Cashiering at Christmas, part 1

Now that Christmas is over, the decorations are down, and life has regained its normalcy, I actually feel like posting about some of my retail holiday experiences. Let me just say first of all, as I think I have before, that working retail during the holidays totally nixes your Christmas spirit. I knew I was going to be tired, overworked, and irritated by the multitudes of customers that would come through my line everyday, but I never thought I would come to the place where I was counting down till the day AFTER Christmas.

Well, my first venture into being a Christmas cashier began in September. Yes, September. Here, at our friendly, happy-to-help-you department store, the Christmas trees went up in the beginning weeks of September. I was glad to see them. The were covered in beautiful ornaments, sparkling with lights, and brought a feeling of wonderland to the store. That was, until every customer began to gripe to me about them. Why were they up this early? Were we just trying to get them to buy more by shoving Christmas down their throats? Oh yeah.

It was really funny to feel the crescendo of holiday shopping. It really started in September, when all the organized, will-do can-do people marched into the store list in hand, loaded down a double buggy, and crossed off items as I rang them up. Every super Saturday sale was getting busier and busier. Every cart that came through had more and more in it.

In October, the reasonably early shoppers came out. They were just beginning, had no real plan and demanded gift boxes for every item they purchased, from toe socks to trench coats. Uh... we have no boxes. YOU HAVE NO BOXES??? What do you mean you have no boxes? You had boxes last year! (These people were really determined that I was keeping boxes from them out of pure spite.) We won't get boxes until Black Friday. Well, can I bring my receipt back and ask for boxes then? I don't know, but you can try. Well, what am I supposed to wrap ALL these presents in? My thoughts were that they could go to Walmart or any store of their preference and buy a package of boxes, but of course I couldn't say that.

November brought out the crazies. You know, like crazy basketball fans during March Madness, these were the crazy shoppers, glassy-eyed and dangerous. Every American citizen should be obligated to work retail during November and December just once. It should be the initiation into working adulthood or something. Maybe if everyone had worked retail once, they wouldn't make such spectacles of themselves as a customer. I can't count the tantrums over those miserable gift boxes, (which did not appear until Black Friday), the slick tricks with the coupons, the whining and the complaining that went on and on forever. And I was working 40 hour weeks, never less than five days straight.

December the pace began frantically and actually began to dwindle some. Or maybe it just felt that way to me because I didn't have to work any evenings. The biggest change was that people went from whining and griping to just plain mean. Now I had line jumpers, more tantrum-throwers and the same old sad song over the boxes because we ran out. For real people! Go buy yourself a gift bag or package of boxes! Nowhere is it written that this store is obligated to give you a free box because you purchased a present here. The week Christmas was actually not quite so busy. I guess most people had finished. And 75% of the customers those last three days were men running in at the last minute to buy a giftcard for their wives, mothers, and other female relations they'd forgotten until now.

When that clock struck 4:30 on December 24, I was out the door. And for the first time since the trees went up in September, I felt the Christmas spirit. I sang to the radio on my way home and was excited at the thought of presents the next day. That was the first time I had given them a thought, I'd been so busy ringing up everybody else's. I can honestly say that being a Christmas cashier has changed my outlook on the retail world.