So once again we are fast approaching the season of goodwill and I am always reminded at this time of the days in my youth working at the local Presto supermarket.
Being a typical student with very limited resources to fund my bar bill, I was always keen to cram in as many extra hours and at Christmas, there were as many hours available as you wanted to work.
What is it with shoppers at Christmas? Every year people go raving mad, from the minute the shops open, they are full of people wandering around for hours on end filling numerous trolleys with things that nobody is going to eat and drink, but “We have to have some – we always buy these at Christmas”. Yes and we always throw them out mid-March when you find the out-dated packets stuffed at the back of some remote kitchen cupboard.
The upside to this when you work in a supermarket is you can stack your shelves from floor to ceiling and pretty much guarantee an empty store by teatime. I clearly remember wheeling cages of stock out onto the floor to build displays of Christmas puddings, tinned biscuits, fizzy drinks of every imaginable flavour, tinned fruit and tinned milk.
However, I was a little puzzled when the store manager asked me what Christmas stock we had left to put out.
“None”, I replied proudly. I had filled every end display with festive goodies of some description in order to tempt our unwitting customers in to buying things they weren’t looking for.
During our tour of the store, he pointed out several pillars around which I had neglected to take any creative advantage. I reminded him that I had put out all stock vaguely connected with the festive season at which point I was instructed to bring down a few cages of tinned tomatoes, baked beans and tuna – those well known festive favourites.
The gem he then imparted has stayed with me ever since
“Listen, it’s Christmas – you can wrap sh*t in silver paper and people will buy it”
The scary thing is that he was right – please heed this warning should you receive any unexpected shiny presents this year.
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2 comments:
Don't forget the people who go crazy and try to run over you in the parking lot. "Goodwill" does not apply when people are behind the wheel of a car during the shopping season!
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