Employee Gets Petty Revenge on Customer Who Shopped for 35 Minutes After Closing Time
Published June 28 2023, 5:12 p.m. ET
As the song says, when it's closing time, you don't have to go home — but you can't stay here.
It's one thing to linger at a bar at the end of the night, hoping to maybe bring a new friend home with you, but it's quite another to casually shop at a store long after it closed.
There is a special place in Hades for someone who darkens the door of a retail establishment mere minutes before closing time. Unless it's some kind of emergency, consumerism can absolutely wait until the morning. For one retail employee, it was time to get revenge on a shopper who insisted on remaining in the store 35 minutes after last call. This sounds like the right time for some spite time.
The customer isn't always right.
TikTok user @roningt, who we assume goes by Ronin, has a PhD in petty. Most if not all of his TikToks are a master class in how to get back at those who have wronged you. Righteous anger can be very useful, and deeply satisfying.
In one TikTok, Ronin discusses his long and illustrious career working in retail. Because he is an expert in all things related to shopping, he's seen a few things. He also doesn't take any s--- from disrespectful customers who probably take full advantage of the outdated adage, "The customer is always right." They are not.
One thing Ronin "absolutely hates" is when a "customer comes in right before you close." On one particular evening, a man walked into Ronin's store five minutes before they were ready to call it a night. Ronin, ever the customer service professional, kindly told this gentleman the store was about to close.
This guy's response was rude and crude. "You will close when I'm done shopping," he said to Ronin. Out of respect for what this man wanted, Ronin decided to do exactly that.
This customer registered some surprise over what happened next.
Ronin continued to perform his closing routines, while the impolite customer shopped for another 35 minutes. He then "rolls up to my register with a smug grin on his face," said Ronin. "I'm ready to check out," he told Ronin. To which Ronin replied, "Well it sucks to be you because we closed 35 minutes ago and I already shut down the registers."
"He was big mad," reported Ronin. However his anger was no match for Ronin's desire for revenge. "I'm petty enough to waste your time and my time," Ronin told his video's viewers. "Stay petty." We will!
Retail employees deserve your respect.
Support for Ronin and for retail workers in general flooded the comments section of the TikTok. "Everyone should have to work in retail or customer service at some point in their life," said one person. Another added, "To y'all who think that the costumer was in the right, work retail for a full month then see if he's right." Imagine thinking that jabroni was right.
Closing time!
A few people chimed in with store closing tales of their own. "I jokingly announced, 'Dear customers, we closed 45 minutes ago. If you are still here get the f--- out,' on the speaker. There were two customers we didn’t see," said one commenter.
Another took things to a pop culture place. "My last closing at the store I worked at in high school I announced, 'The store is now closed. Smithers, release the hounds.'" Unlike The Simpsons which is a show that will never end, a retail employee has a hard out at the end of the day. They earned it.
