The obvious question here being - what time did the clocks in the store say? I remember more than one customer wanting us to stay open longer, because according to their watch it was not *closing time* and thought we were being obtuse and rude for wanting to close at *official corporate computer time*.

Even though I find (your rendition of) the announcements on the rude side, I spent too many nights waiting for customers to stop diddling and check out to feel much sympathy for anyone who comes in 20 minutes from closing time.

When you get right down to it, there is no polite way to say 'go away so we can go home' since no matter how polite or understanding the message, someone is going to be insulted.

We close in *x* minutes is just begging to be ignored and yelling fire is illegal. I use to walk around and every minute or so ask 'can I help you find anything tonight?'. Annoying and since most people don't like clerks doing that sort of thing, encouraged people to leave. I would also try to insert 'we close in five mintues' as often as possible into every conversation to remind people to hurry up.

I always found it ironic that corporate would encourage us to stay open as long as possible to satisfy customers browsing late, but if a store stayed open late too often, the entire store could be fined/written up and the managers fired.