...it's bad enough that I dropped out of the training loop to concentrate on my writing (lol, I kept the money, luckily I could downshift my real job), I also know this person (can we say RICH??) who owns all the franchises for a chain of temporary Christmas kiosks on the East Coast and Midwest. Which means I do this store every year--not a kiosk, but a real store, (I'm special?? lol...) that comes and goes with the ebb and flow of the holidays.
There's set-up and delivery, and inventory and people running in and out and screaming, and mall managers and my floors are bare concrete with little tufts of old carpet and leftover tile like an archaeological dig done in early Woolworth. The last tenant (a Halloween store...) didn't want to go. They ran into my lease because the mall double booked us. I finally went in at the last minute to find them still pulling out, with a solitary guy left in this enormous echoing place, dust all around and a little hand broom.
I felt so sorry for him I yelled, "Can you get OUT already???!!!"
....WRONG!
Once I got the walls up, a section collapsed on my shoulder and I started swearing. I caught it before it landed on someone else, but I have a trash mouth and I swore a blue streak up and down the store. (damned glad I didn't break something...) My store opening team--we're been opening kiosks all over for the last week--found sewer pipes sticking up through the floor so we had to put fixtures on them. Someone dropped the biggest fixture and chunks came off. I...er, put posters on it because I'm the last one to open and I have nothing left to give me.
The graphic artist (my cp) and designer (my night closer?) in their happiness to be in their part time Christmas jobs again decided to build infinity signs and flowers out of boxed gift sets.
It all had to be torn down and rebuilt to company standard.
It's been a damned lONG week. And we just found ants...
I got three pages of Dead Gorgeous because I stayed up to six this morning. Forget the hot meal. I just want a nap.
2 comments:
I boggle at the ants.
You poor thing. I hope you get some sleep AND a hot meal.
Good luck this season.
Ohmigaw!
I used to work in a Christmas store. (Well, actually we sold above-ground swimming pools and everything that went along with that during the early spring thru late fall.)
But at the end of September, we a-started erecting the artificial (not FAKE) trees. We even took a CLASS on how to shape the branches. (You have to wear gloves. Those fake branches are killers.)
By the time Halloween rolled around, we were all so awful-durn sick of Christmas...
But the WORST thing (aside from dealing with humanity) was price-stickering all of the tree-trim items. Bah-hum-bug.
~*~*~*~
What are ants doing in the store at this time of year? They should be hiberating in their ground tunnels with the year's-hard-won food kernals.
Can you just get OUT already?!
I laughed myself into a runny nose over that.
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