Halloween Eve is even scarier than Halloween!

[Lace Neil Singer]

Or like the woman in the grocery store on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving at 8 pm. She was standing in the aisle, shelves picked pretty clean, complaining that the store was out of canned turkey gravy! The nerve!

She must be a cousin of the moron who once turned up at 5:30pm on Christmas Eve one year when I was still working checkouts to do her ENTIRE Christmas shop. The store closes at 6pm, by the way, and the whole store was pretty much empty of food, not just Christmas food. The woman whinged and bitched at every single member of staff she saw about the fact that we had no turkeys left, no veg, no bread, no cranberry sauce or gravy and no crackers. Eventually she left, leaving her trolley in the aisle, bitching about how we lost a customer and she was going to find a decent supermarket that actually had food to sell! At nearly 6pm on Christmas Eve? Yeah, good luck with that.

[Kanalah]

Actually at Really Big Craft Show this year I was apparently the ONLY handmade quilts in the entire show.

So I got a lot of people wanting custom stuff and they seemed to understand that a custom quilt from me means that they get exactly what they want. King size quilt with neon yellow sunflowers? Sure. Queen size with giant green and blue sea turtles? No problem.

[XCashier]

It's like the people who whine and bitch at me because I told them back before Halloween that big custom quilt orders take time. ..."No ma'am, I told you that Queen size quilts take me about 6 weeks to make and you'd need to let me know early. Besides, I have other orders ahead of you that I am finishing up."

People really have no clue what goes into creating things, whether sewing a costume or quilt, knitting or crocheting, decorating a cake, etc. It takes a lot of skill, sweat and time to do a project. And if the sewing machine breaks down, the fabric shrinks in the wash, the yarn gets tangled or has a defect, any of hundreds of things that can go wrong, it'll take even more time. Not to mention, the more projects you have going will multiply the time needed as well.

"Whaddaya mean, this project will take six weeks?! I can go to VoldeMart and buy one right now!" Yes, you certainly could, but it won't be as pretty or as comfortable as something a good crafter can make by hand. And it definitely won't be personalized the way you want it.

[Kanalah]

It's like the people who whine and bitch at me because I told them back before Halloween that big custom quilt orders take time.

Yet every year I get emails around the second week of December demanding that I make them a big complicated quilt - oh and they need it before December 20th, thanks so much.

Then get capslock rage-y when I tell them no. "But you said....!!!" "No ma'am, I told you that Queen size quilts take me about 6 weeks to make and you'd need to let me know early. Besides, I have other orders ahead of you that I am finishing up."

[Evannah]

*offers cookies hugs and kittens*

That made ME feel bad just reading it!

[EricKei]

Ya know, TG is close enough to XMAS that I'd just order all I felt I would need for BOTH holidays in time for TG That shit lasts a long time. I'd let it run low once we got close to XMAS.

[wolfie]

Of course the store management KNOWS that some things (like the gravy you mentioned, or cranberry sauce) sell in large quantities before Thanksgiving and Christmas, but hardly any at other times of the year. Because of this, they WANT to run out at closing time on the day before the holiday, but they tend to err on the side of caution (from their viewpoint, due to low margins it's better to miss a few sales by running out early than to be stuck with excess inventory after the holiday).

The moral of the story is to buy seasonal items EARLY, while the store still has stock.

[Mondestrucken]

Or like the woman in the grocery store on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving at 8 pm. She was standing in the aisle, shelves picked pretty clean, complaining that the store was out of canned turkey gravy! The nerve!

[EricKei]

These are the same sort of people who try to place complex Thanksgiving/XMAS orders at 5PM the day before, or who shop at major stores on Black Friday (at all) and complain about these same sorts of things, as well as demanding to know why stock is low/the store is a mess...

[Despina83]

It's just flat out stupid for all of those people to wait until the DAY BEFORE HALLOWEEN to get this stuff done. And then they're annoyed that the place is packed and the workers are busy. REALLY??

[Ironclad Alibi]

I should have read the next page of replies. IA posted the same link. Ooops.

You're in good company. I too have posted a reply without reading the next page.

[mathnerd]

"Bedbug letter?" Meaning, "deal with it/stop bugging us" ?

A kitchy term for a form letter sent out without even reading the original complaint, based on this legend.

http://www.snopes.com/business/consumer/bedbug.asp

I should have read the next page of replies. IA posted the same link. Ooops.

[Ironclad Alibi]

"Bedbug letter?" Meaning, "deal with it/stop bugging us" ?

The term Bedbug Letter refers to a standard boilerplate letter sent out in response to complaints. Snopes has a good description of the Bedbug Letter.

[EricKei]

9From now until after New Years, nearly all my non-grocery shopping will be online. I will grocery shop early in the morning or late at night only, and not step foot in the mall or Costco. For my own sanity.

I am trying to do the same. I will still have to deal with some of the traffic, tho, as I am in the middle of what passes for "downtown" around here (town of 25k or so peeps). Even on normal weekdays, the elongated stripmall that terminates in a Voldemart has insane traffic backups. I'd rather not imagine how it will look come Christmastime.

Perhaps it was a good thing, in a way, that I had to replace my phone this weekend, rather than a month from now o_O I did manage to get a $60 handset for $30 by doing so, so I guess I can't complain

You know what? She hasn't closed the store ONCE in the entire time she's been at our store, about two months now.

Is that not upper management's JOB?! To fill in the gaps in the schedule? I wish I could say I'd never worked somewhere where the SM/ASM never worked weekends or closing, but I'd be lying. Personal fave was the ASM who quit after two months of being paid Salary (40 hours' pay) but only working 30 hours and bitching about how haaaard it was, never leaving her enough time for her BF (said ASM was the owner's sister).

I clock in, go through the motions, and leave without a single ounce of remorse or loyalty.

If they want loyalty, they're gonna have to do something to earn it. They're sure as hell not doing a good job of it right now!

I wrote an email a while back and got a "bedbug letter" in return. That just sealed their fate with me.

"Bedbug letter?" Meaning, "deal with it/stop bugging us" ?

[mathnerd]

I'd suggest calling the store's corporate parent and letting them know why you're not shopping there anymore, because otherwise they won't get the message.

I wrote an email a while back and got a "bedbug letter" in return. That just sealed their fate with me.