The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year?

We are at the start of the time that all retail workers look forward to. It just gets your blood flowing so well. You just can't wait until it is your time to go to work and have all of this fun. Just imagine, we not only get to have all of this fun, but they even pay us for it, too. Wait, I am sensing skepticism out there. Could it be that those reading this do not believe the sincerity of my words? Are they wondering whether or not if I have brown eyes? (For the record, I do.) Oh well, I always knew that I had an intelligent audience with great BS detectors.

So what exactly is the difference from working this time of the year as any other time. Obviously, we deal with much more merchandise than normal. The freight has been flowing in for about the last three weeks and it will continue until about a week before Christmas. At times like this I am glad I work on the grocery side of the store and not the general merchandise. On that side displays have to be changed constantly, and at times it is a challenge to figure out what to put out and how to make it look good. The person in grocery who has the hardest time is the one who works what we call the bake aisle, flour, sugar, cake mixes, etc. It is not unusual to sell more sugar in one day than in a normal week. I did that aisle a few years ago at Christmas. You get a real workout.

We don't deal with customers near as much on third shift as on first or second. I consider that a good thing. Don't get me wrong, I like people and I like helping but this time of year brings out the worst in some people. The best example of that was what happened on Black Friday last year at Long Island. The only wonder is it hadn't happened sooner. When I was at Kmart I saw the charge when the doors are opened. We don't have that problem at the Wal-Mart that I work at since we are a 24 hour store. People come inside and wait starting around midnight. The closer to 5:00 A.M. the worse it gets. I didn't have to work it last year but it looks like this year I'll be in the middle of it. I'll talk about what happened then.