Snowglobe

“Erm,” she searched for the right words, tugging her apron up a little further. “I could check the other locations for you.” Page was in the middle of a shift at the home decor store where she worked and was, as usual, dealing with a very upset customer. Why did people think it was okay to verbally assault retail workers? The things customers complain about are ninety nine percent of the time, outside of the control of retail workers. 

    “I demand to see a manager!” the woman in front of her shrieked in a voice that sent Page’s headache throbbing even worse. 

    “Like I told you already, I am the shift manager on duty right now,” Page recited automatically. Since she was young, and looked even younger than her actual age, people never believed that she was the manager, they always wanted someone older to complain to. 

    “Well can’t you check the back?!” Biting the inside of her cheek, Page decided to simply go with it. 

    “Sure, I’m pretty sure there aren’t any back there, but I’ll double check for you.” She turned on her heel and stalked back to the solace of the stockroom. On the way, at least three other customers waved irritably at her but she kept walking, if the customer she was helping saw her stop to help someone else, she’d face a whole lot more fury. Yeah, it was hard to love the holidays as a retail worker. 

    Once inside the stockroom, she took three large breaths, glanced around to pretend like she was looking for the product, even though she knew there were none left, and headed back to the door. The product in question had sold out a week ago. It was a special Christmas snowglobe that was bigger than any snowglobe Page had seen before. Corporate had to  know that they didn’t send enough to each store, they sold out within the first two days and Page had already placed a new order last week. Around the holidays though, Page suspected they did this on purpose to make certain items more popular. People panicked when they realized they might not get one and would buy it right away. “And how about the retail workers who have to face the wrath of customers who are too late?” Page mumbled under her breath as she pushed open the door. 

    “I’ll be contacting your corporate office! You horrible, lazy girl! I hope you know that you’re ruining my Christmas!” Page stood, listening to the woman scream at her after breaking the news. 

    “Have a happy holidays!” Page called in her retail voice as the woman finally left. 

    “That was a rough one,” Gary mumbled under his breath at the register. 

    “Doesn’t compare to yesterday,” Page replied. “Remember the guy who grabbed my arm and dragged me over to the picture of it in the window?”

    “How can you advertise for something you don’t even have? People like you should go to hell,” Gary quoted the man from yesterday, grimacing. “I can help the next customer!” He waved over his head to call the line towards his register, ending their quick conversation. 

    “Excuse me, miss?” a voice said from behind Page. She turned to answer the next question. This customer was another middle aged woman, blonde and much taller than Page was. 

    “I wondered where your snowglobes were, I saw an ad for a really big one,” she said, motioning the size of it with her arms. 

    Ah, we actually are out of stock on that one. It was a very limited item but I can show you our selection of other snowglobes if you’d like.” The customer’s face told Page that she didn’t register the answer. 

    “It was really big, this big. It was in, shoot, maybe I can find the ad in my email,” the woman continued, pulling out her phone to search. 

    “No I… I know the one you’re talking about. It was a very limited quantity and we’ve already sold out.” Page repeated herself to the woman, who was now pulling up the email. She triumphantly shoved the email in Page’s face. 

“This one! Do you have this snowglobe?” Page blinked slowly, then pulled out the “phone” that they used to search for items from her work apron. Typing in the product number, she went along with the act that this woman apparently needed to be able to understand.

“Oh no! The system says that we’re out of stock on that snowglobe! I know it was super popular so we must have sold out!” The woman looked horror stricken, hearing this information for the first time. 

“Well are you getting more!?” she raised her voice, her tone completely different now. People change a lot once they’ve been told “no”, you’d think they’d have learned how to handle that as a child but, apparently not. 

“We aren’t getting any more in, I could check another location for you?” Page suggested to the woman, who was now turning a slight shade of purple. 

“Well go look in the back!” The woman demanded loudly. Page nodded and set off for the stockroom once more. There weren’t any in the stockroom, Page knew that, but it made customers a little happier if you went to look for them. She ducked her head and walked fast on her way to avoid the people that were trying to grab her attention, until a rather large man stepped aggressively right in front of her, blocking her path. 

“Excuse me, do you work here?” Page looked down at the apron that bore her name, the store name, logo, and a button that read “Hi! How can I help?”

“Yes,” she replied, not missing a beat. She tugged the apron up for the millionth time, trying to alleviate the pressure it puts on the back of her sore neck.  

“So I’m looking for this snowglobe.” He said excitedly. Page sighed, it was hard to love the holidays as a retail worker.