To think closing times shouldn’t be treated as an estimate? Disagreement with friend AIBU

[friendship1234]

i have been friends with this woman for about two months, met her at work as I recently started a new job.

so, we went out shopping today, to pick up stuff for the kids and just have a browse really. We had a really good time and it was about five to six and we were almost ready to head home. Friend says to me “oh let’s just go into xyz shop” (think discount store like b&m or something.)
I say okay, we go towards the door and I see on the sign they close at 6. I say to her “oh they’re closing in five minutes, do you want to come back another day?”

she goes “oh it’s okay, I only need a few bits” so I’m like okay and we go in. There’s a worker standing at the door telling people that they close soon.

Friend takes a trolley, that should have been my first clue. Im like, maybe she just wants a couple of larger items.
basically, she goes round the shop browsing each aisle as slow as humanly possible it seems like, grabbing stuff off the shelves, comparing prices, asking me whether or not she should buy xyz, etc etc.

well at 6 a staff member goes on the tannoy and does the close announcement, friend is still browsing without a care in the world. I say to her “oh they’re closing now, let’s go to the till” and she goes “well I haven’t finished shopping” in an almost confused voice.

I say to her “I know but the tills are closing and the staff probably want to go home”

her response? “I’m sure they have staff that stay later”

I’ve only known this woman 2 months and I’ve never really see this side of her before so I was a bit shocked really. Anyway, I’m kind of trying to walk faster in the hope that she’ll hurry up and go to the tills. 6.04 a staff member comes down the aisles and is like, we’re closed now so could you please make your way to the tills” my friend goes “oh, excuse me” and then starts asking him if they have any more of something out the back!!! I gave this guy an apologetic look and was like “they’re closed, you can come back another day and ask” and my “friend” goes “I came in the door before 6pm. I came in before closing time, so I’m entitled to be here” and gives me a dirty look I think for not backing her up.

im shellshocked at this point really and I didn’t say anything as I had no idea this is how she behaved and I was really in shock.

The (lovely) store employee basically tells her politely that the tills will be closing imminently so if she wants to buy her shopping, she needs to go and pay now.

Well she huffs, goes (slowly) towards the tills, and I’m just standing there waiting for her to pay so we can leave. I would have waited outside but they’d closed the doors at that point so we needed to wait to be let out!
At the till, friend:
-argues about prices (“the label on the shelf said xyz”
-decides she doesn’t want a few things after all and leaves them at the till
-decides she HAS to buy a bottle of gin which is in a locked cabinet by the tills (I don’t know how the staff were keeping a straight face by this point, I was staring at the floor in second hand embarrassment)

then she takes AGES to get her money out of her wallet, faffs around with small change when she could have just given a 20 and be done with it, decides she wants carrier bags which have to be put through seperately, and FINALLY leaves. At 21 minutes past closing time, all in all. I actually apologised to the staff on the way out.

so once we got out of the shop we got into an argument over this, I said to her I can’t believe you acted that way and she shrugs and says well if you go in the shop before closing time it’s fine, it’s just an estimate not an exact science. She said she was annoyed at me for apologising for her, which she said made her “feel like the bad guy” I was like yeah because you were acting entitled.

basically, wibu to distance myself from her from now on? She has form for being a bit self absorbed but this seemed like a new level of entitlement! I just feel bad for the poor shop staff really. “Friend” says that she used to work in retail and that it really wasn’t an issue and that I was being dramatic and holier than thou. Aibu??

You know how there's a saying that you can tell what a person is like by how they treat wait staff? Same thing here I think.

She's an arsehole that I don't think I'd bother with again.

NPD levels of entitlement. Steer clear.

Some shops in retail actually give you an adequate amount of time to do closing duties, and pay you for it. Maybe that was her experience. But with today's generally exploitative min wage worker practices and especially in the current economy, prob not likely.

That should say adequate paid time for closing duties after the public closing time.

Couldn't you just close the till instead of calling security? Just curious

😂😂

Your mate's an arse. I'd have left her at 6

Some shops in retail actually give you an adequate amount of time to do closing duties, and pay you for it

But time for closing duties doesn't include serving customers who won't leave. Staff can't begin closing duties until the last customer has paid and left.

Exactly. I worked in Debenhams years back. Iirc full time workers had time factored in for cashing up etc, but part time workers didn't, and if you got stuck for 15, 20, 45mins you didn't get paid for that and you didn't get that time back.

That makes me rage as a former retail employee 😂 we would have people like this all the time, they would make me late so I missed my bus. Selfish arrogant twats

Not all closing duties have to wait until the store is empty. That said, even if somehow you can only start after doors are officially shut, good stores factor that in, like one I used to work at. If you're given adequate time and are paid well for it, lingering customers won't be a major issue (as inconsiderate and annoying as it is). That was rare and is even rarer now, though due to the factors I cited above.

A shop opening at 9am and closes at 5pm, example time, means to me the door opens at 9 and closes at 5 not closes when people feel like

I didn’t say they were.

Many years ago I used to work in a well known high street stationers and on Christmas Eve a guy did a full on Indiana Jones roll under the shutter with all his shopping bags. When challenged by the security guard he shouted, "but I need a 'To my wife at Christmas card'!" We'd sold out of those the day before and the only wrapping paper we had left was plain green or red.

Your friend is a dickhead. I'd distance myself, how people treat others is a good indication of their character.

It goes without saying that your friend isn't a nice considerate person but how could you possibly be shellshocked by a bit of twatty rude behaviour? Are you prone to dramatics, do you have PTSD now?

I know (not friends with) someone like this. If they get any inkling of being told what to do, they move slower and faff more to dig their heels in and make a point drives me mad, it's so self important. Like I say, we're not friends.

She sounds awful and you are lovely. It was never gonna work!

Awful behaviour. I’d have walked out the shop and left her to it.

Its not even whether staff are paid for the extra time. Maybe they’d like to go home when their shift finishes, not stay on because your friend demands it. Not everyone stays when the shop shuts.

It’s a bit pathetic too imo. Like she needs the “win”. Her desperation to buy stuff isn’t a good look either.

She is an inconsiderate bitch. They don't get any overtime if they stay later

She is a twat. I couldn't be friends with her.

Nope.
The shop has opening and closing hours.
If you want to use the shop, you do so before it closes.
Otherwise it’s rude.

You are right. It’s not hard.

For me, that behaviour would be the end of the friendship..That time us enough to cause significant disruption to the staff in terms of missed busses, late nursery pick-ups, parking fines etc.

It's really not hard to realise if a store says it closes at 6, that means the customers are out at 6. It's ridiculous for people to enter a store 5 minutes to closing and expect staff to wait for them. If whatever you wanted to get was that important, you'd have done it earlier.

I'd ditch her and I'd ditch anybody who thinks that the ability to spend one's "hard earned" means that they get to stomp all over the rights of others.
In fact, I work in retail in a fortunate to get weekend job.
I absolutely LOVE countering the faux shocked faces of women ( because it is always women) who want to try on clothes five minutes before close of business , only for them to find out that changing room is closed a half hour before end of business.
I also always holler "five minutes to end of business" as opposed to " until shop is closed", faceache any customers who have been browsing for half hour then want to give me a very inconsiderate run around three minutes before end of business, and the even more disingenuous are told about their inconsideration and if they want to talk to the manager, are told that he's worse than me.
The shop has a good mix of generations of workers and partog my responsibility is to give younger and new staff the confidence to maintain work conditions boundaries that too many customers ( unfortunately , overwhelmingly women of full capacitation) chance their arm at breaching.

I've faced down dirty looks, being cussed about my " lowly" station in life by a woman who didn't want a branded carrier bag due to her not wanting her equally horrible friends to know that she shops cheaply ( in Peckham; a place that will never see it's pre 1990s retail glory again!) , had a curse put upon me, had a stand off with a guy who wanted a refund from dvds that he watched and didn't like....... and told ( in the most firm tone) customers who are on a power trip and who I well know have no intention of buying fuck all, that no, Harrods customer service cannot be provided at just above minimum wage and I suggest they go to Lidl round the corner and see how far they'll get with that sense of entitlement.

I could have never done non family business retail when I was younger and more insecure. It wouldn't have been pretty.

I am shocked that post COVID people aren't more grateful of the presence of retail workers whose continued presence during lockdowns meant that we were still capable of feeding and clothing ourselves off and online.

OP is obviously a person with a sense of consciousness and has the ability to see outside of herself.
But the sense of a common expectation of behaviour in public away from one's home has disintegrated massively in the UK since the late 1990s. Personal discipline , appropriate comportment and self control are increasingly being seen as infringing and to the very disingenuous, manifestations of " respectability politics". And remember, due to societal loopholes, people have far more avenues within which to act out their narcissism which previously would have been nipped in the bud due to the lack of severe societal atomisation that we have now.
So there we have it.