Reading the story about the bomb scare earlier reminded me of a story I have.
I once worked at a store that was open 24 hours a day. One night around 8 or 9 pm, a small plane crashed in the grass outside our parking lot, taking out some power lines on its way down and knocking out power to a good portion of the town. Since there was 1) no power and 2) an airplane stuck nose-first outside of the parking lot, the store obviously had to close temporarily. The store remained closed overnight while police/FAA investigated and cleared the crash site and the utility crews worked to restore power.
I was scheduled to work at 5:00 am the next morning because we got our warehouse delivery that morning, so I got to work while the store was still closed. As my manager was opening the door to let me in, a customer came walking up and asked if we were re-opening. She told him no, power had just been restored and the plan was to re-open at 7:00 am so that we had time to reboot all the computers and registers to make sure everything was working properly, get the refrigerators/freezers cold again, pull any cold items that may have gone bad, etc. The customer seemed a bit disappointed but said ok, no problem and went on his way. We decided to put a sign on the door that said we would re-open at 7:00 am, sorry for the inconvenience, blah blah blah, since the pitch dark store was apparently not enough of a hint that we weren't open.
Now if the story ended there, it wouldn't have been a big deal. The customer was polite and understanding about everything, just a bit oblivious. But hey we put a sign up on the door to deal with anyone else that walks up. Problem solved, right? Haha, yeah, no. Sure enough, around 6:30 I'm walking near the front of the store (which still has it's lights off by the way) and hear someone banging on the front door.
Me: We'll be back open at 7.
Idiot: What do you mean? Why aren't you open?
Me: We just got power back up. We'll be open in about 30 minutes.
Idiot: But you're supposed to be open 24 hours!
Me: (after pausing for a few seconds to stare at him like he was literally the dumbest person on planet earth) THERE IS A PLANE. IN OUR PARKING LOT. RIGHT BEHIND YOU.
Idiot: (after turning to look at the plane sticking out of the ground about 50 feet away from him, accompanied by a police car with its lights on to guard it) So what?
Me: We'll be open at 7. Goodbye.
And I just turned and walked away because it was too damn early to deal with that level of stupidity.
Submitted February 17, 2017 at 02:22AM by jrr05j http://ift.tt/2lQvs7p TalesFromRetail
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