"Do You Know What Time it is?"

Thanks to some Scottish farmers or something, last night at 2:00am we had to put all our clocks back by one hour.




This would be fine if every member of the public had the brain capacity to be able to comprehend such a simple concept, but they don't.

As a result, this Sunday of the year is absolutely the worst day to be working in a 'public service' industry.

Sunday trading laws dictate that shops over a certain size in the UK can only trade for six consecutive hours and cannot trade past 5:30pm. This has lead to an accepted standard trading times of 11-5 (which we use), or 10-4 for supermarkets.

So today we were inundated at 10:01am with people banging on the front door, demanding to know why our doors weren't open and why we weren't catering for all their moronic needs, refusing to acknowledge that it was purely them that couldn't tell the time:

Customer: "What time do you open?"
Shop worker: "11:00am"
Customer: "It's f**king 10-past, why aren't you f**king open?!"
Shopy: "It's 10 past 10"
Foul-mouthed Idiot: "No it f**king isn't, it 11:10!"
Shopy: "No it isn't, look (holds up watch)"
Foul-mouthed Idiot: "That f**king watch is wrong, look! (holds up watch)"
Shopy: "You haven't put your watch back"
Foul-mouthed Idiot: "Yer what?"
Shopy: "The clocks went back last night"
Foul-mouthed Idiot: "This is f**king stupid! Don't you talk to me like I'm a f**king idiot!"

And similar conversations ensued throughout the morning on top of various phone-calls from people asking how to change the clock back on their computer / mobile phone / sky box etc.

Oh, and not only were people struggling with traditions that are centuries old, they were also struggling with basic instructions on a answer phone.
If you were sad enough to call a shop at 8:00am on a Sunday morning and got this answer phone message:

Hello, thank-you for calling *********. The store is currently closed. Our opening hours are: Monday to Friday: 9-8. Saturday 9-6 and Sunday 11-5.

What time would you try and get to the store by? You wouldn't get there at 9:00am would you, unless you were a complete cretin? You certainly wouldn't argue that the above message is misleading any any way shape or form would you?

Unfortunately, some would.