No, I mean that literally- they will not pay us to keep the store open late

I have HAD IT with these customers, loyal readers.

Today, as we were closing up the store at 9 P.M., A Customer came in. He saw Free-Shirt pulling the gates closed (yeah, our store has metal gates in the front, we're classy) and asked,

"When do you guys close?"

"9 P.M.," I said.

"Your website says 10," he said. I pulled out my phone and checked our posted hours. Sure enough, Thursday says 10 AM to 10 PM, even though every other day of the week is correctly marked at 10 AM to 9 PM.

In the meantime, the guy and his girlfriend are looking at the wall and whining about how Skyrim is still $50.

"That's the legendary edition with all the DLC," I said. "The game by itself is $20."

"I ALREADY HAVE IT," he snapped at me.

This week of all weeks, I don't have time for people to be rude to me for trivial bullshit.

"Yeah, the website says 10 PM, but sorry, it must be a typo," I said. "Every other day is correctly marked 10 to 9."

"WHERE IS FALLOUT," he snapped.

"In the "Under $10" bin," I said. He managed to find it and bring it up to the register as Free-Shirt is locking the door and beginning to clean up customer mess.

"I'M FEELING RUSHED RIGHT NOW," he complained.

"Sorry," I said. "We don't get paid to stay open late."

Now, I am aware that mentioning your shitty working conditions to customers is The Biggest No-No Ever In The History of Corporate Retail, but I've had it with this guy.

"WELL, THAT'S A GREAT ATTITUDE."

Ain't nobody disses my attitude.

"I mean that literally," I said flatly. "They will not pay us to keep the store open late. We're restricted in the number of hours we can have employees scheduled, and we're already over our allocation for this week." Of course, legally, they have to pay us for hours worked, but there are all kinds of tricks corporate can use to "make up" the over-used time, the most common one being slashing hours for the following days and weeks, which hurts the store long-term.

(By the way, we're over on hours because our district manager came in, moved everything around, made a huge mess, and we had to bring in an extra employee to clean it all up.)

"WELL, THEN, IT SOUNDS LIKE SOMEBODY MESSED UP THE SCHEDULE."

"We have no control over the number of payroll hours we get. Feel free to take it up with our corporate office."

"MAYBE I WILL."

Seriously. Customers are not Delicate Flowers who can't bear the effects of Reality interfering with their Happy Shopping Time. Stores, particularly small specialty stores like mine, have closing times for a reason. Even if I didn't have a life outside of work and was totally happy to wait around for him to finish picking out $5 PS3 games, I would get punished by corporate for going into overtime.

Of course, I'm going to get reamed by corporate anyway for telling a customer THE TRUTH OF RETAIL, but at least I get to watch my DM flounder when I ask him how much overtime pay I can get.

Encouraging people to complain to corporate totally takes the wind out of their sails, though.