It's not always easy to stay festive. I say this because Christmas literally consumes my job sometimes. It's incredibly hard to stay festive when you're planning the whole of December from September onwards...
So here's a little back story for you. I work at a miniature railway in my home town as the Events and Marketing Manager. It's a tourist and family attraction that throughout the whole of December we spend about 10 hours a day making children happy by seeing Santa. It's good fun and I absolutely love my job, but the stress that comes with it sometimes makes it difficult to enjoy Christmas.
Every single little detail matters, from the children's ages to suit their presents, to the right colour wire on the lights, to the song that the train pulls in the station to. Literally - everything has to be perfectly executed. There isn't really room for errors in this event. It's the 25th year of work doing this so it's pretty popular as you can imagine. It's just exhausting. We plan Santa Specials months in advance. My mum is also the Retail and Catering Manager at work and she deals with the presents, the food, the grotto and other bits - I couldn't deal with the mince pies for more than a day so I'd hate to be her having to work out how many of those we need... Or how many 3 year old girls we're going to have on the trains throughout December so we can get the appropriate presents. It's just a very long process.
Don't get me wrong, as I've said already - I love my job and I love doing the Santa Specials, sometimes it just gets a little bit overwhelming. If something goes wrong it's on your head. In the space of 14 days spread across December, we do around 60 trains in this space of time. Imagine doing pretty much the same thing 60 times in a month, minimal 3 times a day. It does get a bit much as you can imagine. I don't even have the energy at the end of the day when I get in to do my own Christmas stuff, which is slightly disappointing because I am such a huge lover of Christmas but things like this can't be helped I guess. I'm having to heavily rely on Kayne this year for sorting out the presents (which I regret doing by the way). December certainly tests us all at work. No, I'm not moaning before some little weasel suggests that I am, it's just a very challenging month in general and in particular this year since I'm packing up and moving! I can imagine there are others in similar jobs to me, or those in retail that feel the same way!
But at the end of the day, we stay festive, we succeed, we have SO many happy guests. Seeing the children's faces after visiting Santa makes it all worth it. We just remember why we're doing it and that makes it all better.
Anywhooo... Just remember, this December - when you're pissed off with that worker who made a tiny error, or you're annoyed because of whatever reason, that's their job at the end of the day and they're only human. They're there to do you a favour and for you to enjoy yourselves. Whether it's retail, an event such as this or other types of work, just remember that they're a human before you go tooting your horn.
Do you feel the same? Does working around Christmas orientated jobs make it harder for you to stay festive too? Let me know in the comments below!
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