To complain about shop staff emptying my "abandoned" trolley...

[LeftMyRidingCropInTheMortuary]

Evening all,

I arrived at a large chain homeware store at about 7pm last night, going round with a trolley. I put quite a lot in so it was heavy and I parked it whilst I finished browsing. At about 7.50pm, a storeperson reminded me they were closing at 8 so I went to get my trolley to get it through the checkout but it has disappeared.

It transpired that the staff had emptied it and put everything back on the shelves! They quickly grabbed back a few of the items and rushed me through the checkout as they were clearly desperate to get me out and the shop closed. I couldn't remember everything I had put in and it was clear they weren't going to give me any time to think about what was missing.

Had I not been desperate for the mattress topper I originally went for, I would just have left but I had promised to pick it up for a friend of mine who has joint problems.

The staff were very rude when I complained saying it was my fault for "abandoning" my trolley and that they were just trying to get the shop tidied in time for closing. They said that no other customer had ever "abandoned" their trolley in this way and didn't I realise they closed at 8?!

They all stood around obviously waiting for me to leave because it was shock horror 8.02pm by the time they had deigned to allow me to pay £75 for the goods shoved back in my trolley.

I have now got home and realised I am without various items I had originally put in my trolley such as a laundry basket, lampshade and under-shelf storage trays and wardrobe organiser. Which is a pain because I travelled specifically to this store and spend time choosing items. Now I have to make another trip and try and locate the items again.

AIBU to think this is off and that you don't put back stock and close the store until, er, closing time? And AIBU to think they should have apologised? AIBU to think that even if you think your customers are a massive inconvenience to you clocking off at 8pm on the dot, that you try and conceal that fact from the aforementioned customers?!

Thanks in advance.

Yabu, at a different time of day they might have left it longer, but just before closing when it had been there ages while you lingered over browsing, totally reasonable of them.

Having worked in shops and call centres for years, we would all hate you.

There's a corner of hell for people who call at 5.59 on a Friday when we close at 6, people who rush into a store as your hand is on the button to close the door "just for a few bits" and many many others.

So you left your trolley somewhere, full of things and didn't tell the staff it was yours and that you'd be back for it?

What on earth did you expect them to do with a random trolley full of goods?

Some shops close at X o'clock and the staff stop being paid at X o'clock. I used to work somewhere like that, we just closed and bailed.

My old place had 30 mins after closing before we stopped being paid - but resetting the store and completing daily paperwork properly was easily a 45-60 minute job. So you had to rush it through as quickly as you could - we were audited on our paperwork so any incomplete or incorrect paperwork was a fail and a disciplinary. So I just didn't have time to spend 15 minutes serving someone after we closed then starting on the end of day stuff. It's shitty company policies that dictate it but I'm not working for free and I didn't expect my staff to either.

What are these big companies like, honestly, can't they just treat their staff with a bit of decency, they just try and squeeze every last drop out of the staff, all they care about is profit, profit and more profit, greedy bastards.