Casualties of Holiday Customer Cruelty
Zachary O'Steen

It's that time of year again. The leaves are falling, the air is brisk and the stores are gearing up for their most successful selling season. Yes, it is the holiday season’ - a season, which seems to start earlier and earlier every year. It is not long after Labor Day, when the Halloween candy sneaks onto the shelves, followed by paper products displaying turkeys in different poses, then without realizing it, Christmas music is playing in the background. A holiday season, which many years ago, was a time to show our feelings to those close to us in loving ways, mostly with handmade gifts. Today, feelings are shown to each other by the size or amount of money one spends on the gift. The old saying “It’s the thought that counts” doesn’t really count anymore. Stores are inundated with shoppers during this season, not to mention the extended hours stores are open in hopes of selling the maximum amount of merchandise they can. A result of this frenzy of shopping is the tired overworked employees in the stores. Working in stores fulltime during this season is tiring, but add going to school fulltime as well and you have the tired overworked young person trying to please everyone and keep their grades up.

While shopping this season, look around at the employees, the majority of them are young people. Has anyone thought of the student workers during the holiday season? Bill Brown, an employee at Walgreens, who is also a full time student at Rivier College, says, “I don’t have any time to sleep. My life around the holidays is school, work and when I can homework. It is the worst time of the year for me. I have to work more hours and it is also the busiest time in school with final papers, projects and exams. I’m also president of the student business organization and I don’t know when I will have time to do that. It is not unusual for my grades to dip a little during this time.” This is a typical scenario for students who work.

Long hours are not the only annoyance for the student workers over the holiday season. Customers, who were once nice, polite, and considerate, now become store trashers. They open sealed packages, take clothes off hangers, drop merchandise on the floor and leave it, misplace unwanted items, and in extreme cases steal or destroy merchandise. Hours are spent by employees, after stores are closed to the public, putting misplaced merchandise away, folding clothes that are left in clumps on counters, and restocking. If people were more considerate these hours would be cut down immensely. Cayla Miller, an employee of Iparty (local, predominately Halloween store) commented “I’ve heard parents tell their kids to ‘leave it on the floor, they pay people to pick that stuff up.’ This really aggravates me because these parents are teaching their kids to be disrespectful and it makes us who work here feel like we are maids. There are times when I am so tired, especially the week of Halloween when I work practically every day until as late as 12:00 AM and still have to go to school the next morning. I am sometimes afraid that with all the aggravation and long hours that I may say something to an inconsiderate customer that will get me fired.” She also noted that it gets so busy at work that she sometimes forgets to eat and that sleep can become a luxury. Bobbi, a student at Middlesex Community College and also an employee at Iparty commented on the attitude of the customers in line. “There are long lines during the holiday season and we have only so many registers and cashiers. Our management strongly emphasizes to be super nice to the customers, but some of the customers are the rudest people I’ve met. Sometimes I think they feel like they should be the only person in line and that I have spent my whole day keeping my register open just waiting for them…It’s like they blame me for the lines…I just ignore their mean comments and attitude.”

One might wonder why these employees keep working at these jobs if they dislike it, reminding us of the old saying ‘if you don’t like it, leave’. Many student employees, especially the college students, need these jobs to pay their bills. Some of them live on their own, and others have to supplement their living expenses. For whatever reason these young people have to keep their jobs. Some stores have initiated an incentive program to keep their employees working during the holiday season. These initiatives can be in the form of employee discounts on merchandise sold in the stores or an increase in hourly wages during the holiday season. Michelle, an employee of an AMC theater, says that she gets through the chaos and customer rage by reminding herself that the holiday season is just a couple of months and that things will settle back to normal in a short time.

As the holiday season is upon us. Please take note of the employees in the stores which you patron, and try to take the time to be respectful of the hours and effort put in by these committed workers. It will be greatly appreciated.