true story! a few years ago i was working at both ol*ve g*rden and tj m*xx, and both of the following happened within the same several weeks:
at ol*ve g*rden, they’d put up a christmas tree in the lobby and had the employees each decorate a snowflake ornament to hang on it. i asked the general manager (mostly as a joke tbh) if i could bring in a menorah to display for chanukkah
and the gm is like, “well we’re not allowed to display any religious imagery in the restaurant. it’s a rule from corporate.”
to which i said, “you are standing in front of a christmas tree as we speak.”
and i shit you not, she goes “oh, but that’s not really religious! that’s just festive, you know, for the holidays.” and would not hear another word about it
then a few weeks later at tj, probably once we were firmly into december but idr for sure, they start breaking out the “holiday” aprons for the employees to wear (all red, of course), and santa hats, and these fucking elf ear and reindeer antler headbands.
and one of my managers sees that i’m not wearing anything except the apron, and she asks me to put one on. and i was like “i’m not really comfortable with wearing any of those, since i don’t celebrate christmas.” (also i just really didn’t want to wear one bc they looked stupid and they made my ears and head hurt, but still)
and she ALSO says, “oh, it’s not christmas, it’s just festive for winter. also corporate wants every sales associate to wear one”
which actually just made me more uncomfortable bc now she’s trying to MAKE me wear one anyway
i was like “yeah, no that’s definitely all christmas stuff and i’m really not comfortable with that”
so she let it go with a lot of huffing and eye-rolling, and then goes on the walkie to tell the entire staff “oh by the way guys, i forgot to tell you, but corporate FINALLY said we’re allowed to say merry christmas to the customers this year!” and everyone up at the registers w me was like NICE! YES!
and i was just
so like, that’s what we mean when we say that xtianity is so pervasive in our culture that a lot of people genuinely believe xmas things are secular, even though they AREN’T
Every day I handle more money than I will ever make. Every day.
At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.
At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.
“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.
The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.
I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.
I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.
I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht.
