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Holiday Help


jeezifonly
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I’m wondering how many of y’all worked seasonal jobs at this time of year when younger. Did you help out a a Christmas tree lot? Work retail store positions? Sing carols or sew costumes for a local Nutcracker?

Maybe you did service and volunteer with seniors, children, the disadvantaged?

I had a couple Christmas breaks in HS working at the A&P (anyone??) bagging and schlepping groceries - the only time of year we were allowed to accept tips…. Also worked at JCPenney catalog center in two different locales in college, both times supervised by a bunch of midwestern white ladies with very big hair and warm hearts. I did it all, from truck unloading, taking phone orders, tracking them when they arrived, to gift wrapping - the ladies were wowed)

Once in my grownup showbiz career I worked on A Christmas Carol, Hansel and Gretel, Nutcracker, La Boheme, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, and others, each of which was the predictable blend of demand and delight. 

How about you? Still rocking green tights as a elf? Or glad to have it all as Christmas Past? 

image.gif.a5beae1a50171e786edc0fa6b597a01a.gif
 


 

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Shortly after I turned sixteen I got a job as a utility at a K-mart Supercenter. I got it the week before Thanksgiving with the idea that I would work there for some time. Wrong. I made it through New Year's and quit. It was absolutely the most miserable job experience of my life with the most miserable people I have ever worked with. No wonder the company failed. You might say that I didn't have perspective at that age, but I have had employment of some sort since I was 12 years old without interruption, often multiple part/time jobs at once while maintaining 4.0 grades in school. So work, and hard work was not something that scared me. I left Kmart literally to dig ditches for my best friend's brother's cable company, and was much happier. To be fair, digging ditches and trenches to bury cable taught me I wanted to do something different long-term, but it was a far cry better than being a utility at a Kmart during the holidays. Mind you, it wasn't the customers who were intolerable, it was the apathetic and horrible attitudes of the management and fellow employees that made the lasting negative impression on me. Never have I dreaded going to work like I did there - before or since.

Edited by HotWhiteThirties
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I need seasonal help at my company. I was very desperate so last weekend I started messaging young guys on Grindr and asked if they were looking for legitimate cash work. Two bit. I picked them up, brought them to my business and put them to work. I had to excuse myself to do a zoom call and told them I’d be back in 90 minutes. The zoom facilitator was running late so I went back to the warehouse to check on them. One was blowing the other.  The guy said “it’s all good, we weren’t going to charge you for this time.” I was like guyyysssss. At least get some work done first. It was great. 

Edited by Coolwave35
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5 minutes ago, Coolwave35 said:

I need seasonal help at my company. I was very desperate so last weekend I started messaging young guys on Grindr and asked if they were looking for legitimate cash work. Two bit. I picked them up, brought them to my business and put them to work. I had to excuse myself to do a zoom call and told them I’d be back in 90 minutes. The zoom facilitator was running late so I went back to the warehouse to check on them. One was blowing the other.  The guy said “it’s all good, we weren’t going to charge you for this time.” I was like guyyysssss. At least get some work done first. It was great. 

Epic!!

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For a wee bit of extra money one year, I took a day away from teaching high schoolers to receive training in order to become a salesperson at the non defunct Emporium department store (California) in the city where I taught.  I got the job and truly liked spending the money of others (customers) who asked for my assistance) but abhorred working the cash register.

One day a customer was very rude when it took a while for me to conclude his transaction.  A few days later, I decided that I'd had enough, so I quit and immediately flew to Southern California to join my first cousins for their Christmas festivities.  I shall never forget that experience.

Edited by Axiom2001
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On 12/2/2021 at 12:06 AM, jeezifonly said:

I’m wondering how many of y’all worked seasonal jobs at this time of year when younger. Did you help out a a Christmas tree lot? Work retail store positions? Sing carols or sew costumes for a local Nutcracker?

Maybe you did service and volunteer with seniors, children, the disadvantaged?

I had a couple Christmas breaks in HS working at the A&P (anyone??) bagging and schlepping groceries - the only time of year we were allowed to accept tips…. Also worked at JCPenney catalog center in two different locales in college, both times supervised by a bunch of midwestern white ladies with very big hair and warm hearts. I did it all, from truck unloading, taking phone orders, tracking them when they arrived, to gift wrapping - the ladies were wowed)

Once in my grownup showbiz career I worked on A Christmas Carol, Hansel and Gretel, Nutcracker, La Boheme, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, and others, each of which was the predictable blend of demand and delight. 

How about you? Still rocking green tights as a elf? Or glad to have it all as Christmas Past? 

image.gif.a5beae1a50171e786edc0fa6b597a01a.gif
 


 

I LOVE that PeeWee's Christmas Special!  Thank you for sharing

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I worked as a summer camp counselor during for two summers when I was 17 and 18.  The pay was minimum wage for 40 hours a week, even though we worked from 6am to 10pm six days per week.  We were even on duty during meal times as we ate with the campers.  And they also deducted room and board. Therefore it was more about the experience than the money.

The highlight of those jobs was showering naked at the end of the day with the other counselors and the DILF leaders who came to camp with their sons

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2 hours ago, Vegas_nw1982 said:

I worked as a summer camp counselor during for two summers when I was 17 and 18.  The pay was minimum wage for 40 hours a week, even though we worked from 6am to 10pm six days per week.  We were even on duty during meal times as we ate with the campers.  And they also deducted room and board. Therefore it was more about the experience than the money.

The highlight of those jobs was showering naked at the end of the day with the other counselors and the DILF leaders who came to camp with their sons

Fun Christmas story! 🎄👍🏼😂

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7 hours ago, jeezifonly said:

Fun Christmas story! 🎄👍🏼😂

The title just says Holiday Help. It doesn't specify which holiday.  The first sentence of the original post says seasonal jobs. Summer is a season.

If people said Christmas instead of Holiday when they mean Christmas, it would avoid confusion.

One of those summers, the camp staff did celebrate Christmas in July. We put up a Christmas tree and exchanged gifts on July 25.  That night, three spirits visited our miserly camp financial officer (played by other camp staff)

Edited by Vegas_nw1982
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When I was in graduate school (which is getting closer to 20 years ago than I sometimes realize), one of my survival jobs was being a member of the bridal & gift registry team for an old-school department store. I actually enjoyed that year round, helping people choose gifts to add to their registries and then helping their friends and family members buy them. We also did all the special orders for fine china & crystal. On Black Friday and other days when the store was much busier than normal, they'd stick us behind a register, which I actually also really enjoyed. (I know, I know. Perversity takes many forms.) My register was always around a corner, behind the luggage department, surrounded by endless armies of Jim Shore figurines, which were a popular trend at the time. One Black Friday they forgot about me and the line at my register never stopped, so I rang people up for 7 hours straight, until someone remembered to check on me.  I had no idea that one of the people I helped that day was a regional manager for Williams Sonoma and two days later, she offered me a job running the gift registry/gift wrap/back room operations for one of their stores, at a much higher salary. I accepted and a few of my customers even followed me with their registries. Honestly, I still miss retail, especially at this time of year. I just wish it paid better. 

Edited by Romany147
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My freshman year of college, it began to dawn on me that my budget was way out of whack, and the plan to drive back to Washington State over the holiday break was out of the question. Mom offered to send some money, but my stubborn 16-year-old self was bound and determined to live my life on my own terms, with my own resources. So, I let the folks know that I'd be home over spring break, and went into the Student Center to look over the job posts. Ended up taking a valet parking job at Tanforan Mall - good God I ran my ass off for two and a half weeks, but made a lot of tips ( I seem to recall about $600, in 1980 dollars)- enough to get through till spring. The next Christmas they asked me back, but with better financial planning this time, I was OK without holiday temp work. 

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Well, if we can tell stories about holiday work without the restriction of being Xmas, my first real job was at a retail store (Canada's largest at the time) over the first holiday weekend of the summer in 1964. I was 17. I was only hired for the 3 day weekend but did such a great job selling kitchen wares that they offered me a job in the warehouse out in the burbs.

I worked there for the rest of the summer and met this hunky guy, 4 years older, who only lived a block away in a rooming house from where I lived in Montreal with my parents in a large apartment similar to the ones on Park Avenue in NYC.  So we started traveling together on the bus to go to and from work. He lived right across from the Montreal Forum and that August we listened to the Beatles from his balcony as they played their concert. All we heard was racket through the open windows. My 14 yo sister had gone with her friends to scream at the event. 

He had started inviting me in to his room for tea after work and I was sorely tempted to make a move on him but was too shy and awkward to make the first move and he never initiated a move. At the end of the summer another guy from the warehouse, who was also a hunk, moved in with him and they shared a double bed in that small room.

A year later he called me out of the blue just to say hi. I never heard from him again but I sometimes wished I had made that move. At the time, I was a virgin and it was too big a leap.

Oh, at the end of the summer they offered me a full time job but I declined as I was going off to university.

 

Edited by Luv2play
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On 12/4/2021 at 1:56 AM, Vegas_nw1982 said:

The title just says Holiday Help. It doesn't specify which holiday.  The first sentence of the original post says seasonal jobs. Summer is a season.

If people said Christmas instead of Holiday when they mean Christmas, it would avoid confusion.

One of those summers, the camp staff did celebrate Christmas in July. We put up a Christmas tree and exchanged gifts on July 25.  That night, three spirits visited our miserly camp financial officer (played by other camp staff)

Some things are implied.  

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 12/4/2021 at 11:25 AM, pdxleo said:

My freshman year of college, it began to dawn on me that my budget was way out of whack, and the plan to drive back to Washington State over the holiday break was out of the question. Mom offered to send some money, but my stubborn 16-year-old self was bound and determined to live my life on my own terms, with my own resources. So, I let the folks know that I'd be home over spring break, and went into the Student Center to look over the job posts. Ended up taking a valet parking job at Tanforan Mall - good God I ran my ass off for two and a half weeks, but made a lot of tips ( I seem to recall about $600, in 1980 dollars)- enough to get through till spring. The next Christmas they asked me back, but with better financial planning this time, I was OK without holiday temp work. 

They hired you as a valet parker when you were only 16?! I couldn't even get a driver's license at that age in my state.

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during college, I was a busboy at a very nice, small, family-owned hotel near the school.....this was my first job away from home and almost all of us had to work the very busy Xmas Brunch on Xmas......for the first time ever, I was not at home for Xmas and I gotta say I got a little emotional about it!.....a minute or so of mild crying and then I was back at it!......ha!!.....the happy spirit of the day and nice people around helped out.....

as the years went by and family members died off, the entire holiday thing has become less and less important to me.....

Edited by azdr0710
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Every Christmas during undergrad at home working at a men's clothing store. Terrible pay and official discounts but omg some of the young guys who would come in all friendly and need special attention and fitting because of their muscles.They really appreciated me going in the fitting room with them. 

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For many years in Portland, I ran a homeless provision program and for a few years brought pre-meds in to help with the work load during the holidays and tough seasons~ It’s was provision for clothing, food, some shelter, vaccinations, pet care, hygiene products, sheets and blankets, basic foot and nail care~ Also included needle exchange program to reduce hiv/Hep C/Syphilis infections~

 Not a cash paid thing… but, a “give back into the community thing”.

 I still do this on my own during the holidays but, since the homeless populations tend to already have provisions then, I provide pop top canned food for their pets~ It’s a good option because they can travel with it, store it without it getting rancid or moldy~ 

 my role in the medical field has shifted and I don’t have the same connection with pre-meds any longer~
 

 For “extra cash” I used to shovel/plow snow, paint, fix stuff, weed/water and landscrape~ (ages 9 to current)

Edited by Tygerscent
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21 hours ago, Charlie said:

They hired you as a valet parker when you were only 16?! I couldn't even get a driver's license at that age in my state.

One of my big surprises going from Kansas to school in the East was the kids had no driver’s license or cars😱. In Kansas, we all had “restricted” licenses at 15 and full, unrestricted licenses at 16😀.  (The kids living on farms could get a driver’s license at 14 to help drive tractors and other farm vehicles).

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2 hours ago, bigjoey said:

One of my big surprises going from Kansas to school in the East was the kids had no driver’s license or cars😱. In Kansas, we all had “restricted” licenses at 15 and full, unrestricted licenses at 16😀.  (The kids living on farms could get a driver’s license at 14 to help drive tractors and other farm vehicles).

Yep, that was how it was when I was growing up on a farm in Pennsylvania in the 70's. I'd "unofficially" been driving farm equipment for a few years already, but when I turned 14, I got my farm license. 

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