I can understand the rationale of keeping retail establishments open longer hours during the holiday hours: frantic, last minute shoppers will pack our store and buy tons and tons of stuff. In some cases, however, late hours need to be contemplated with an understanding of the surrounding area.

The Bookstore I work at is located in a business district. Not the suburbs. Who is out shopping past 10pm in a business district? Well, as evidenced by last night, no one.

We usually close at 9. Last night, we were open until 11pm, which is our closing hour until December 23rd (Christmas Eve we close at 7pm).

There were actually a couple of dozen customers in the store at 9pm, but by 10, we had one lady reading in Romance, one lady browsing cards, and a guy upstairs reading on a bench in history, with someone else sitting at a table in the cafe. By the time I began doing the closing announcements there were, count them, zero customers in the store.

I still made the announcements — they’re as much for the employees as for the customers, but do you have any idea how ridiculous it is to say, as part of my announcements, “…if you are planning on making a purchase, please bring it to the register to avoid a last minute line” when not only are their no customers in the store in the first place, but that the two people at the registers are so bored out of their minds they’re contemplating throwing all the bags on the floor so that they’ll have something to do as they clean them up again?

As ridiculously dead as the store was Monday night, I’m glad I’m not working closing this coming Sunday when, yes, the store will be open until 11pm, on a night we usually close at 7. That’s going to be a really boring night.