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Everyone should have to work retail during the holiday season at least once in their lives. Bonus points for Christmas Eve/Boxing Day shifts.
It’s an… enriching experience. You simply have not lived until you have had people yell at you about French mints for minimum wage while Paul McCartney’s Wonderful Christmastime (the worst of the pop holiday canon) plays on repeat.
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As most regular readers know, I worked at the combination Laura Secord/Hallmark store in Tuxedo (RIP, it’s now the beauty department of a giant Shopper’s Drug Mart) all through high school and college.
It was, for the most part, a fun job with lots of chocolate at it. This store was all about seasonal celebrations, and the December holidays were our Superbowl. We were putting together gift baskets, wrapping boxes of chocolate for corporate orders and upselling people on cards. The store was busy, the shifts went fast. Even the dreaded 1-9:30 p.m. closing.
But there were pain points. I have a visceral hate for those singing plush Hallmark snowmen some of you doubtless own. Maybe I even (up)sold them to you. When I see one, I want to punch its adorable snowman face.
The deal with these was that you could get a discount on them if you bought three greeting cards. We left them switched to the “on” position so people could try them out.
Multiple times a shift, some child would run up to the shelf, squeeze all of their hands, and make them all sing. They were all off by a second, resulting in a horrible, overlapping cacophony of mechanical, in-the-round Christmas noise. This is why kids don’t live at my house.
And then there’s French mints.
True Laura Secordheads know that French mints — the green frosted ones, specifically — need to be purchased (and, ideally, ordered) well in advance. If the date begins with a 2 and it’s also December, we are sold out. And no, I do not need to “check in the back” because I already know what’s back there and it’s Valentine’s Day. It’s not a super-secret special stash of French mints that can only be accessed by being juuuuuust rude enough to the nice, aproned girl in the front.
The biggest lesson I learned from working retail during the holidays, though, is that we have an awful lot of power in determining how someone else’s day will go — on either side of the counter.
As a worker (and lifelong people-pleaser), I loved when I could pull a rabbit out of a hat for someone. Like when I could liberate the very last Keepsake Ornament from its zip ties on the floor display for a grateful customer. Or the time I unlocked the door on Christmas Eve to sell a man wrapping paper before we closed out the tills. Or when I could, unbelievably, produce a box of French mints.
For three weeks in December, I could be Santa and Mrs. Claus and all the elves.
As a customer, I’m patient and friendly because, hey, I’ve been there. I have experienced the pandemonium of Boxing Day sales. I have experienced the stress of running out of receipt paper while a line builds. I have experienced having to manage people’s disappointment and wear other people’s stress. I have experienced the sensory nightmare of having to hear the same five Christmas songs over and over and over in a too-bright store.
So, this is the idea I want to take into the rest of the festive season: I can always choose to be a positive part of someone else’s day, during what can be a difficult, stressful time. Thank you, Nexties, for always being a positive part of mine.
Happy holidays! NEXT is off next week — you shouldn’t be checking your email anyway! — and will return Dec. 31.
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