My Favorite Retail Weekend

Last weekend was so fun! I worked long hours and wore fancy shoes (fancy shoes=ow!!) but it was still great. This is the weekend that people are still relaxed and know what they want. Everyone is grateful for suggestions and still has enough in their budget to purchase what you put in their hands. They have time to wait for a short bit and not get agitated. They wander over to the cafe and take a break from shopping with friends and leisurely sip their coffee and eat their scone with a fork. This weekend I had people fall over themselves to thank me, I had a customer make a special trip to the store to let me know what a great job one of my managers did helping her. Book people are just plain good folk.


Then all hell breaks loose. Soon it becomes next weekend. Where next weekend is the same as THE WEEKEND BEFORE CHRISTMAS!!!!! The smell of desperation sets in. People aren't sure what they want and nothing seems to be the right thing because they haven't given the recipient of this gift enough thought, or maybe they don't know them well enough. Everyone puts off their most difficult person until the last week. They have run short of time, patience and money and are easily irritated. These are often people who have never worked retail: those that talk on their cell phones the entire time they are making their purchase, those that stay in the store 10 minutes after closing time because their sale is more important then my booksellers going home to their families. This is the time when the cafe chairs and tables become empty because everything is "to go". Grouchiness ensues.