Even in SF, where IIRC Kim lives, Federal employees are not that numerous, nor places to sell gold & silver that rare. If this
happened at all the appraiser probably came in late due to SF Bay Area traffic, or was out on lunch break. If it was this weekend, there were 10 or 20 thousand extra people who used BART or freeways for the Saturday expo and Sunday race for the Hot Chocolate 15K and 10K. So commutes and getting around SF were complicated by a major event.
Not that I'm convinced that what Kim described actually happened. Especially since Federal employees missed their first paycheck last Friday.