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Blogmas Day 18: Working at Christmas

Elflings greetings,

As we approach the busy busy shopping time I want to remind us all to be a bit nicer. You see, many people finish work around the 20th and that's it, all good and done until next year. That's not the case for everyone, people providing vital services, care workers, retail workers any many, many more job roles mean people are working over Christmas and not getting to spend as much time with their family as they'd probably like.

I can vouch for retail workers here, there are many times that we will be trying our best. The odds are there's a lot of food and whatever that needs to be worked through and it gets busy. So we have to try and battle through everyone just to get down an aisle. I completely understand that you've just had to drive around for however long trying to find a parking space, I understand that you really wanted that one type of sausage that we don't have, I understand that you're all a bit stressed. But, it isn't our fault. I can't help it if we run out of a product, I can't help it if we don't have this fancy variation of cream because our store isn't big enough, I can't help it if you can't get to an aisle because there's 3 people with massive trolleys having a mother's meeting.

Having worked in different aspects of retail for two years I know that certain customers can be very rude and there's nothing you can do about it. But I never realised how rude they could be until the run up to Christmas, yes they want to put on a fantastic festive feast for a few hundred or whatever, but they don't seem to consider the people putting stuff on the shelves and such. Nice customers are often rare but so so lovely, a quick chat often brightens an old persons day and often young children asking me where something is are a lot more polite than their grandparents probably would be. So I ask you, as we get busier for shopping or you see someone on their way to a care project or anything like that, just take 3 seconds out of your day to smile at them and provide a friendly face.

I love being kind to people and I love having a quick chat with a customer about a product or how their day is going. It doesn't take a while, but acknowledging other humans makes this whole stressy food shop a bit more bearable for everyone. I encourage us all to be a bit kinder this festive period. And to everyone working a lot over Christmas for whatever you do, thank you. And to my fellow retail workers, we can survive.

Until tomorrow,
Lia x

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