Before Hours

I don't understand morning people.
I mean, due to my job I have to be a morning person.
But if given the choice, I would choose to sleep in rather than wake up with the sun.

Other people aren't me.
Some are randomly up with the sun.
Or before the sun.

But still, I don't see why people would think that a retail store would be open at the crack of dawn.
Unless it's Lowes. Lowes opens super early. *shakes head*

But everywhere else its like 9 am or 10 am for retail stores to open.
Mine is one of those stores.

So when I walked up to work this morning at 7:30.
It was to find a woman standing in front of the doors.
Staring at the hours sign.
A confused look on her face.

-Which isn't surprising as technically our Grooming Dept was open at that time. But the main store was still closed.

So as I walked up to the doors I asked her.
"Can I help you?"

She looked to me: "Are you open yet?"
"No, the main store is closed for a couple more hours, but grooming and the vet are open."
"Oh...."

Since she obviously wasn't there for Grooming or the Vet. I assumed she'd leave it at that.
But then she was like: "Would it be possible for me to go inside and look around?"

>.<
No.
No it wouldn't be.
What part of "We don't open yet." did you not understand?
If we're not open, that means that customers shouldn't be wandering around the store until we are open.
It means that we don't give you an 'early bird' pass to let you 'preview' what is in the store just because you asked nicely.

*shakes head*
Besides, people who look, end up finding things they want to buy, and then because they don't want to come back to get it when we're open, so they come find someone who will check them out before they're open, or try to convince the person to check them out.

Basically.
I wanted to avoid that nightmare.
Besides, we weren't open yet.

I really should have said: "I'm sorry, the main store is closed."

Instead I said something along the lines of. "We have a forklift running around in there, it wouldn't be the safest."

Because honestly, how can we expect to get any of the stocking or cleaning tasks done early,
if we have to move slowly for fear there's a customer running about the store.
Especially if my coworkers didn't know that there was a customer in the store because we weren't open yet.
Then the possibilities of a customer getting hit by the forklift are much higher.
So better to not let the customer in rather than risk them getting injured before hours.

Honestly.
Hours are hours.
Stick to them customers.
If we're not open yet, we're not open.

-Sarnic Dirchi