Fantasy closing announcements *one swear!*

[Mighty Girl]

We're closing in 5 minutes. If you don't leave within those 5 minutes, you'll be locked in here all weekend (in my fantasy, the stores close on weekends). There is no second chance.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

(This actually has happened on many occasions. There is a group of people who always come in at 11:58, insist that they know exactly what they want, and then stay until 12:30. One night, we kicked them out, being as we were closed, and they called corporate. Corporate, in turn, called us, and told us that we were not allowed to kick people out no matter how late they stayed in the store.)

I have a special place in my for people like that (people who call corporate just because they were told no).

This happened to us a couple years ago on Christmas Eve (or maybe it was the Saturday before Christmas; either way it was a mucho busy day). A customer called the store asking if we had a certain item in stock. I forget specifically what she was looking for, but it was one of the hotter items that we had trouble keeping in stock.

The person at the service desk who took the call told her we did not have the item in stock, but we had a truck that night and she could call the following morning to see if it was in stock.

Well that was not good enough for her. She called our distribution center, who looked up the manifest for the truck parked on our dock, and told her the item was on that truck. Presumably her next call was to the corporate office, because the store manager then got a call telling him it would be to his advantage to get this item off the truck so the customer could buy it.

So he, along with two hardlines floor people, trudged to the backroom and didn't unload the truck as much as push all the merchandise to the sides of the trailer to make a path and look for the item. And of course, Murphy's Law being strictly enforced, the item was buried at the front of the trailer.

Yeah, I know we're in customer service and all that, but when you have a thin crew to start with, and you have to take half the floor people to the backroom just so Miss Thang can have her liquor bottle carousel or whatever the hell it is she wants, and you have carryouts and calls for backup cashiers coming in non-stop...well let's just say we're not going to be serving many customers today.

*rant off*

And now for another of my fantasy closing announcements...

"Good evening. The store is now closed. Our employees have been force-fed a strict diet of sauerkraut, 5-alarm chili, baked beans, refried beans, and beer. They are feeling a little full and will be released to roam the salesfloor free-range in 5 seconds. No, we do not have any oxygen masks available. Go ahead and take your time deciding whether you want Carrie Underwood's or Kellie Pickler's new CD. We dare you."

[repsac]

Actual Announcement:

Attention customers. It is now eight thirty. Our store closes at nine, so please be making your final purchases and moving up front.

Fifteen till closing:

Attention customers. It's now eight fourty five. You should be at the registers by now, since we will be closing at nine. Thank you for shopping with us and have a nice day.

Closing:

Customers? It's me again. Just thought you should know, it's nine o'clock and the store is officially closed. Now, you've got maybe five minutes to get to the front and check out. We're not responsible for anything after that.

Ten min later;

Hey guys. Yeah, it's me. Listen, I know there's a couple of you still in here, and just thought you should know. In about three minutes or so, the lights are going to go out. When that happens, you're going to be in the dark. So freeze where you are right now and wait. An employee will come get you so you don't get hurt. Don't bother trying to check out though, all our registers are closed. Now, don't be that way. Whining about it won't do you any good. I've paged you several times so you can't say you weren't warned. Yes, you can call and complain, but they'll want my name and such, so here it is. I'm Bob, our store number is sixteen eighty three, and you're welcome to complain at our customer complaint line. Remember. Bob, store number sixteen eighty three.


I often wondered if some guy named Bob at store 1683 got in trouble for that.

[IT Grunt]

Only time I ever had to deal with 'closing' was when I worked in the computer lab in college. There would be people in there using the PCs on Friday night to chat away on chat rooms. Some were there for up to 5 hours or more chatting away. On Fridays, the lab closed at 8 pm. My shift ran from 4-8 pm, and as you can guess, there's LOTS of other places I'd rather be on a Friday night. At 15 til, I would announce the lab was closing. Then at 10 til, then at 5 til, then I would announce final closing. Before people had discovered this chat room, that would be the end of it and people would leave, I'd shut everything down, all was well. Until this night:

7:45 - The lab is closing in 15 minutes.

7:50 - The lab is closing in 10 minutes, please save your work and turn your machines off now. (No one does.)

7:55 - The lab is closing in 5 minutes, please turn your machines off now. (Again, I'm totally ignored. The sound of 6 keyboards clicking is painfully obvious.)

8:00 - People are still there, ignoring me as they type away in this chat room. So, I do what I'm there to do. I turn off all the lights. The reaction was immediate, loud, vocal, and colorful. However, the hint, after having been applied with C4 and a sledgehammer, finally sunk in and they left. They left their machines on and I had to turn them all off, but that only took a couple minutes and I got out before 8:10.

People never stayed late when I announced closing call after that. I wonder why?

[MMATM]

Only time I ever had to deal with 'closing' was when I worked in the computer lab in college.
---snip---
People never stayed late when I announced closing call after that. I wonder why?

If I had been forced to tell them repeatedly to turn off the PCs, I might've just found out where the internet connection for the room was and disconnected it at 8. Though switching off the power strips would've been even more awesome, it might damage computers and that would all-too-quickly turn into a bad day in Bosnia. Same thing for using an outlet timer to shut down the computers at precisely 8pm. Installing a scheduled task to exit all programs and shut down at 8 would probably work, but A) I don't know if it could/can be done and B) I sure as 7734 on an upside-down calculator don't know how to do it.
(Sorry. Mildly off-topic.)

I love the stormtroopers idea.
As far as the Exorcist voice, it'd be much more effective to switch off the lights a second or so before the "Get out!"


Personally, I'd say something like "Attention shoppers. Due to a police investigation, we must ask you to exit the store immediately. Only lanes five and six will be available for checkout, and any non-employees left in the store after 11:15pm will be interfering with an ongoing federal investigation. Thank you for understanding, and as always, thank you for shopping at [store name]."

I think pretending that a known car thief/escaped convict/murderer is in the area and asking customers to please check on their vehicles would work as well, but I don't know how I'd word it.

[Caveat Emptor]

Of course, you can always go on the PA and announce, "Attention, customers. The store is now closed.
[switch to Exorcist-style demon voice]GET OUT!!! "

I actually did this as a page at the local library when I was 17. It was 5 minutes after we closed and we were about do do a security sweep.

I tried to do it more like the Amityville Horror than Exorcist. You know, the scene with the priest, flies on his face and boils on his hands when he tries to bless the house.

[SuperDan]

There is a business in my city that is basically an arcade of console video games... there are TVs connected to PS2s, XBoxes, and whatever other consoles they have in there, you get the point.

The owner, particularly when he has late night events, will make a closing announcement at two minutes til. At the scheduled closing time, he just shuts off the breakers for the TVs and gaming consoles. No warning other than the 2 minute. Game over.

[Pagan]

Not so much a fantasy closing, but always thought it hilarious when our Hasting's store would start playing "Happy Trails" starting at about 10 minutes to closing and it just-kept-playing with pre-recorded announcements interspersed. I knew the manager was way cool, so it was always funny to hear it.

Although.......I'm glad I didn't work there. Hearing that night after night would have me about ready to commit hari-kari.

He,he....guess where I work?! Did you ever hear the end of it when it plays the "Star Spangled Banner"? But, we've found that the "Happy Trails" just doesn't work. What does seem to work is turning off the music completely.

Here's the one I wish we could do, with apologies to Jeanne Garafalo:

"Attention Hasting's customers, the time is now 11pm and and Hasting's is closed. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. Seriously. We've been open for 14 hours already. Just what the hell have you been doing that you can't get here before 10:59pm? Trust us, the book/CD/movie/whatever will still be here at 9am tomorrow morning. And sir/ma'am, this includes you."

I'm just wondering how hard it was to get people out of there when they closed at 4pm on the 12/30 because of the snow (I wasn't there, couldn't get out of my parking lot). For pity's sake, there is absolutely nothing in our store that anybody needs.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I'm just wondering how hard it was to get people out of there when they closed at 4pm on the 12/30 because of the snow (I wasn't there, couldn't get out of my parking lot). For pity's sake, there is absolutely nothing in our store that anybody needs.

Same problem with the garden centre where I used to work... we had to kick people out twice, first cuz there was a power cut and second cuz there were flood warnings and staff were worried about not being able to get home. Hello, there is nothing you buy in a garden centre that you can't do without until the store opens again!

[Primer]

Only time I ever had to deal with 'closing' was when I worked in the computer lab in college. There would be people in there using the PCs on Friday night to chat away on chat rooms. Some were there for up to 5 hours or more chatting away.

7:55 - The lab is closing in 5 minutes, please turn your machines off now. (Again, I'm totally ignored. The sound of 6 keyboards clicking is painfully obvious.)

8:00 - People are still there, ignoring me as they type away in this chat room. So, I do what I'm there to do. I turn off all the lights. The reaction was immediate, loud, vocal, and colorful.

Installing a scheduled task to exit all programs and shut down at 8 would probably work, but A) I don't know if it could/can be done and B) I sure as 7734 on an upside-down calculator don't know how to do it.

Yes, such a program does exist. The one my lab uses is called "Sleepy." It sets the earliest time the programs can be accessed as well as shutting everything down at a particular time.

It takes only once for a student to lose everything when the system shuts them off to believe us when we tell them we're closing, and the computers shut off in x minutes. After that, they save and leave!

[MMATM]

That's genius Primer. I kinda hope they have a similar program at UMass, in case I decide to get a job there in one of the computer labs.

God forbid that ever happens...

[B&NGoddess]

I always wanted to play that song "closing time"

we had a manager that would do that. of course, our clientele are a bunch of knuckle draggers, so no one got the hint.

my first sig is the basic fantasy. also, on xmas eve after making the closing announcement, these two dudes thought that it didn't apply to them. as they were heading in the opposite direction of the registers, i shouted, "registers are over here, guys." to which one replied "wow you really want us out."

"we have families too."

[Kilamon]

They left their machines on and I had to turn them all off, but that only took a couple minutes and I got out before 8:10.

The BOFH Handbook states that, if you are caught in a situation such as performing a close on the lab on a Friday night, you are well within your BOFH rights to change the time on all the computers one hour ahead and install a power switch that kills the power to all the computers at the same time. For bonus points, I'd break the wall clock and put a couple empty beer bottles on my desk next to the tip jar.

[Spiffy McMoron]

as they were heading in the opposite direction of the registers, i shouted, "registers are over here, guys." to which one replied "wow you really want us out."

Sadly, that guy was the brains of the bunch.

At my job, I don't have closing announcements. All I do is pull down the steel shutters, and if a mechanic wants something, well, he should have came up 10 minutes ago.

[SuperDan]

A bar that I do karaoke at just pulls their register drawers at last call (20-30 mins till close) and at close the karaoke DJ plays a song called "Get the Fuck Out." Talk about dropping a subtle hint