There are crazy work stories and then there are crazy Christmas work stories, which always seem to be 200% more crazy. Here, we’re sharing some of the craziest things that Capsule readers have experienced over the silly season.
Welcome to the Christmas Diaries! Sure, it’s the most magical time of the year, but it’s also a time where people are at their limits. Last week we shared our stories from working in retail at Christmas and we’d love to hear your stories too! If your job gets weirder, more stressful, stranger or, maybe more fun at Christmas, we’d love to hear your stories! (Yes, you can stay anonymous!)
Just drop a line to [email protected] to get your story(ies) off your chest (think of it as free Christmas therapy?!?).
On with your stories!
“I work at a supermarket and it’s hell at Christmas. Especially Christmas Eve and the day before. Anytime we are going to be closed for a day people act like the world is going to end and they hoard food. Last year I moved to the customer service call center to help because I thought it would be easier, but it was worse. When people can’t see your face, they’re even ruder. One lady abused me on Christmas Eve because she made a mistake on her delivery order. She meant to order 200 grams of carrots, but instead ordered 200 carrots. I told her we couldn’t refund, because we were not the ones who made the error. She went wild. She’d spent $900 on the order and bought some really expensive stuff, so she was obviously rich. When she asked what she was supposed to do with 200 carrots I suggested she visit a food bank and she hung up.”
“I’m an ER nurse. People lose their minds at Christmas. We had one patient come in who had been called in as having a heart attack. There are a lot of those on Christmas Day. Their vitals were fine, but all the symptoms they were describing were consistent with a Myocardial infarction, so they’d been brought in by ambulance. Only, once they got to me, and their daughter left the room, they admitted they’d made the whole thing up to get out of being at their family lunch. Astonishing.”
“I work in retail and last year two women got into a physical fight over the last Squishmallow in store.”
“A few years ago I worked at a donut store. On Christmas Eve, 15 minutes before closing, a man came in and asked for a dozen reindeer donuts. I had four left so I said I could sell him four. He looked me dead in the eye and said, “Only four? What am I supposed to tell my children?”
“I work in hospo – at a deli, and we always see the worst in people at Christmas. We are closed on Christmas (obviously) and close at 4pm on Christmas Eve. The number of people who have not placed orders, but come in on Christmas Eve afternoon and expect to be able to have their Christmas meals catered, is wild. And the number of people who have been abusive because they can’t pick up their order on Christmas morning! One woman yelled at me that I was ruining her Christmas. She obviously didn’t care about ruining mine.”
“I worked in a fancy retail store at the gift wrapping station. I was wrapping a white cashmere jumper for a very stern woman, when I realised that I had got a paper cut and had bled on the jumper. I felt like I was going to die. The scary woman saw it, frowned, went into her handbag, pulled out a plaster and wrapped my finger up. Then she went back to the other counter and got the jumper replaced. It was the exact opposite reaction I was expecting.”
“I work in a electronics repair store and Boxing Day is always our busiest and most miserable day. Everyone is there to fix expensive items that they got for Christmas and broke the same day. There’s always a lot of crying children.”
“I worked in a big coffee chain store and the last Christmas I worked there, on Christmas Eve a woman asked for a coffee with every change imaginable (extra hot, extra foam, soy milk, triple shot, caramel shot etc). The queue was massive. She got her drink and came up to complain that it wasn’t hot enough or with enough foam and demanded I remake it. I was flustered, so I did. She again said it wasn’t hot enough. I thought I was going to cry, but then a woman in line called out, “Pull your head in and drink your coffee!” and everyone in line clapped and she left. Someone in line paid for her drink before she got to the counter.”
“Last year a guy brought a vivid to the store I work in and changed the prices on the tags, then brought them up to the counter and thought he’d get away with it.”
“Many years ago I worked in a supermarket and on Christmas Eve one of the new trolley guys collected way too many trolleys to push up the ramp. He somehow let go, and this huge train of them went down the slope. It was busy so everyone was screaming at people to get out of the way and then they dramatically broke through the bottom glass doors.”
