"I'm Dreaming of a Red Christmas"...

... also known as "Christmas at Target." Ahhh, the holidays and retail. This particular Christmas has been so much better than those of the past at my place of employment. In the two years before, we've had so much overstock it was ridiculous. The backroom had to be waded through and all the shelves were overflowing. There was never any room to backstock and pulling the things that customers bought for restock (otherwise known as pulling batches) took hours and hours and we never finished on time.

This year we have a new manager, and though she pushes us hard, things get done. As of yesterday, the backroom was completely empty of all Christmas stuff, we were finishing batches and stocking them within an hour, and our normally gruff leader person, Rocky, was outside barbecuing, complete with a Santa hat, for our Mexican Christmas lunch.

As Irene, a fellow college-age co-worker put it, yesterday was the epitome of Christmas at Target: we had Mexican food, James Brown, and Jessica dying (James Brown was singing on our breakroom TV and Jessica had just whined that Irene made her die on the video game she was playing. Good times, good times.

Anyway, we slacked off for the better part of yesterday since Rocky was not there to keep us in line, and everything was already in good shape anyway. And the most beautiful thing happened: we kicked all customers out at six o' clock. It was wonderful getting work done without the forty-second person coming up to ask where the tape was or to complain about the lack of carts. And don't even get me started about the Bermuda Triange....