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Calling it the highlight of his evening, local Whole Foods cashier Douglas Porter expressed excitement Thursday afternoon about switching his parting message to customers from “have a nice day,” to “have a good night.”
Porter, who has been a cashier since June, says he rarely takes pleasure from his work. “Scanning items, bagging items, tearing receipts, that’s all just busywork,” said Porter, “but picking out the first customer of the day to receive one of my patented goodnights? Well, that’s just plain fun.”
He also praised his manager, Amanda Page, saying, “She gives us a lot of creative control over when to make the switch. Of course she wants us all to stick to ‘have a nice day’ during the day and ‘have a good night’ at night, but she lets us decide for ourselves when nighttime starts.”
“Personally I try to wait until the after-work crowd starts coming in around 5:30 p.m.,” explained Porter, who mentioned that he starts glancing at the clock between customers at around 5:10 p.m. “But sometimes I like to hold off until a few hours before closing when everyone’s picking up something on the way to a party. Once I see that everyone in line is clutching cheap wine and looking at their watches anxiously, then I know it’s time to pull the trigger.”
At press time, in a fit of creative inspiration, Porter had told one woman to “have a nice evening.”
