As we slide into the new year, a wrap up of last year is a little over due. For starters I’d like to address a post I made, it was one of the first, about my plans to read a whole bunch of books. Well that didn’t happen. Not even a little bit. I actually don’t think I’ve read a book since I made that post. I tried, I did. I just got caught up in the whole publishing my book and COVID-19 and then getting married.
Matt and I have also added another little addition to our family.
Meet Mazikeen, our two year old Rottweiler. She’s derpy and adorable and loves to love and be loved. She loves car rides and gets along very well with her cat brother and sister. She also made an adorable Christmas elf.
Speaking of Christmas. This was my tenth Christmas working in retail and honestly very little has happened that surprises me anymore, this year however was actually…not the worst one so far. Normally they just get worse as the years go by, but I’ve only got a few stories from this year that are worth mentioning.
Shocking I know, normally I’m ranting for days.
So the first story is from a week or so before Christmas. Some guy asks me why there’s no alcohol free Heineken on the shelf. The following conversation went a lot like this.
Me – “We’ve been having supply issues with a few lines but I checked that one this morning and we’re getting it in tonight ready for tomorrow.”
Him – “Well you shouldn’t have tickets on the shelf when you don’t have any stock.”
Me – “So you want me to go around and take down every ticket that we don’t have stock for?”
Him – “Yes.”
Me – “That’s ridiculous. We’re not spending time taking down tickets just to put them back when we get the stock in the next day.”
Him – “You don’t need to get angry,”
Me – I wasn’t angry, by the way, I was however flabbergasted at the sheer audacity of this guy. “I’m not angry but you’re being ridiculous. What you’re suggesting is a total waste of time and I’m not having this conversation with you anymore.” I then tried to leave but he said something else stupid and I just got drawn back in.
Him – “How would you feel if you went to buy a car and they didn’t have the one you wanted?”
Me – “Then they’d order it in or I go somewhere else?” By this point I’d stopped trying to not look at him like an idiot.
Him – Growing more frustrated with me by the second. “Well what if you went to buy furniture and they didn’t have what you wanted in stock.”
Me – Wondering if this guy has actually been shopping for any of these things in the past decade. “It would be at the warehouse and they’d deliver it to my house. You don’t just pick the couch up off the showroom floor and throw it in the boot of your car.”
Him – Seeing that he was fighting a losing battle reverts back to the original reason he had decided to be the bane of my existence that day. “Where’s this stock then?”
Me – “At the distribution centre being loaded onto a truck to come here…”
Him – “Well where’s the centre?”
Me – “What? Near the airport? Why?”
Him – “How does it get here?”
Me – “By a truck?”
The pointless questions continued for another thirty seconds before I told him I was done with the conversation and walked away.
I then went straight to the gluten free/ vegan donut stand outside work (OMG Decadent Donuts) and bought six for lunch.
This brings us to Christmas Eve. The day where everyone loses their minds all at once. People were getting angry at us because we didn’t have any Christmas themed wrapping paper left ( we ran out three days before). Apparently we ruined a few Christmases by not having any turkeys left the day before Christmas.
I have one thing to say about that, if you are still waiting until Christmas Eve to get your Christmas day essentials then you need to grow up. It’s 2020 people. There are so many ways to get your groceries for Christmas without having to leave it until the eve of. You remember in school when your teacher would tell you that this assignment wasn’t one you could leave until the night before and you always did and you still passed…right well Christmas lunch/dinner whatever is not that assignment. If you leave it to the day before to get your turkey and end up failing in your mission then you do not get to blame other people for you procrastination.
Plan. Your. Lives. Better. Please.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
S.J Smith Books 