Christmas isn’t all cheer and merriment, for some it’s brutal, as Caitlyn Davey recalls.
As we descend into the silly season, many are rushing to the shops for presents, booking flights and inviting family to stay. Luckily for me, this year I can do the same. It is the first year I have escaped the harrowing nightmare that is working in retail at Christmas.
While many were happily taking leave from work I was contending with crowds of adults (and I use the term loosely) who were gradually destroying my faith in humanity – tipping displays over, ripping garments and tags, yelling at staff, throwing sale items across the store, fighting with each other and having an all-round merry time.
As I tore my hair out, running after children and trying to mediate between customers and members of staff, both ready to strangle the other, my friends were lounging on beaches, by pools and having a relaxing time.
As we clawed our way through weeks of insanity, thankfully we would be bestowed with an entire day off for Christmas Day.
That one day of enjoying time with our family would then be followed by the boxing-day sales. This has to be undoubtedly the worst day to work in retail. If the store opens at 10am you can guarantee that people would be banging on the door at 9.10am. As the sense of impending doom began to set in, we would shake it off and open the doors.
Again, people were fighting each other for sale items, pushing others out of the way, yelling at me when the item they thought was on sale wasn’t. Oh and let’s not forget the returns. ‘No we don’t refund on the shoes that you have worn twice and don’t have a receipt for sorry,’ I would calmly explain, which invoked looks of disgust and outrage. Bags of unwanted items were thrown at the walls, the staff and other customers.
Police were called because one customer decided to Frisbee all the wide-brimmed hats in rage at the small girl behind the counter, who was just working her during school holidays, and who then burst into tears, which the customer took as some sort of admission of guilt.
Oh did I mention the worn underwear that didn’t fit? No returns because, surprisingly, customers don’t want to buy underwear you have already worn? That resulted in the man flicking the underwear into one staff member’s face.
The old saying, ‘if you don’t laugh, you will cry’ didn’t work, because laughing maniacally in the customers’ faces further enrages them (who’d have guessed?). So we took turns hiding out the back, quietly sobbing into our chocolates that we had bought just to keep morale up.
So this festive season, as you spend your hard-earned dirhams on presents that you hope will be well received, spare a thought for the poor sales assistants who have carefully positioned that display of products, specially folded hundreds of those plain blue T-shirts and, for the love of all things merciful, keep your receipt!
