Photo Credit: photo via wikicommons under creative commons license

If only being a cashier could be as happy as it looks in this picture.

As much as the malls are humming with business, so are the supermarkets. Holiday parties and dinners are normally spread out throughout December. So, grocery stores remain busy from before Thanksgiving to the new year. When you are a supermarket cashier, this time of year can be the absolute worst. Here are the top five reasons why the holidays make it hard to be a cashier.

1) The music

Christmas music during the holidays is crazy. The minute Thanksgiving is over carols fill the stores every hour of operation of every day until the new year. But when you are working at a supermarket, it is required to play the same 10 songs on replay.  The songs jingle in your mind all day to the point where you want to rip your ears off. The lack of variety and the constant droning of the carols makes it hard to be in the holiday spirit.

2) Overly busy

People comes in the day before a Christmas Eve thinking no one else will wait until the last minute. They’re wrong. All the registers are open and each on has a line. As a cashier, you will not have a free second to catch a breath. Forget sneaking out back to check twitter, instead get used to helping grandparents pick out just the right cookies to buy their grandchildren because they assume that you will know what all youth are interested in these days. A little reprieve happens when the customer helps bag their own groceries but not all customers do.

3) Customers are not always jolly

The holidays are suppose to bring out the best in people but for some reason people are ten times ruder. To most people cashiers don’t count as real people. So, they yell and complain like the cashiers don’t have feelings. As if they want to spend 6+ hours scanning items, counting money and dealing with random  weird smells from things you didn’t even know could smell like that. They are rude at times and expect to get away with it “Because it’s Christmas, buddy. Come on!” They expect all of their coupons to automatically work and if they are out of date, customers seem to believe cashiers can pull of Christmas miracles and make the coupon work. That is sadly not the case.

4) You’re required to work

Holidays are mandatory to work for grocery store employees,  so you always have to show up the family parties late. If you ask nicely for a day off or an early shift, all hell breaks lose. Also, working makes you too tired to enjoy the holiday. You might as well cancel any plans you had for Christmas Eve and New Years Eve, because you will be working. While everyone else is enjoying time with their friends and families, you’ll be stuck at work because someone will need to do a months worth of shopping on Christmas Eve or New Years Eve.

5) The Happy Holidays vs. Merry Christmas debate

Not everyone celebrates Christmas, therefore, cashiers are told to say happy holidays as to not offend anyone.  If you say, “Merry Christmas,” someone will complain about how you’re being offensive to those who celebrate other holidays. Of course, if you say, “happy holidays,” someone will complain about the war on Christmas. It is a no win situation. This debacle makes it hard to be courteous during the holiday because you don’t know how customers will take it. 

To wrap it up, just because you are stressing about the holidays doesn’t give you the right to take out those frustration on a simple cashier. We are here to help you if you work with us. This may be the most wonderful time of the year for many, but supermarket cashiers patiently wait for the holidays to end.