A large supermarket brand opened one of its
local stores in our neighbourhood not long ago. This is bad for local business,
which must be supported but when it comes to buying a chicken to roast for your
Sunday lunch, this corporate intruder serves a purpose. The staff who work
there, with their permanently fixed grins, are either all on drugs or have been
trained to be friendly to such an extreme length that it is beyond annoying. I
wish it were the former, because I love the thought of the workers diving into
the stock room every half an hour for a quick sniff of poppers. This afternoon
was family film time in our house and our youngest son chose Elf because Christmas is not far away. I
like the film very much, it is extremely funny and sweet, so I’ve got no problem
watching it, plus it’s nice that my boy is excited and looking forward to
Christmas – it is a bit early though. As I was going out the door he called
after me “can you get some mince pies as well?” For me Christmas doesn’t
remotely start until December 1st and it was a shock to the system
today to see how much the shop I went to is already pushing Christmas.
Personally I am struggling to inspire any Christmas spirit within myself at
this moment in time. They had an offer on the mince pies, so I ended up buying
two packets. The girl behind the counter had her poppers face on. She seemed
very nice but her first question “so, are you looking forward to Christmas
then?” was one that I didn’t want to think about, let alone deal with. All I
wanted was a chicken and some mince pies, not to get involved in Christmas small
talk. Customer service is important but there needs to be a balance. Friendly,
brief and efficient is good. We don’t need to know each other’s life stories. She
told me how much she loved eating at Christmas time and that she was lucky
because it didn’t affect her figure. I told her it didn’t affect mine either…
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