Drunken Owls and Other Delights

As usual, I find myself stuck at work on Black Friday. Somehow I've never found myself that far up on the professional totem pole where I can actually take days around a holiday off. Not that I'm complaining at this point, mind you...I work at home now, so I'm safely ensconced in Spare Oom, listening to my music and letting the day pass.

I gave up the Fourth Quarter Madness back in 2005, when I quit Yankee Candle to move down to New Jersey to live with emmalyon. Since then, I've gotten stuck in the office (or in this case, at home) on the Friday after Thanksgiving and the day before Christmas. The stress isn't nearly as bad, considering I'm no longer lugging boxes or fielding customer questions. It's been replaced by the ennui of working in an office that's open while all its clients are out of office. We're that office that's open "just in case something happens". The upside is that more often than not, it's a quiet (if slow) day and I get to catch up on other things. The downside is that I'm sort-of chained to the chair until 4pm, as this current job doesn't have half-days.

I think the first time I actually worked on a holiday was in 1988 when I worked at the local radio station, WCAT, back when it was AM-only. The station had been run via satellite feed by then, so all I had to do was sit around and ensure the commercials kicked off. As I didn't have my license at the time, my Dad would drop me off and pick me up a few hours later. This wasn't too stressful, just the station manager watching over me like a hawk and calling if I was a half-second off on the cues I had to hit. Other than that, I used the time to get homework done, do some reading, or talk with my friends on the phone. That Christmas was pretty quiet, so I was able to kick back and play some music on the monitors, and even snuck in a play of Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" over the air. I'd do pretty much the same when I worked there in 1995 into 1996.

I know I worked on the days surrounding the three holidays (T-Day, Christmas and New Years Eve) in the last few years I was in Boston. With few exceptions, I pretty much took the weekend off and headed home to be with family, but I'd work a day or so before and after the holiday. I remember on New Years Eve in 1993 and 1994 I had to work, and I'd try to get home as quickly as I could so I could catch the end-of-year countdown on WFNX (some traditions die hard).

The HMV years were of course my introduction to working high-volume retail in Q4. For four years straight I'd work on Black Friday, Christmas Eve, and New Years Eve. I didn't really mind it here, even it did get crazy--part of it was because I'd be hiding up back, preparing the constant flow of product coming in, or I'd be one of the register jockeys (I was a fast ringer, so I'd get the lines cleared pretty quickly), or I'd be offering my music trivia nerdiness out on the floor. Like I've said before--despite the occasional frustrations, it was one of my favorite jobs, even on the major retail holidays.

I'd also work on those surrounding days at Yankee. Those days would get insane for various reasons--ten hour days starting at 4AM six days a week, lack of storage space, a huge volume coming down the delivery shutes, shortages of workers--but with the shipping department, you kind of get numb to the actual job itself. The mechanical side of your brain focuses solely on building safe pallets of product to be shrinkwrapped, stored, and put onto the trucks, but the social side of your brain would end up going elsewhere. Despite the stress, we'd all laugh and talk and joke. There were a few blowups and firings, but for the most part we got the job done the best we could.

So yeah...at 41, I'm not in the least bothered by the fact that I still have to work on Black Friday, or Christmas Eve, or New Years Eve. I kind of expect it, really. If I can manage to get the days off, I will of course try for it, but I don't expect that to happen.


That said, I don't mind shopping on those days either. Maybe it's that I have a high tolerance/patience level for it, but it's never completely bothered me to be in a crowded mall or a store like Target during the busiest time of the year. Sure, there's the usual idiot in the parking lot, or the clueless goober taking up the entire aisle, or the impatient lady in the checkout line repeatedly sighing quite audibly, but you know--it's a small price to pay. I think it might be that I like being surrounded by people even if I'm not connecting with them at all. Even the music doesn't bother me all that much (with very few exceptions).

It's part of the festive atmosphere, and I enjoy that.