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Holiday Seafood Sale

One of the jobs I just couldn’t say no to was being asked to run the annual Holiday Seafood Sale. I already knew a little about the department because I had been working in that department for a few months. I thought it would be a good break from the deli, and I’ve never been afraid of a challenge. No one else would touch the job, and for some reason, that made me want to do it more.

It was as bad as I thought it would be. For three weeks, I sat out in the cold at a stand full of frozen and fresh seafood. I was required to play Christmas music, which I had to provide myself. Thankfully I had an extra tape player and a pretty big Christmas music collection. The worst part of sitting outside isn’t what you’d think. The worst part is not the cold, but it’s the comments from customers. They ask, “Aren’t you cold?” and “Is it cold enough for ya?”

Every single customer. And I swear they think they’re being original.


Or people would ask, “How can you stand the smell of fish?” First of all, most of it is frozen. Second, I LIKE the smell of seafood.

Then, they’d also complain that I had to sit outside in the cold weather. They would complain to ME, when I couldn’t do a thing about it. I don’t know if they went inside and complained to management, not that that would matter, anyway. The store had been having its outside seafood sale for years, and they weren’t about to not have the annual sale, regardless of how much misery it put their employees in, unfortunately.

The second worst part of the job was that no one bought anything. For some reason, people eat a lot of seafood on New Year’s Eve, but they had me set up and sitting outside during the first week of December. Three weeks of people just occasionally looking at the seafood, and then one or two days of being frantically busy.

I did this sale three years in a row, because, apparently, I’m a glutton for misery and torture. That’s a bit of an exaggeration. It wasn’t THAT bad. Especially after dealing with deli customers and coworkers for the rest of the year, I was ready for a break from there by sitting outside. I got to read books and listen to Christmas music, and I got paid to do it. It really wasn’t all THAT bad.

I got all the hot chocolate, coffee and soup I could want to try to keep me warm. In the handbook, it said that we were supposed to have alternating shifts and to give the people working the sale plenty of breaks to keep warm inside the store. I didn’t get either of those. It was always me, with another person filling in when the days got longer. I needed at least ONE day off per week.

Oh, and I always went at least the first week without a working heater. The heaters (which were meant to be inside only, and even said on them “Do not use outside,”) never really worked all that well, but without it, my toes would hurt and then get numb where they felt like they were asleep. Either the heater wouldn’t work, they would forget to bring it in, or I couldn’t get someone to buy fuel for it. One year we had a propane heater and I ended up having to buy fuel for it because no one else would.

We’d always have one REALLY cold day, like in the single digits, and the manager would call the home office to ask if we could bring the sale inside, but the office would say no, so I’d suffer through bitter cold (at my store, we had a porch-like area, so I was shielded on three sides. I was lucky, some stores didn’t have any shielding and had to suffer the bitter winds, too). Then, usually a week later, we’d have a snowstorm, and they’d tell me I didn’t have to be outside that day. I never understood why some snow would bring me inside when ice and wind didn’t, but it wasn’t up to me.

I eventually learned some tips, like wearing tons of layers, heavy boots, two pairs of socks, gloves, a hat and a scarf. Plus, I’d have hand warmers in my pockets. At some point, the Christmas music would start driving me crazy, so I’d bring my own mp3 player and listen with headphones that were tucked under my hat.

It made it hard for me to appreciate and have a good Christmas. I worked a VERY long day on Christmas Eve, and I’d be exhausted by the time my husband wanted to exchange gifts. Then I’d work another very long day on New Year’s Eve. There was no way I’d make it to midnight to celebrate the new year. Cold weather can exhaust you, I learned.