The holidays are the time of giving and being grateful for having the people you love surround you. It's the time you get to spend with your family eating delicious food and answering all the questions from your grandparents about how you're doing in life and if you found someone to love yet. It is truly a wonderful time, but the time before the holidays is a retail workers worst nightmare.
Every year, people plan on doing their gift shopping early but instead wait until the last minute like the year before and show up to the mall a week before Christmas. It is those same people that will take all their anger out on the employees because the gifts they were looking for are now sold out. Somehow between the waiting last minute and losing track of time, it is now the employee's fault for everything.
As a sales associate who works in a mall, the first thing you are taught is that the customer is always right. That means no matter how wrong they actually are, they are still right. So you accept all the complaining and rude comments solely because the thought of getting paid to deal with it gets you through.
Despite the variation of rude customers before the holidays, you get the hour changes for the mall. The once closing shift that you didn't mind is now extended for another hour and then two hours and before you know it, you are working till midnight to help the people who waited until the last minute to buy gifts.
Now you're drowning in 10+ hour shifts and running around the store helping people and the greatest feeling becomes the few seconds you get to sit down after running to the back to 'check on something'.
The holidays have become your worst nightmare, but in the end, it will be all worth it. While you are running around driving yourself crazy, you are stacking up the hours for that next paycheck.
Once it is all finished, you will get to spend time with your family and be grateful for all the hard work you put in. The holidays are only an event that happens once a year. You got this so just keep pushing through and ignore the angry customers because in the end, their attitude is not worth it.
