"Happy Holidays-- are you happy with the number of gimmicks in your cart?

I admit that title is not an authentic quote. No matter how hard I thought it, I never really said so to any customers when I worked at [national grocery chain that likes to pretend it’s a tourist destination in the hopes that those oddly dedicated influencers will keep hashtagging their hauls].

I mean, I did say “happy holidays” to lots of customers. Sometimes I even meant it! But a lot of the time it was about as sincere as the mush that plops out of a bull’s ass— all part of the chipper (read: obnoxiously friendly, borderline culty) attitude we were trained to show on register.

We were told that customers shopped at [grocery store] not only for incredible product but for… *the experience.*

I shit you not.

The point was driven into our heads over and over again: [grocery store] wasn’t just a grocery store, it was a destination and shopping there was an event in and of itself!

If you think it was only our corporate overlords breathing down our necks with this uplifting nonsense, sadly you’re wrong. It was also the customers themselves. They’d grin ear to ear like giddy lunatics as they’d wander through the aisles. They’d take selfies with their favorite products. They’d update their insta-stories with live blurbs and photos about their trip to [grocery store]. And they’d blab their mouths off to the cashiers about how much they loved our company and our store and our absurdly gimmicky products.

Customers whipped themselves into this surreal feeding frenzy over being at [grocery store]. It was creepy and obsessibe and weird.

So yeah, corporate wasn’t lying when they said our customers were there for the experience.

And ensuring the customers had a divine, otherworldly experience and was our number one responsibility as entry level employees.

We were told to smile on the register. To greet everybody with enthusiasm and energy. To bring the customer in on the fun.

We weren’t outright told to lie and smile even if (when) we didn’t mean it. But we were told to have fun on the register and I remember people being reprimanded for being a little too real up there. I’m not even talking about employees reprimanded for being rude at the front end. I’m talking about employees reprimanded for not seeming like a cheer-infested freak, for not smiling broadly or often enough.

The message was clear: have fun on register or get disciplined.

The implied take away was: if you don’t enjoy working on the register, or are having a bad day— nut up and fake it.

I never received that particular reprimand, and while I personally had a lot of fun ringing groceries, because I simply enjoyed that work, I didn’t really ever have fun with the customers. I very rarely smiled or spoke to them at all, beyond the basics: straight forward responses to their questions and: “hello, cash or card, see ya later.”

I was never able to fake a smile for the sake of their bizarre [grocery store] fantasy world expectation. In fact I have pretty severe RBF (resting bitch face), to the point where a clinical diagnosis probably wouldn’t go far enough. People who know me well enough to say so have told me that I look like I’m, like, really pissed off at everybody even when I’m not.

And again: I NEVER received that reprimand where the managers would take me aside and tell me to ‘be visibly happy or else.’

It helps that I used to be a manager at this store and was still friendly with the remaining managers after I stepped down to the stockboy/cashier position. The managers probably felt a little awkward about giving me redirects even those that were deserved.

But I never saw men get that “cheer up and look happy” talk. Only women. And I truly believe this was thanks to a double standard that worked in my favor. And I don’t think this was coming from management itself. Employees usually received that talk as a follow up after the store received feedback about said employee from a customer.

My perception, is that customers were more forgiving of men being detached from that wacky social pretense at the register. They were also more forgiving of men being assertive with things like: masking up and social distancing during covid, or not laughing at a tired (or even, an inappropriate) joke.

It seemed to me there was this unfair and frustrating expectation that the employees who were women would be way more smiley, way more engaging on the register, and way more accepting of customers crossing the line. And the ones who had bad RBF like me, well…. They were really killing the vibe, and it was only right that customers complain. Right?

Obviously not right.

I think most rational people would admit that customers— while they are entitled to very real ethical expectations conveyed by their purchase— are NOT entitled to an employee’s smile. Customers don’t have the right to police cashiers’ faces.

Duh-hoy

A good many people would freely, gladly admit this truth-- at least on a conscious level.

Right?

Well, kinda.

A few weeks ago I went shopping at [different store] and when I went through the check out the cashier didn't make eye contact with me at all. Not once.

She didn't say hello, didnt' say thank you. Didn't meet any of those basics I had treated as bare minimums back when I'd worked as a cashier. I paid for my bike chain and left, thinking, something along the lines of:

"Wow this woman has to be the single worst cashier I've ever encountered. What a stupid bitch. If she worked at [the grocery store I used to work at] she'd probably be fired. Completely inept. Bitch."

I'm not proud of these thoughts at all. Truly, I'm ashamed that this is where my mind went first. I was (still am) consciously opposed to this toxic idea of performative cashiering-- and I have been for years. I abhor the idea that customers are entitled to friendship at the register.

Customers aren't always right-- a lot of the time they're WRONG af. And they're never wrong-er than when they act (and feel) entitled to another person's positive regards.

When we are customers we are entitled to the product and services we pay for, and neutral service from service workers.

But the fool in me felt disrespected by this woman offering no greeting and showing no acknowledgment.

So I got in my car and drove home, and on the drive I got to thinking, and kicking myself. I have worked in a similar setting, I have seen people have hard days on the register. And I knew it was wrong of me to judge that cashier for her lack of engagement. She was working a job that many people don't realize can be emotionally depleting.

I knew better. And after the shame settled in, I kinda realized there could have been more to her demeanor than I knew (or deserved to know.) maybe she was going through some difficulties that made smiling at strangers over their inane purchases especially difficult.

I still don't know whether this was the right choice or an example of over-involvement on my part, but I called the store and asked to speak to the manager. I was kinda hesitant to make that call. I did not want to get that cashier in trouble. I didn't know what the work culture was like at that store, and didn't want this to lead to a shitty manager 'cracking the whip' so to speak. But I thought maybe this woman was in some kind of crisis, and having worked as a retail manager for more years than I ever wanted, I couldn't help but hope that her managers would make a point of checking in on her and offering some support, in whatever capacity they could.

And that's pretty much what I told the manager who ended up taking my call. I led with, "This isn't my business" and ended with, "but [cashier] seemed a little disengaged on register and I thought maybe if she was going through some shit she might appreciate one of you all stopping by to show some support and see if she needs anything."

The manager then told me that [cashier] just had a death in the family. And they'd offered her the day off, but she'd chosen to work as a distraction.

I reiterated that the details weren't my business, but I understood the thought process and had seen it many times at [my store]. I wished them and her well and then hung up.

So yeah, even though I knew to cut cashiers some slack, my snap judgment was to think of this grieving woman as a stupid bitch for not doing a better job acting sociable while grinding through the mundanity of ringing up my bullshit items. I'd seen her less as a human and more as a uniform.

I knew better, and I still fell into this bizarre, shameful, and idiotic sense of customer entitlement.

It's no excuse, but my understanding is this: retail culture has stressed this "smile at the customers, even if they're awful" mentality for so many years, that we (the people who buy stuff) have been conditioned to expect a bunch of niceties at the register. There's lots to criticize in consumer based culture, but the way people accept a sense of personal entitlement-- from and to other people-- is to me pretty upsetting and dehumanizing in its extremes.

I went to [that other store] to buy a bike chain, and felt entitled to an excess from that woman. On a good day a smile or a 'hello' might not seem like such large excesses, but for somebody who's grieving a death in her family, they might feel dauntingly large.

Now, you might be wondering what the hell does any of this have to do with the holidays?

Lots.

Because all the difficulties and social challenges I just ranted about are magnified during the holidays.

Starting in the fall, the store I worked at would get a massive influx of seasonal items-- pumpkin spiced everything. The store would be orange-washed for a month, and people would come in droves for: pupkin ravioli, pumpkin spiced pumpkin seeds, pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin cereal bars, actual pumpkins, pumpkin spiced dark chocolate caramels (which were absolutely inedible, and only ever purchased because gimmick), and pumpkin fuck-all.

And they'd be so excited about how orange their carts were. They'd be all smiles. Their minds would be trembling with all the fantasy comfort that buying a bunch of wacky shit gave them. They'd chatter at the register about how wonderful it must be to work there.

And we, the employees who'd grown shockingly desensitized to pumpkin-every-thing, were told by corporate to: bring the customers in on the fun.

Not only does that "fun" ramp way into grinning-idiot-gear during pumpkin season, it also magnifies by sheer quantity. More people come through the store. So those who felt the pressure of plastering on a smile for each and every giddy shopper? Well they'd have to wear that mask for longer intervals with fewer, and shorter, breaks.

Now pumpkin season was its own kind of madness, but it wasn't the holidays.

The weeks leading up to Thanskgiving saw the daily sales volume in our store nearly double. And it wasn't just because people were buying turkeys, gravy, and fried onion pieces... It was because people were buying a shit-ton of EVERYTHING. The customer count would sky rocket, and so would the average ticket. People wouldn't be only buying for themselves, they'd be buying to host-- and it seemed to me: buying extra for themselves in a delirium-sick flurry of grocery euphoria.

Standing at register, we'd look up from our terminals and see an ocean of psychotically grinning people throwing handfuls of cookies, snacks, cheeses, and drinks into their carts. We'd run out of carts in the corral and the lines for register would stretch all the way to the opposite wall at the back of the store.

In other words, pumpkin season was just a warmup for holiday season.

Especially the December holidays. Christmas in particular is like free-wheeling hyper drive for retailers and customers alike. Customers would order boxes and boxes of our holiday items. Like those stupid single use hot cocoa spoons I mentioned in the title. More packaging and plastic than food, and all at a ridiculous mark-up because it's cute and clever.

Holiday candy, holiday cookies, holiday poop-on-a-stick. Okay, we never sold that last holiday item, but I'm trying to illustrate a point here: consumers will buy almost anything this time of year, especially if it has festive packaging. Almost all of it is un-needed. And more than we'd care to admit is probably als0 unwanted. Still, we buy it. I guess it makes people feel good to fill a cart with stuff. A dopamine rush, detached from the wastefulness. It's utterly absurd.

At [store] our shelves would be picked bare by the mob, staff would work at a maddening pace to plug the holes and be torn in 3 different directions by customers happily (or angrily) asking us to check the backstock for their favorite item that they drove all the way there for and can't find. The delivery schedule would be bumped up, we'd get multiple extra trucks full of stuff each day, and still there'd be no way to really accommodate the spike in demand.

To be honest, I don't really understand why customers wouldn't just leave the moment they step through the doors and see: 1. no free carts, 2. an empty wasteland of shelves, and 3. an utter chaos of hyper-energized shoppers zipping through the store.

Actually, I'm sure some did just leave. But enough stayed to maintain the madness.

And that's what I'm writing about. The prompt for the "Holiday Hijinks" vocal+ writing contest was: "Write a non-fiction story about a holiday gathering gone wrong."

To me the general insanity and inanity that pervades holiday shopping IS VERY WRONG. The real insanity of holiday shopping comes from the intense magnification of an already pervasive social problem: the dehumanizing of service workers.

When you go to buy the trappings for your feasts and parties and celebrations these coming weeks, please try to check your entitlement. And I don't mean this solely as an admonition towards YOU. I mean to hear it clearly myself, for I am guilty and ashamed of my part in this too.

I (and we) am (are) not owed smiles or curtsies from retail workers. Not in the best of time and sure as hell NOT during the holidays.

They work a hard job, made all the harder by us and our expectations.

In fact I'd go so far as to say there's a greater expectation of kindness and positive regard from customers than their is from employees.

We owe some positive regard to the people ringing up our junk, or stupid decorations, our gifts, and our mass produced "treasures".

Nobody should be rude or a douchebag in either direction, but when we are customers we are there of our own volition and one might expect we'd be more patient with and amenable to the circumstances of our being present in a store.

The employees aren't so free. And I don't mean this as a commentary on the implied limitations of "at will employment". I mean a customer can walk out of a shitstorm of a store and lose nothing. An employee who walks away from the stress and the extreme demand of working retail during the holidays loses their job.

My goal this holiday season is to do those workers a kindness, first and foremost by feeding the system as little as possible. I'm not gonna go to the stores except at need. And when I do go for groceries/ diapers etc, I'm going to be as kind to the employees as their managers are telling them they have to be to me.

I'm going to see the human, not the uniform. I'll give positive regard because I'm free enough to be in their work place of my own choosing.

I will not be entitled to their smiles or their kindness. As it is, I'll owe them enough thanks for their actual work-- and I'll have no business whatsoever expecting any kind of positive regard from them.

Having lived both sides of the customer-service worker social relationship, believe me when I say: We customers.... we're just not that fucking special. We don't deserve any particular treatment other than whatever we've directly paid for.

If a service worker doesn't have the patience to grin and bear it this holiday season, let's all just cut them some slack. You never know what kind of burden they might be shouldering amid the storm... And that's not anyone's business but theirs, so let's all try to do better than I did at [other store] and err on the side of empathy.

Happy holidays.

And I'm writing this voluntarily, so you know I mean it a lot more than I would if I were being told by my manager to say it.

But the root word of holidays is "holy days". I don't wish to presume on your religious choices, but to me, what makes a day "holy" will never be record sales and employees buckling under the strain-- but a sense of purpose and sacredness. For me both purpose and sacredness are satisfied by people recognizing the human in one another.

Whether there's a God or any divine in your picture of the world, I hope you have some holy days this holiday season, especially if you find yourself in the capitalist hell-scape that is a grocery or retail store during this time of year.