Here is a little peeve of mine that I would like to get off my chest...
I get off from work a little early, around 10 at night. I go over to a nearby coffee shop that stays open until 11. So I get there and sit down to study and write. And enjoy my coffee. But during most of the time I'm there, the employees are sweeping and mopping the floor, taking out boxes to restock their shelves for the next morning, and carrying in tables and chairs from the outside. Often, if I had wanted to sit outside, there are no longer any available seats or tables. And inside, sections of the seating area are often closed off, the floor wet from mopping. Meanwhile, other tables are off-limits because of inventory stacked up on them. Maybe this shouldn't bother me, but it does.
I get the vibes from places such as I just described (and there are way too many of them) that, sure, they are "technically" open until their stated closing time, but hey...
The workers eager to close up in advance of the actual "closing" convey the impression that, by coming in to do business with them in their final hour, I am being an impediment to their agenda: they want to get off the clock and the hell out of there as soon as possible after closing. To this end, they want to get ahead of the game by doing things in front of the (paying) customers that are distractions and nuisances. I just think it's damned tacky, and is a violation of the unspoken contract I (possibly delusionally) agreed to when I walked through their doors, spent my money there, and expected a certain type of ambiance in the surroundings as I sat in their establishment, final hour of the day or not.
To put it in a more general context, if I had guests visiting me in my home, I sure as all wouldn't then get out and use my vacuum cleaner or fold up my laundry in front of them! Then again, maybe the old virtues of etiquette and hospitality have become buried in the past, increasingly distant memories never to be revived...
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It's not (just) the employees who want to get out of there. It's the management, too, who wants them out, so they're off the clock and not being paid any more (in fact, the employees might prefer to defer things, and make a few more bucks). Here: they can spend the last hour serving six customers and otherwise standing around looking ready for a last-minute rush... or they can use the idle time, when the store really isn't that busy, to start clearing up.
ReplyDeleteIt's a Starbucks, or a Jack-in-the-Box, or whatever... not a three-star restaurant. I don't expect a place where I'm spending $50 a person or more on a meal to have people sweeping up around my feet. But I don't expect a place where I stop for coffee to wait until the doors are locked to start their sweeping.
I agree with you that it can be annoying. But it's not surprising, arguably not unreasonable, and not going to change.
I don't mind employees cleaning up before closing, as long as they're trying to be unobtrusive about it. The point is that they're selling not just their product, which anyone should be able to concoct at home a lot cheaper: they are also selling the location as well, at least as far as I'm concerned when I decide how to spend my money. I have to determine for myself, just like anyone else, whether the annoyances outweigh the benefits of doing business there at that time of night. But I agree with you that this practice is not going to change.
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