December is always the busiest month of the year in retail. We all hire extra Christmas staff, buy triple the amount of stock and deck our stores out with festive cheer. At least this is what our pleasant exteriors show.

Our interiors are a lot less shiny and bright and more rusty and cynical. By time Christmas day actually rolls around we’re all freakish zombie like creatures that would rather have a day long snooze fest than face a full day of family celebrations. Why? Because we’re underpaid, overworked, glorified slaves to the flocking unorganised masses who think we’re robots not actual human beings.

There’s a reason we lose our holiday cheer and start picking up the Grinch’s cynical attitude. To us Christmas isn’t pretty and that’s just a fact. To help everyone understand here are 11 of the reasons us retail workers enter auto pilot mode for the entire month of December.

24/7 Christmas carols

It’s bad enough we get the pleasure of listening to these repetitive tunes all day every day, we don’t need every second customer complaining about them too. Yes we know they suck, we also know they’re annoying. Geez thanks for pointing out that they’re playing everywhere, we really hadn’t noticed.

Come December 1st the crazies come out to play

For 11 months of the year a large proportion of shoppers are in hibernation. Come the start of December they come back out to play. Their mission to drive us bat shit crazy. These are the shoppers that combine all the traits we hate in customers and wrap themselves up in one neat package for us to want to chuck in the trash. Please, just please leave us alone.

The loss of our social lives

9pm trades every night, plus chuck in a couple 7am opens and midnight closes and it’s safe to say our schedule looks a lot like the social butterflies nightmare. We often do our Christmas shopping on our short lunch breaks, fighting the crowds to get a lousy sandwich from the food court and don’t even get me started on the brutality of the car park. They’re a war zone where no one is safe, even the trenches offer no recluse. Your bestie wants to go the movies, no sorry hun, I’ve got a full day of sorting out the world’s crap.

Professional tantrum chucker’s

Two words. School holidays. Oh hell no!

The bargain hunters

No I cannot mark the price down for you, no buying two of the same thing won’t change that. No they won’t be going on sale any time soon. No I cannot give it to you for free because it didn’t scan. And, my all time favourite, no I cannot give you, a complete stranger my staff discount.

The indecisive shopper

I am not your personal shopper! I do not know what colour your mother in law will prefer! Furthermore I don’t know a damn thing about you, I’m here to assist you, not do all the hard work for you.

The last minute panicked shopper

When we shut our doors we will not re-open them because you’re shouting at us from outside. Rattling the doors will not help; it will just piss us of more. If you walk in a minute before closing and want to ‘browse’ kindly f@#* off. We don’t get paid enough to stay back after hours to serve you. Please just let us go home we don’t bug you at your place of work when you’re about to knock off.

The superiority complex of customers

Last time I checked my job description does not include ‘your own personal house slave’. Just because we work in retail does not mean we’re the bottom of the food chain. In fact 99% of the time we’re actually smarter and more switched on than you are. Just so you’re aware, whoever created the slogan ‘the customer is always right’ clearly never worked in retail because THE CUSTOMER IS NEVER RIGHT! so in future please refrain from using that wildly inaccurate phrase, it only proves that we really aren’t beneath you.

The ‘can I speak to your manager’ customer

If I tell you we can’t refund the item you kid smashed, then we can’t refund it. If you ask for my manager, they’re going to come out and tell you the same thing. The quality of service does not change between our bosses and us. At Christmas they work ridiculous overtime so if anything they’re less inclined to want to deal with your crap than we are.

The cringe worthy ‘Do you gift wrap?’ question

Sure thing as long as you’re happy with a scrunched up box with too much sticky tape. We have not had professional training. If you want you presents wrapped do it yourself, or pay the worker at the gift-wrapping station who has nothing better to do. The ten customers in my line waiting to be served are way more important than you being too lazy to wrap your own gifts.

Becoming the GRINCH when everyone else is all festive

We deal with a lot of shit especially at Christmas. So forgive us for feeling less than cheery when you all set out to make our lives miserable

 

Sourced from abeautifulmessme.com