From Former Mchell Manager:

A few months ago, the Arby's a few doors down from us was robbed. It was purely a case of "Manager stupidity", but it certainly put all of us who closed at my store on edge, as it took them a few weeks to catch the guy. Plus, about once a month we get an email about how some store somewhere in a random state was robbed. In fact, we just got an email that a Tennessee store was robbed, and one person was hospitalized because of it. Granted Tennessee isn't exactly New York, the state I am actually in, but still.

So it makes perfect sense as to why I freak out every time a random car just shows up on our lot with a person still in it. Every now and then, due to the Rent-A-Car business that's in between Arby's and my store, we will end up with a random car in our lot from someone who parked their car in our lot, and used their rental. But that's not really a thing anymore since we started cracking down on that (A different story for a different day). But those cars never have anyone in them. 

Last night, as I was letting out my Closing-But-Not-Staying-To-Clean employees, I noticed a truck that had a person in it. I was a bit weary as I let out my staff, but nothing came of it. After my staff left, I checked the camera. The guy drove into the lot and parked juuuuuuust in view on the camera (where I could see he's there, but really just the headlights of his truck). Of course, he did this 5 minutes to close. And as it was just me and the Stay-To-Clean closer, it wasn't a case of "Hey, I'm here to pick up one of your employees" kind of thing. 

The guy sat there, in his truck, for a good 45 minutes. What he was doing, I have no idea. Grabbing a quick nap? For the love of god use the huge grocery store right down the street from us that has a well lit lot. Trying to leech off of our crappy Wi-Fi? Good luck trying to get it from where he was parked.

I even turned off the store lights to try to hint at him "The store is closed, get outta here", but he didn't take the bait.

Thankfully, my manager always encourages me that if I ever feel unsafe as I am leaving for the night, as I have the deposit to drop to the bank, to call the police for an escort. So I could have easily called the police once we were done and had them come to make sure everything was okay. But thankfully the guy left literally 2 minutes before we were set to actually leave. 

Long story short, if you need to park somewhere for a quick break for whatever reason: DON'T USE A STORE THAT JUST CLOSED! That manager is probably freaking out if you do, wondering why the hell you are sitting in a dark parking lot!!

--Former McHell Manager