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Today, the shopping center my "GameGo" is located in had a Trick or Treat event from 10am to 2pm.
In theory, this is a great idea. It's a big outdoor strip mall basically, with a grocery store, a few restaurants, and several family-owned local businesses (a small coffee shop next door to us and a few music/book stores that aren't chains) are located in the big half-circle sort of thing we have going. The parking lot is all one big center lot, so traffic stays pretty smooth and parking isn't bad for anyone; nobody really complains about it. The hundreds of people who show up to this event end up bringing these businesses a TON of money and it really helps with advertising and that sort of thing.
In practice, it sucks. Horribly. Each business is only allowed to buy $15 worth of candy, and candy is EXPENSIVE around Halloween! This means that everyone buys fairly crappy candy and can only hand out like one piece per kid, which unfortunately means that spoiled children are throwing fits everywhere, loudly, all day long.
PART ONE: The Lateness
Okay, admittedly, this is kind of our fault. My manager had forgotten that the event was today, so when I showed up at noon, he frantically shoved a $20 into my hand and told me to go to the ShopWrong and grab $15 worth of candy. His panic was well deserved; there were no less than FOUR screaming children (all from different parents) sobbing themselves red in the face because we didn't have any candy. Most of the parents looked embarrassed, but one lady (the mother of the one who was screaming his head off without stopping for breath)was actually YELLING AT US for not giving her son the FREE CANDY THAT SHE DOES NOT HAVE TO PAY FOR IN ANY WAY OTHER THAN SHOWING UP AND ASKING.
I ran there in a panic and brought back three family-sized bags of Reese's cups. We poured them all into a bin and carried it out to the cash wrap, where we dropped a single cup into each kid's pail/pillowcase/Walmart bag. Most kids were happy with this and their parents apologized for the explosion and scuttled out, but this lady was FURIOUS.
She actually tried to demand that we give her child one entire bag of Reese's of our three for her "inconvenience" and his "disappointment". :|
Seriously? Entitled much? We throw this event together purely to make a fun, safe environment for parents to take their children trick-or-treating, completely for free, in a great area where they know nothing bad is going to happen and there isn't anything "scary" to ruin the children's experience. NOBODY pays for this except store managers out of their own pockets to buy the candy. 99% of the people who walked in didn't buy a thing or even glance around the store, they just took the candy and left, half the time without a thank you.
A little appreciation would be nice, especially as it forced me to actually divert my attention from paying customers who needed my help to toss candy to these greedy little kids and their ignorant parents.
PART TWO: The Costumes
Okay, yes, this event was free and open to anyone who wanted to show up. This is done in mind of lesser fortunate people who maybe don't have such a nice neighborhood to take their kids trick or treating, or don't want to risk it late at night when roads are unsafe and there's the threat of losing small children in the dark.
While lots of those people arrived, and I was happy to see the smiles on the kids' faces when they recieved their candy, half the people who walked in were teenagers or preteens without even the shame to pretend to wear a costume. ><
Manager F, in all of his glorious awesome, told me not to give any candy to ANYONE who wasn't in costume and was over six years old. I was more than happy to follow this rule (there were a lot of parents with several children including really young kids who they hadn't put together a costume for, and a lot of those little ones were extremely happy to receive candy just like their big brother/sister!). However, this resulted in MANY obnoxious kids getting in my face, complaining, and one girl who had to be at least seventeen actually CRYING because she claimed "This is my last year for trick or treating and you're RUINING IIIIIIIIIT!"
Lots of parents were angry about this, too. If their eight or nine year old wasn't dressed up and they'd come expecting to just get free candy for the candy dish, no way. Sorry, folks, but that's not how Halloween works. One charming lady actually grabbed the bin off the back counter (she had to jump up onto the counter and lean WAY across to do this; WTF) to snag a handful of Reese's for her kid's basket, who she then ushered out the door while giving me this crude sneer.
The worst part is, the kid looked MISERABLE. I don't think she even wanted to be there or had any desire for the candy.
I don't understand this behavior. It's not like costumes are hard to put together or need to cost a lot; hell, grab one of your old bedsheets and make an old fashioned ghost costume if you have to. But if you're not in costume and doing it in the spirit of the holiday, then it means absolutely nothing and all you're doing is begging. GameGo doesn't tolerate solicitors, and we have no obligation to feed you.
PART THREE: The Stragglers
Okay, so this event ended STRICTLY at 2pm. We were warned by others (dunno who exactly, F relayed this to me later) that we needed to stop giving candy out then no matter what; otherwise the event was pointless and we were just giving out freebies, which Corporate is NOT okay with and which would make it harder on everyone (because then everyone expects candy all the time up until and during the actual day of Halloween). That's expensive. If you can't afford to give something to everyone until Monday night at 9pm, you can't afford to give out candy outside of the scheduled event.
There were lots of people who completely ignored the event's times and assumed it was just gonna be an all-day thing. Again, entitled much?! We're doing this out of the goodness of our hearts, not for a charity, not because we have to participate, and not because you deserve it. This is just for fun, and if you couldn't make it while we were doing it, then too bad for you. Should have paid better attention to the rules.
Eeeeeverybody who came in after 2pm wanted to whine about it. x.x "But we drove all the way out heeeere! But we don't have time to take him trick or treating on Monday! But we were busy this morniiiiiing!" NONE of that is my fault, and I am NOT getting paid to hand out freebies to lazy people who couldn't bother to schedule their day. It isn't my problem.
I had one pair of girls, probably about ten and twelve, walk around bothering me for half an hour asking "Can't you just give us leftovers? We won't tell! What if we buy something?" -_- I finally told them if they could afford to buy something from a game store to get the one measley piece of candy they would have gotten an hour and a half ago, they could sure as hell afford to march the thirty yards down the sidewalk to the grocery store and buy their own candy. I said it more nicely than that, of course; I believe my exact words were "You don't need to buy anything here just to get a little candy; why don't you guys go down to the ShopWrong and just buy your own candy? You'll get a lot more for the money you'd have to spend here." And what did they do?
THREW A FIT.
These two became miniature SCs like I have never seen before. One of them called her mom to complain about me, faking tears (she was grinning evilly at me between "sobs"...it was kind of scary) while the other ran up and told F I just told her to get out of the store and that I told her I didn't want her to buy anything.
F laughed at her and told her to find a parent or head out. He has no patience for childish antics like that, and when the irritated mother DID come in, he wasted no time in telling her exactly what the girls had done and how they'd "disturbed his employee and other customers with their demands". The mom, to her credit, looked kind of annoyed and frustrated with her girls and made them leave right away after apologizing for the inconvenience.
---
All in all, today was kind of manic, but it was fun too. It was nice to get to see so many happy kids and parents enjoying spending time with them, and some of the costumes were REALLY cute! I was working with F and L (not manager L, but a different chick) and they're always fun, except for F being a jerk and locking my drink in the safe and making me ask permission for it. Got a lot of customers cracking up, though, and L and I made plans to go to Six Flags tomorrow, since I had an extra ticket (was supposed to be for my ex fiance, but... ).
ALSO, WTF, IT IS SNOWING. IN OCTOBER. I'm not ready, guys!
In theory, this is a great idea. It's a big outdoor strip mall basically, with a grocery store, a few restaurants, and several family-owned local businesses (a small coffee shop next door to us and a few music/book stores that aren't chains) are located in the big half-circle sort of thing we have going. The parking lot is all one big center lot, so traffic stays pretty smooth and parking isn't bad for anyone; nobody really complains about it. The hundreds of people who show up to this event end up bringing these businesses a TON of money and it really helps with advertising and that sort of thing.
In practice, it sucks. Horribly. Each business is only allowed to buy $15 worth of candy, and candy is EXPENSIVE around Halloween! This means that everyone buys fairly crappy candy and can only hand out like one piece per kid, which unfortunately means that spoiled children are throwing fits everywhere, loudly, all day long.
PART ONE: The Lateness
Okay, admittedly, this is kind of our fault. My manager had forgotten that the event was today, so when I showed up at noon, he frantically shoved a $20 into my hand and told me to go to the ShopWrong and grab $15 worth of candy. His panic was well deserved; there were no less than FOUR screaming children (all from different parents) sobbing themselves red in the face because we didn't have any candy. Most of the parents looked embarrassed, but one lady (the mother of the one who was screaming his head off without stopping for breath)was actually YELLING AT US for not giving her son the FREE CANDY THAT SHE DOES NOT HAVE TO PAY FOR IN ANY WAY OTHER THAN SHOWING UP AND ASKING.
I ran there in a panic and brought back three family-sized bags of Reese's cups. We poured them all into a bin and carried it out to the cash wrap, where we dropped a single cup into each kid's pail/pillowcase/Walmart bag. Most kids were happy with this and their parents apologized for the explosion and scuttled out, but this lady was FURIOUS.
She actually tried to demand that we give her child one entire bag of Reese's of our three for her "inconvenience" and his "disappointment". :|
Seriously? Entitled much? We throw this event together purely to make a fun, safe environment for parents to take their children trick-or-treating, completely for free, in a great area where they know nothing bad is going to happen and there isn't anything "scary" to ruin the children's experience. NOBODY pays for this except store managers out of their own pockets to buy the candy. 99% of the people who walked in didn't buy a thing or even glance around the store, they just took the candy and left, half the time without a thank you.
A little appreciation would be nice, especially as it forced me to actually divert my attention from paying customers who needed my help to toss candy to these greedy little kids and their ignorant parents.
PART TWO: The Costumes
Okay, yes, this event was free and open to anyone who wanted to show up. This is done in mind of lesser fortunate people who maybe don't have such a nice neighborhood to take their kids trick or treating, or don't want to risk it late at night when roads are unsafe and there's the threat of losing small children in the dark.
While lots of those people arrived, and I was happy to see the smiles on the kids' faces when they recieved their candy, half the people who walked in were teenagers or preteens without even the shame to pretend to wear a costume. ><
Manager F, in all of his glorious awesome, told me not to give any candy to ANYONE who wasn't in costume and was over six years old. I was more than happy to follow this rule (there were a lot of parents with several children including really young kids who they hadn't put together a costume for, and a lot of those little ones were extremely happy to receive candy just like their big brother/sister!). However, this resulted in MANY obnoxious kids getting in my face, complaining, and one girl who had to be at least seventeen actually CRYING because she claimed "This is my last year for trick or treating and you're RUINING IIIIIIIIIT!"
Lots of parents were angry about this, too. If their eight or nine year old wasn't dressed up and they'd come expecting to just get free candy for the candy dish, no way. Sorry, folks, but that's not how Halloween works. One charming lady actually grabbed the bin off the back counter (she had to jump up onto the counter and lean WAY across to do this; WTF) to snag a handful of Reese's for her kid's basket, who she then ushered out the door while giving me this crude sneer.
The worst part is, the kid looked MISERABLE. I don't think she even wanted to be there or had any desire for the candy.I don't understand this behavior. It's not like costumes are hard to put together or need to cost a lot; hell, grab one of your old bedsheets and make an old fashioned ghost costume if you have to. But if you're not in costume and doing it in the spirit of the holiday, then it means absolutely nothing and all you're doing is begging. GameGo doesn't tolerate solicitors, and we have no obligation to feed you.
PART THREE: The Stragglers
Okay, so this event ended STRICTLY at 2pm. We were warned by others (dunno who exactly, F relayed this to me later) that we needed to stop giving candy out then no matter what; otherwise the event was pointless and we were just giving out freebies, which Corporate is NOT okay with and which would make it harder on everyone (because then everyone expects candy all the time up until and during the actual day of Halloween). That's expensive. If you can't afford to give something to everyone until Monday night at 9pm, you can't afford to give out candy outside of the scheduled event.
There were lots of people who completely ignored the event's times and assumed it was just gonna be an all-day thing. Again, entitled much?! We're doing this out of the goodness of our hearts, not for a charity, not because we have to participate, and not because you deserve it. This is just for fun, and if you couldn't make it while we were doing it, then too bad for you. Should have paid better attention to the rules.
Eeeeeverybody who came in after 2pm wanted to whine about it. x.x "But we drove all the way out heeeere! But we don't have time to take him trick or treating on Monday! But we were busy this morniiiiiing!" NONE of that is my fault, and I am NOT getting paid to hand out freebies to lazy people who couldn't bother to schedule their day. It isn't my problem.
I had one pair of girls, probably about ten and twelve, walk around bothering me for half an hour asking "Can't you just give us leftovers? We won't tell! What if we buy something?" -_- I finally told them if they could afford to buy something from a game store to get the one measley piece of candy they would have gotten an hour and a half ago, they could sure as hell afford to march the thirty yards down the sidewalk to the grocery store and buy their own candy. I said it more nicely than that, of course; I believe my exact words were "You don't need to buy anything here just to get a little candy; why don't you guys go down to the ShopWrong and just buy your own candy? You'll get a lot more for the money you'd have to spend here." And what did they do?
THREW A FIT.
These two became miniature SCs like I have never seen before. One of them called her mom to complain about me, faking tears (she was grinning evilly at me between "sobs"...it was kind of scary) while the other ran up and told F I just told her to get out of the store and that I told her I didn't want her to buy anything.
F laughed at her and told her to find a parent or head out. He has no patience for childish antics like that, and when the irritated mother DID come in, he wasted no time in telling her exactly what the girls had done and how they'd "disturbed his employee and other customers with their demands". The mom, to her credit, looked kind of annoyed and frustrated with her girls and made them leave right away after apologizing for the inconvenience.
---
All in all, today was kind of manic, but it was fun too. It was nice to get to see so many happy kids and parents enjoying spending time with them, and some of the costumes were REALLY cute! I was working with F and L (not manager L, but a different chick) and they're always fun, except for F being a jerk and locking my drink in the safe and making me ask permission for it. Got a lot of customers cracking up, though, and L and I made plans to go to Six Flags tomorrow, since I had an extra ticket (was supposed to be for my ex fiance, but...
). ALSO, WTF, IT IS SNOWING. IN OCTOBER.
I'm not ready, guys!
Like others here, it's the ones who can't be bothered even to throw together something quick that annoy me. 
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