Holiday Hostility

I’m sure that you’ve seen it by now. The general hostility that is
present in holiday shoppers and the merchants who serve them. I’ve
coined the term Holiday Hostility to describe this free-floating
anger that seems to only come out during the Christmas Season.

Oh, and if you haven’t guessed, the free-floating anger will only
increase as we slowly creep towards Christmas. It will taper off
after Christmas, though.

Now, what causes this Holiday Hostility? Stress, of course. The
stress of finding that one perfect for someone you love. The
stress of finding a parking space at the shopping center so you
can shop. The stress of having to cajole a disinterested vendor to
help you find a gift. The stress of being a vendor and having a
customer be adversarial as soon as they walk through the door. The
stress of budgeting your gift-buying with a bank account that
seems woefully limited. The stress of your boss deciding that
Christmas Bonuses will no longer be given out to company employees
who are not a part of management. All of these things are just
examples of what kinds of stress can be generated by the
Christmas Season.

Oh, and that’s another thing to stress over. Do I call this time
of year Christmas Season or Holiday Season? Do I say Merry
Christmas or Happy Holoidays? Damn, its tough to try and be
politically correct.

Here’s an example of this phenomenon that I witnessed last year. I
was at a Kinko’s and the customer in front of me was tring to get
a calander made with pictures of her pets on it. The CD that she
was using had not been burned correctly, so the pictures weren’t
on the disk. The counter girl politely explained this to the
customer. The customer began yelling and screaming at the girl
behind the counter and as a final act before storming out of the
store, threw the CD at the counter girl. Holiday Hostility.

The thing to remember about Holiday Hostility, especially if you
work in retail, is that if someone is dealing with you in an
antagonistic manner – its probably not something that you have
done. Many people tend to wrongly take out their frustrations on
retail workers. This is, unfortunately, just the nature of retail.
I’ll note here that I do not condone this boorish behavior, only
that it happens and that it happens a lot around Christmas. Yes ,
the customer may have had a bad day that is not your doing, but
the retail worker is still the one who has to take the brunt of
the Holiday Hostility and should not have to.

So I’m going to ask the readers of this column to remember this
while they are out shopping and feasting during this time of year.
Use some politeness and kindness to those you are dealing with ,
because Holiday Hostility is not the way to enjoy the season.