Tales of a Retail Nothing

You'll notice it's been a while since I've written a part of this series. That is mostly because I started a new gig, and I wanted to be able to settle in there before going back to writing about the perils of working retail in late stage capitalism.

I'm working at a massive liquor store now, we'll call it "Lots and Lots of Wine and Other Stuff" LLWOS for short. We have fun here don't we? I will say it's one of the best retail environments I've worked in. It has been eye opening, and frankly a little concerning to see the way that Americans consumes liquor but I think that's probably another story for another day.

What I would love to talk about is the "Peak Season" of retail, which is usually between mid October through December, and then January it falls way off. The biggest issue for me is the overstimulation, every cashier (which is my position) averaged 500 transactions per shift during the second half of December. That is an absurd rate of checking people out when added to the fact that we're lifting forty pound boxes and some things are locked up.

It wasn't the worst Christmas ever, when I worked at "Mitchell's" they once played "Wake Up the Happiness" by Train forty times in an eight hour shift. We counted because it was not the first or last time that it happened. The CD was broken and it would just play it every other song. They wouldn't change it. To this day I think they were doing secret psychological testing on us to see if it would break any of us. Retail workers can put up with a lot of shit though, I think disassociation won that round. Hearing that song now is a visceral reaction from me.

There was many a time when I would be working on putting frames together Christmas Eve because people didn't give themselves enough time and the company wanted to appease everyone. Even the unreasonable ones.

Luckily LLWOS has a decent pick of Christmas music, even though they started playing it on November 1st. That is a month and a half too early. They also had enough staff which made the holidays relatively tolerable. Relatively.

People get stressed out during the holidays and it's exponential as the year comes to a close. So the same customers that are friendly and conversational can become belligerent and mean. Most people are happy to see you when they're there for alcohol, though the reaction when something goes wrong tends to be more extreme.

The most common refrain when people were on average purchasing $200+ of alcohol per transaction (some more than once a week) was "well can't get through the holidays without it". Again, this is a story for another day, but it's concerning. I am also positive there are more people driving drunk than we could ever imagine.

The holidays have always been hard, I always get sick from the exposure to hundreds to thousands of people a day. This year I full on had the flu, I was out of commission for almost two weeks, and I still have a lingering cough. I think this will be our new reality post COVID, I wasn't the only one who got sick, it made its way through the front end, the managers, then the people who worked the floor. People get sicker and stay sicker longer now. I don't have anything but anecdotal evidence there but my anecdotal evidence from working retail has been pretty consistently correct. When you see that many people your predictions for the future can be scarily accurate.

I didn't like being right about the 2016 elections, I certainly didn't like being right about COVID and how bad it would be in the US. I 100% do not like the feeling I'm having about the election in 2024.

I am a bit of a Scrooge when it comes to the holidays. I don't like them because I associate them with extra work and grumpy people. I love Christmas Day though, the literal only time retail stores are closed. I watch Doctor Who with my family and partner. We order Chinese food and have oven snacks for lunch because none of us want to cook. We talk to my sister on the phone and wish that she were closer.

All the hustle and bustle of the holidays have always confused me. I'm one that will almost always forget to buy my Christmas presents but if I find something that is perfect for you in April I will purchase it and not have the patience to gift it to you in a few months.

This is late for a holiday post, I always need some time to decompress after the holidays and it tends to get longer and longer as the years go on.

As always, tip your servers, be kind to your checkout people, know the people in the store have no power. Also know if you act like a fool especially if you're in there on an actual holiday you will be what the cashiers talk about for the next few hours. Also if you CAN'T get through your holiday without drinking (I don't mean don't want to I mean can't) maybe rethink who you're inviting to your table.

It's not that serious.

Any of my fellow retailers (and anyone who wants a laugh) this piece by David Sedaris about working in Macys as an Elf is excellent.