how this all turns out, sad I know