As many of you know I have what i call a DayJob that I us to support my art habit and pay my bills. It also provides me with health, dental and vision as well as a few other fringe benefits. While I hope that someday I can support myself on Art (which is the reason behind expanding the website but that’s a whole other entry.) I know tat it’s not an expectation that I can have for a few more years/decades.

My DayJob is in something that I like to refer to as Retail Hell for a major organic grocery store, or as my friends and I refer to it as: The Hippy Grocery Store. I won’t go into specifics since they have made blogging about them a major offense,i.e. one that could get me fired, but I’ll tell you a little bit about what I do there. I’m a little better off than the average Wage Slave as I’m the manager of my department, the floral department. This means that I am able to make the schedule of the department, order all the flowers, and take all the heat when I don’t make my profit margin or something goes wrong. Unlike most grocery and retail businesses the model that the Hippy Grocery Store takes is that the managers of the department work hand in ha with the lowest paid employee on the sales floor, and are expected to do as much hard physical work if not more than that lowly paid member of the team.

The philosophy behind this is that you eventually know the business so well that it is hard to fail. If you handle your product every work day you end up knowing exactly what you need to order. You also get to know your customers and staff. Who can you rely to buy which product, who can you rely on every day to deal with every issue that arises.

Anyway, I digress, that was not why I started to write this, there are many things I can say about HGS but this isn’t the place. I started to write this to describe the reality of retail the 2 days before Christmas and encourage people to plan ahead. It’s hell, if you think that you can wait until 2 days before a holiday and find exactly what you want en you go to the store, think again, and please don’t yell t the lady in floral when you CAN’T find it. It’s not my fault that you waited until 24 hours before the holiday to do your shopping, there is noting I can do.

Nor should you think that you can drive anywhere safely the 2 days before the holiday. I tell you this: people are crazy those last 2 days before the holiday and road rage is rampant. I saw a normally pleasant 90year old man drive laps around the parking lot, blowing his horn at anyone who got in his way. It was painful to watch as the parking lot was full and busy.

So next year plan ahead, make some eBay, etsy or web purchases and stay off the roads, it’s all a lot easier if all you have to do is walk to your mail box!