Librarian Vents About Boomers Who Refuse To Leave Until After They Close — 'It Puts Us Behind'
"They'll watch the clock and purposely not move 'til closing time exactly."
A frustrated librarian took to the r/BoomersBeingFools subreddit to vent about an entitled older couple who frequently visits her work. According to the librarian, the boomers constantly stay past closing in what she called "some sort of weird boomer power trip."
The librarian complained about Boomers who regularly refuse to leave until after they close.
"At my workplace, there's this boomer couple that comes in every single Sunday without fail,” the librarian wrote. "They post up with their laptops and sit there for hours."
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The couple has repeatedly played loud videos on their computer, disrupting other patrons. However; according to the Redditor, that was not their most annoying behavior.
“We close at 4 p.m. and they will sit there until 4 p.m. on the dot before they move a muscle to pack their [crap] up and get out,” she explained. "They [never leave] the building until at least five minutes after we are closed, which puts us behind on other closing stuff we need to do because we've gotta sit around and wait for them."
The librarian noted that the couple has done this every single week for years. “The lady even has the audacity to try to crack jokes about it too," she added.
Commenters sided with the annoyed librarian, agreeing that the Boomers’ actions were unfair to the rest of the staff.
“They think they own the place. Gross. I won't even go to a store if it's close to closing. It's just rude,” one Redditor commented.
“Worked retail for years and these types of customers were always the worst," another user sympathized. "We would have announcements stating we were closing and still people would stay until the very last minute."
Many commenters suggested disabling the wifi, turning the lights off, or playing music before closing. However, the librarian revealed in a comment that all of her efforts have done nothing to dissuade the boomers.
"The lights turn off right at closing. And we have a countdown timer that clicks on at quarter to that also makes this really annoying tick-tocking sound," she wrote, adding that the café in the library also plays "Closing Time" ten minutes before closing. Still, "the boomers are completely unphased."
While not a strict rule, it's most polite to avoid going into a store — or in this case, a library — 15 minutes before closing.
Patrons should not have to be shooed out of the building at closing time and certainly not on a regular basis.
The longer customers are in the store, the longer employees are forced to stay to complete all of their closing duties such as mopping, turning off all the lights, and counting the registers. Most of these tasks cannot even be started until the last customer has left the building.
While we all lose track of time every now and then, and may unintentionally walk into a store right before it closes, the boomers the Redditor described have a pattern of entitled behavior. This did not happen once or twice, but weekly for years, and evidently, they see no issue inconveniencing the staff.
Yet, just like you, store and restaurant employees want to wrap up work at a decent time and enjoy the rest of their day! They, too, have places to be and people to see, so remember to keep an eye on the clock as a customer. It's the courteous thing to do.
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.