I win the stupid award today!!!

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UzZx32QU

UzZx32QU

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I was in early because it's been busy and I needed to get some work out. I opened at 10AM so I thought and went back to work. It was a real slow morning and I just kept working. I went to check my mail at 11:45 a found the door still locked.

That's a good way to have a slow day... I bet I lost the biggest deal of the month.


framer

Check that door.....

[ 02-09-2005, 12:31 PM: Message edited by: framer tg: ]
 
I've done that once or twice before. Come in early, half asleep & get real busy in the back.
LOL...now I don't feel quite so alone in my stupidness!
 
Congratulations, it’s always nice to win something.

As is my usual habit, as soon as I get in in the morning, I empty the waste baskets. Last week, I forgot to turn the back door knob during my endeavor, so I locked myself out.

I had to borrow needle nose pliers from another unit and “break in” to my store. As luck would have it, the Litchfield cops were cruisin’ the back lot, so I had a bit of ‘splainin’ to do.
 
I've forgotten to unlock, too!

What's funny, is you think you might have lost business and that is possible since I have had people stand at the door when it is unlocked and don't try it if it is after my posted hours - even though the lights are on, the OPEN sign is lit, and we are moving around inside.

And then there are the customers that will bang on the door if it is locked and it is well after hours...

Takes all kinds to make the world go 'round, eh!?

Roz
 
I've done it in a couple of ways and the resulting problems show that some customers just don't read signs.

I have ,as you all have mentioned ,forgotten to unlock the door.The result is no one really noticed most of the time ( kind of an indication of the business volume.LOL)

I have also forgotten to change the OPEN/CLOSED sign on the door.
When we weren't suposed to be opened and I forgot to RELOCK the door ,but the sign clearly said CLOSED ( either earlier than or LATER than Our posted HOURS)people still just walked right in and said "OH I didn't realize your weren't open."
And then there are the times when the hours were correct ( as per the signage) and I forgot to change the sign to read OPEN and they just drove off with out even looking in the door or trying it.

Maybe a sign that said "If you see us here were OPEN "would help but then who'd read that one?
LOL
BUDDY
 
I've forgotten to unlock before. My customer saw my car and banged on the door.

People walk in all the time when I'm working but the store is closed. I don't mind.
I'm always happy to have someone come inside to spend money.
 
If you want total embarassment,forget to lock your front door, and have the police call you at two in the morning to drive 18 miles to work to lock up. I think that is so you don't forget to do it again. It works !!!! Actually, good to know the police are doing a good job looking out for our businesses. I consider myself lucky that time.
Lori
 
It gets better than that.... I actually hit the silent alarm in the shop one morning at about 6am.... you wake up pretty quick when the cops come in with their guns drawn- no coffee necessary!!

Fra
 
Originally posted by D_Derbonne:
People walk in all the time when I'm working but the store is closed. I don't mind.
I'm always happy to have someone come inside to spend money.
Click to expand...
And I bet you don't mind when people call at dinnertime either
shrug.gif
At least that's how I think of it. When I'm here early, late or on Saturday (when we're "CLOSED") it's because I'm putting in special time to get certain things done. Being interrupted when the hours are clearly posted is one of my pet peeves
icon45.gif
 
I have forgotten to unlock when I open.

I've also forgotten to lock up when I go home.

I haven't ever done both on the same day, and it doens't look like it's going to happen.
 
I've never forgotten to lock up at closing, but I can remember three morning occasions when customers phoned the number on my front door to say it was locked, using their cell phones.

They knew we were here, because the lights were on, the computer screens were lit up, and they could hear either the music or the equipment running.

On two of those occasions, we both thought the other had unlocked the door. Once it was just me, doing exactly what Framer tg did.

It's embarrassing, and could cost us business. But life goes on.
 
David, I don't answer my phone at home unless I feel like it.
I have an unpublished number.
I answer the phone all day at work and when I go home my time is my own.

I have locked the doors at work and refused to let someone come in only once.
Let's just say I need business and I will take it any way I can get it.
After hours or before hours.

I will admit there have been a couple of times when someone followed me in the shop an hour before opening that I felt like snarling at them but we don't snarl at customers. Do we?

I have failed to lock the back door at the end of the day but never the front door.
 
Years ago, I worked for Aaron Brothers before they became "Big Box". I ran their store out in La Jolla. I came to work one morning and the back door and the loading door were wide open. I had left the night before from the front door, my wife was waiting for me, I forgot to check the back. Nothing was disturbed or stolen, couldn't believe it.

My favorite story about those days, along the same lines. Al Aaron had been visiting the Laguna Beach store, the manager had thought he had left, so he closed up and went home. Al had been using the restroom at the time and ended up being completely locked in, no emergency door. I don't recall how he got out or if he spent the night, I do remember the Laguna Store having a change of managers around that time.

John
 
Originally posted by Bill Henry:
I had to borrow needle nose pliers from another unit and “break in” to my store.
Click to expand...
You can get into your "locked up" store with a pair of pliers ?!?! :eek:

(I don't think I've ever used an graemlin before)
 
Came in one Tuesday morning, front door was open. and the sign said OPEN. Curious. Lights and computer were all off. It was about 9am, and we open at 10am......

Went to back door: Locked. Bosses car in the back: no.

Called boss at home.

She had been very tired when she "locked-up" on Saturday...... boyfriend [now husband] waiting at home.....

We had four or five customers tell us that they had stopped IN on Sunday or Monday but noone came out to help them so they left.....

Nothing was missing. go figure.
 
Baer, does that mean:

a) Really honest customers, or

b) Nothing worth taking?

I only ask because, when I forgot to lock up, somebody "stopped by" (lights off, closed sign out, door unlocked) and - finding me unavailable - called the police who called me at home.
 
You can get into your "locked up" store with a pair of pliers ?!?!
Click to expand...
Sure, it’s easy … especially when the weather is as cold as it is, the doors shrink and expose the bolt a bit more. It’s not a dead bolt; it’s just one of those bolts which slide when you close the door.

With the pliers you just have to inch it towards the cylinder bit by bit and violà, instant break in.

I’ve helped several of our neighbors in the building access their own stores – a kind of public service. It’s a pretty useful skill.
 
I know that same trick Bill. But I have never used a pair of PLIERS! If the door's gap is that wide apart I would get it fixed!

Used to use the first trick a lot as a kid. I ran a consession stand at a golf course. Used to walk to work and always forgot to bring my keys! The door was tighter so I used to use a piece of wire, fed it through around the back of the bolt and pulled and pushed on the door until it "clicked" open! Did the same thing here, once. Locked myself out and when I found out how easy it was to "break in" I had the lock replaced!

I thought you were going to say that you pulled the pins out of the hinges with the pliers.

That's what I did the second time I locked myself out! Now my shop has hinge pins with set screws in them so you can't pull them. Oh yeah and I now also carry a spare key in my wallet, and one in the ashtray of my car. The third time I locked myself out I saw my wallet sitting on my workbench!
 
In December when I would be working late I would stay open since I was there anyway. Three different times the police would stop by between 10 and midnight and ask me to close. They thought I was crazy. THEY WERE RIGHT!!!! :D I would be thinking about what I was doing and forget to turn off the open sign bring in the A-Frame and lock the door. The police said that anyone that would come in at that hour in a shopping center where everything else was closed was probably up to no good!

Mark
 
Our photo lab runs a pick up and delivery route through our area on Tuesdays. They get to our place about 9 am, so Gary has to get in early to make sure he has his orders ready to go. One Tuesday, he was busy getting stuff ready and forgot to unlock the door. He didn't hear the delivery guy knock so he missed that week's pick up. He's been very careful to have the door unlocked before 9 since then.
 
You can do the same thing with a credit card, slip it behind the bolt, and bring it toward you.

Also NH is the only state that I could find (that I've been to) that carried "slim jims" in the auto parts stores. No not the raw hide people chews soaked in spices, but the things that cops and repo men slip into the car door to pull up the locks. They would work on the type of door you have!

They're also handy if you lock yourself out of your car! (And don't have power locks)

~Every job is an excuse to buy new tools~
 
Originally posted by Ron Eggers:
Baer, does that mean:

a) Really honest customers, or

b) Nothing worth taking?

I only ask because, when I forgot to lock up, somebody "stopped by" (lights off, closed sign out, door unlocked) and - finding me unavailable - called the police who called me at home.
Click to expand...
Ron, I would say that it's neither a or b, it's just a strange comment on our neighborhood. On woman did say that she even thought about just leaving her picture with a note, but she had just repainted her hall, an knew that Shar wouldn't know her new color, so she came back to chose the mat colors....
shrug.gif


And yet a few of the stores within a block have been burglerized....
help.gif
 
Been there, done that...we had a woman call and send the police once when we forgot to unlock the door -- she thought we were being held hostage! :eek:

OK -- how's this for competing for the "Stupid Award"? Needed to build a floater frame for a client who already had a very large painting hanging in their corporate office. I went to the site, took precise measurements, and figured I'd build the frame at the shop and then take it to the office to install on site, instead of trying to transport this large painting back and forth.

Built the frame, wrapped it up, and only THEN did I discover that IT WAS TOO BIG TO GO THROUGH THE DOORWAY!

O'Neill's Folly?
 
Here's my candidate for the Stupid Award.

I (thought I) measured a specially ordered piece of matboard 22 3/4, cut it, only to discover that I had measured and cut it at 21 3/4. Luckily it was just plain ragboard. Grrr...

Decided to postpone cutting the expensive silk board until tomorrow.

Less than two week 'til I see my Opthalmologist about the cataract surgery!

In 23 years at my shop I have forgotten to lock the back door twice but never the front door! And I have extra keys everywhere! For everything!!!
 
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