in thinking that if Clarks closes at 5.30...

[Amanderrr]

at 5.23 the doors shouldn't be locked?

Went to Richmond today for a mooch around the shops. DS3 (4yrs) kept complaining about his feet hurting so we headed over to Clarks. We wouldn't have taken long as I know his size and width and just wanted the brown version of the black pair we bought last week.

Got to the doors and they were locked. There was a customer inside still trying on shoes and staff milling around. Had a look at my watch and it was just after 5.20. Looked at the opening times and they should have been open until 5.30. Asked DP what the time was in case my watch was wrong and he said it was about 5.23.

This is happening more and more. In the last couple of weeks alone Boots wouldn't let me in with five minutes until they officially closed. Office the shoe shop was shut before the time stated. The security guard in Zara, which was due to close at 7pm, was telling me at 6.50 that the shop was now closed and could I head to the tills. I looked over and there was a long queue so it didn't really matter whether I carried on shopping or not and M&S turned most of the lights off after saying over the loud speaker that the store would be closing in ten minutes.

I know in the grand scheme of things this should just be a slight irritation but today just brought it to a head when I couldn't get a change of shoes for DS3 when I really needed them.

Am I alone in finding this frustrating and would it worth emailing the stores when this happens?

To be fair it shouldn't matter weather she was shopping for shoes or a packet of crisps, if the shop should be open till 5.30 it is not unreasonable to expect to still be able to get in at 5.23.

As for her getting such a hard time for daring to leave it that late to go shoe shopping, she has already said that she was in town already so decided to go and buy shoes as she was already in the area. It's not like she sat at home all day doing nothing and then decided at 5.23 to go and get "emergency shoes" just to piss the shop assistants off.

The point is it doesn't matter what time you close there will always be some git who strolls in 3 minutes before closing when the shop has been open X number of hours previously.
Having spent the run up to Christmas working until midnight (open until midnight, clearing up until 1am) there is still that one person who for some reason couldn't manage to come in and make their purchase in the FIFTEEN hours the shop had been trading for. This is what retail employees don't understand.

I used to work at BT - never got away on time and only got paid to official end of our shift.

I worked in the union and one week in team brief management announced that in future all operators must be sat at their desks - logged in - headphones on - ready to accept a call at the exact time of the start of their shift and not 10 or so minutes later as management had noted.

So I piped up - quite a militant in those days - thats fair enough as long as we can stop taking calls ten minutes before the official end of our shift - to give us time to:

Finish last call - usually long complaint one

Document last call - usually a 'War and Peace'.

Put headset away in locker.

Queue at register to sign out.

Go through 3 sets of fire doors to locker room.

Get coats on and bags etc.

Back through 3 fire doors to queue for lifts - or down six flights of stairs.

Go down six floors in lift or on stairs.

Queue at Tann doors to swipe ID card and finally get out to proceed with ones own life !!

Actually got a cheer from other operators - was one of my finer Skargill - esque moments - and management never mentioned their new 'policy' again.

So I dont think its the staffs fault OP and I appreciate its annoying but employers wangle hundreds of free hours out of their workforce over a year in this way. many also insist their employees are at work up to fifteen minutes before the start of their shift to log on / prepare for opening etc.

But they wont bring in the only fair system IMO in public facing roles and that is to pay employers from when they actually start until they are actually able to leave work and not just opening hours. Then the customer and staff would both be happy but same old story - would cost the employers too much money they say.

So sorry poor old customer standing outside peering in at 10 minutes to closing and in many cases thinking what 'jobsworths' the staff are.

WriterofDreams - No O patronising one - I own my own business- work hours to suit my kids and earn a very nice wage thank you lol

sorry - 'pay employees' obviously.

The aeroplane departs at 9am. Does that mean that you are able to saunter onto the plane at one minute to 9?

No.

Organise your life better. You might find that the world doesn't revolve around you and you might find yourself less inconvenienced if you get to shops in good time. You seem to make a habit of it, OP.

"Jollster, do you think the manager so should be at the door quizzing everyone wanting to come in late to see how long they'll take? I'd say usually that's no feasible so closing that bit early is the only way to discourage the time wasters."

No it's not about quizzing at the door; it's about identifying the customer's needs in an appropriate way, whether that be reading body language and/or asking relevant questions. The vast majority of customers coming in at the end of the day will respond positively and also want the transaction completed quickly.

Yes there will be some time wasters; then the manager should be firmer and explain politely that the store is closing shortly and that perhaps returning at a better time would allow the customer more time to explore options without any time pressure...

IMO closing early is NEVER appropriate. I DO agree though that in a situation where transactions can be lengthy (like shoe fitting) the company policy should be flexible re staffing levels to manage this if they run over into "after hours".

FWIW I think retail is (can be ) a great career. But I agree that attitude is not wildly held. It's a bit chicken and egg though... :(

the plane departs at 9 but the staff are paid from 8 to enable them to get on the aircraft and do their checks. Same when landing.

Should be like that everywhere.

I don't see why you think I'm being patronising book, I think what I said is fair and my meaning was clear. But seeing as you didn't seem to get it (and now I'm being patronising, note the difference) I meant that very few people dream of being shop assistants, ie people who earn minimum wage working for someone else. I'd imagine a very large proportion of people dream of owning their own business and working hours that suit them.

I too have worked in retail. There is nothing more annoying than the people who saunter in at 5 minutes to closing.

And from experience they are never in a hurry. They want to look at/try on several different items v e r y s l o w ly. And like another poster mentioned take ages to pay.

It used to make me want to scream "I have a family to go home to you know?"

None of the shops I have worked in paid for unauothorised overtime. And they all expected yuou to be at least 10 minutes early. So on the days you got late customers this often meant that you worked a good 20-30 minutes unpaid.

I now work in a takeaway and we still get it. Although my boss is brilliant. How he still has customers I'll never know

"Can I have 6 large meals, two starters and this thing that takes 10 minutes to cook?"
"No, you can't it's five to 12. You should have came earlier. You can have 5 gravy and chips or nothing at all"

The OP is a teensy bit dumb.

Sorry Jollster but what you said there sounds suspiciously like management speak to me. I asked if you should quiz them at the door and the options you gave me were to ask questions (ie quiz them, at the door or elsewhere) or read their body language. I'm a psychology graduate and a teacher trained in working with children with special needs (ie highly attuned to body language) and there is no way I could read from someone's body language how long they intend to be in a shop, particularly if they haven't already entered the shop. I agree that companies need to maximise sales but expecting managers to somehow read people's minds is not the way to do it. Pay the staff more, or if you can't then close early.

Ok, so what is really clear from all of this, is that there are far too many skinflint employers (usually large companies) who lack respect for the time of their employees. Personally, if I turned up 5 mins before closing I would fully expect to see staff clearing up around me and would not have a problem with this.

"Yes, a polite notice outside a store saying something like "Although we close at 5.30pm no customers will be admitted after 5.15pm" would be fine. We'd know where we stood then"

sorry, but it's just plain common sense for a customer to know that without having to be told.

"I agree with you, FWIW, but if shoes are that bloody important, get there before closng - I did. At least seven minutes before closing"

7 minutes is not long enough to choose, and pay for any goods.

writer I guess my point is that in my shop the door wouldn't be closed until closing time, so those people coming in with 15/10/5 mins to go would be in the shop giving off clear signals of intent... (i.e going over to a particular product/area, picking it up, looking for price, reading blurb etc)... and if you can't pick up some clues from those behaviours/pace of movement etc then you're an idiot (not YOU specifically obviously )... and that's before even asking questions and getting into conversation.

I suppose what I'm saying is managers/staff need to manage their customers and particularly when it suits their own interest to process them quickly.

On a separate point I would agree retail wages are generally too low. I blame the greedy retail landlords and the supermarket explosion. But that's a whole other thread...

"As for unpaid overtime - well - more fool anyone who does that. In fact,your just encouraging it."

All very easy to say.. my old employer had a policy of staff arriving 10 mins before their shift started, and everybody had to stay until the tils were cashed. NOBODY got paid overtime for it, but when I pointed out that they were getting up to 5 free hours a week from me, they threatened me with the sack.

Fair enough Jollster, although I was in a situation quite a few times when I used to work in a shop where I actually asked someone to leave and they wouldn't! IME people get more annoyed if you let them in the shop then ask them to go than if you don't let them in at all.

""As for unpaid overtime - well - more fool anyone who does that. In fact,your just encouraging it." - In that case the staff would have walked out before the Op had chance to pay for her shoes. So she still would not have gotten the shoes.

The customer isn't always right. I think that some arseholes could do with realising that.

I think I'm a little bit in love with writerofdreams.

Which is nice.

Maybe we should have other notices put up like "Please don't take a shit on the shop floor" or "You will have to take your shoes off to try on new ones!"

I might put one on my car saying "Beware! This car is moving!"

Warning - possiblr judgemental rant coming here.

"Went to Richmond today for a mooch around the shops. DS3 (4yrs) kept complaining about his feet hurting so we headed over to Clarks."

Well I'm presuming as most shops shut at 5.30/6pm you must have been at the shops for a while?

So

1. DS was complaining and you decided to put your own agenda first and shop leaving Clarks to the last minute, despite DS discomfort,

2. you knew the shoes were wrong size, fit as I'm sure most parents are used to experiencing the 'my shoes hurt/rub...' when out shopping with bored children and don't buy new ones automatically.

3)had planned on buying new ones as you knew they were the wrong fit but thought he'd cope for a while and left Clarks too late.

4. DS was complaining for a while so you decided to traet him to a new pair but had to deal with explaining to DS the shop was shut so he'd have to wear the uncomfortable ones until you got home??

How would you have felt if they let in in at 5.23pm, measured him which is standard practice, went and got the shoes you wanted and then couldn't/wouldn't serve you as it was 5.31pm??

TBH OP I think YABU and from the OP it seems like you do the 'last-minute' shops visits often.

Ha Shirley thanks! That made me smile (quite a feat believe me, god I'm grumpy today, but I'd say that was pretty clear from my posts).

Oh me too. I am feeling monumentally crabby.

I think if I went to work in retail now or any job where this unpaid overtime at either end of shift was a possibility - then I would be sure to have some watertight engraved in employment law reason why I had to leave bang on time - invent a child or grandchild pick up time that meant I had to absolutely stick to my paid hours - or an irate husband waits up the street for me etc.

Think it comes with being older and wiser that you dont let employers or anyone for that matter - take the piss. If more employees took that stance employers couldnt get away with it. They couldnt actually discipline an employee for sticking to their hours technically - but the employee could technically on the other hand complain against employer for non payment of wages - but rarely do.

Think its often a case of winning the battle but cant win the war - employers can make life difficult for such an employee without actually referring to the rigid timekeeping and in many cases even pit them against their colleagues - as in - ' Sudas letting you down because she has to leave bang on time and so you have more to do before you go.'

It just stinks really and I just think the more people stand up to it the more chance of abolishing this 'slavery' in retail and other industries.

This reminds me of when i worked in caravan sales (don't laugh!).

It was about 5:25pm (closed at 5:30pm) when an elderly couple turn up wanting to buy a Caravan. Now, normally we would have turned them away as it can take up to an hour to go through various caravans then accessories then finance and it would have meant the entire site had to be open.

But, this elderly couple stated that they had come all the way from Devon just to look at these caravans (we were based in the midlands with very specialist caravans not sold anywhere else in the country).

Now, we were open from 8am in the morning so why oh why did they have to turn up at 5:25pm! Rock, paper, scissors ensued to see who would stay.......

Next morning, they report that the couple had stayed till 6:45pm and left without buying anything!

Luckily the MD paid overtime but how ridiculous.