Archived Back to School vs Xmas

[RTCry]

Which one do you prefer? My vote is Xmas. Back to school sucks in a way that Xmas doesn’t. Share your war stories from either season.

 

[Yetive]

Ultra Super Freaky BTC. We run out of everything in HL. All within 1 week. And there isn't enough payroll to hire the people you need for just that week. Then, the kids head back, so there is an endless sea of ripped open socks and undies, along with the relentless flow of reshop at the fitting room.

Yeah, Xmas is better for sure.

 

[TargetLounger]

Xmas for sure. Back to school is a fucking nightmare.

 

[SigningLady]

From a signing perspective, both are equally nightmarish. But Christmas does not have dual or triple located items and nothing has to be worked back to the home location after the holiday. Christmas for the win!

 

[oath2order]

From a signing perspective, both are equally nightmarish. But Christmas does not have dual or triple located items and nothing has to be worked back to the home location after the holiday. Christmas for the win!

Christmas last year *did* have fucking Amplified Gifting though.

 

[SigningLady]

Christmas last year *did* have fucking Amplified Gifting though.

True. But I'd still take that over BTS any day. Monstrosities that they were.....I enjoyed building them.

 

[can't touch this]

I like the atmosphere of the Xmas season and most guests here in the Bible Belt really appreciate a genuine "Merry Christmas," but that FUCKING LIGHT WALL GOD DAMN. I think I've posted about this at least 250 times by now but I just can't get over how annoying it is to try and fight through a mass of people who are packed asses to elbows into a 5 ft. wide aisle. Because of the crowds, we have to put the pallets/flats that we're pushing from IN FRONT OF THE SAME SHELVES THAT WE'RE TRYING TO PUSH TO rather than lining them up in the main aisle in front of seasonal where it would make the most sense, but can't because the ETL will shriek that they're in the guests' way. With BTS there are pallets/flats in the same place but we have room to move them around as needed because the traffic isn't as heavy and there aren't as many. Try staging additional pallets in the backroom when there's so much holiday shit piled up that it's lifting the roof off like peeling open a can of tuna.

I've been in BTS a lot this year from beginning to end including helping set the POG, and the worst day was what I would describe as "mildly annoying for a few minutes here and there", but Xmas with the light wall mosh pit combined with 420 kilotons of candy and lights is always a shitshow every single year. Bear in mind that with Xmas you're also dealing with knuckle dragging seasonals, but not during BTS.

Hope this helps!

 

[ShipIt]

I prefer Christmas. People become so desperate to buy anything that no matter where you throw it out in the store, it gets snatched up. And there's always a general cheer with the season.
With BTS, every parent is so damn particular (and I get it, it's the school list that they're following), and the hoards of kids are such a pain in the ass.. and once the local schools start, better find 5 million rubber bands and start bundling up the thousands of crayons and pencils and all that crap that won't see the light of day til the next year's BTS set.

 

[IWishIKnew]

BTS has been better, in that I haven't had to disappoint grandparents because we don't have the toy their grandkid requested or I can't even figure out exactly what it is their grandkid was asking for.

That always sucked. Especially since they were always so nice about it. It would have been easier if they'd been entitled assholes about it, but they never were.

BTS just isn't as busy so you don't have all of the sales floor in toys leaving the rest of HL to disarray, and between it all we could never find anything. BTS is at least more contained, in that respect.

 

[dannyy315]

Back to school sucks, especially since the Walmart right across the street is shutting down. A lot busier than usual lately.

Also, I hate when stationary items that aren’t dualy located get mixed with seasonal reshop, and vice versa.

 

[RhettB]

BTS then Halloween for zone. At least for XMAS you have more payroll.

 

[Leo47]

BTS. It’s crazier but easy to deal with. Christmas season is just depressing. I should be enjoying my time with my family but I’m getting yelled at over nothing alll day every day because everyone is 10x angrier during Christmas time.

 

[SugarSugar]

What also sucks about BTS is moving the patio clearance out of the way and begin building all the gondolas back up.

 

[can't touch this]

I'm sorry but Xmas seasonal block is just a fucking nightmare. I specifically remember last year we had this stupid ass glitter covered snowman that was wrapped in a shell of the crumbliest styrofoam ever, inside a box inside a box, and cutting it open lets out this cloud of glitter and fragments of styrofoam that smelled toxic and "chemical-y" like the Chinese factory it came out of. Not only that but the Xmas planograms are always wacky zany with their spacing between price points and this huge snowman was tied to a slot that was barely 5 inches wide. Everybody just gives the fuck up and chunks them to the bottom shelf. They didn't sell and we had about 40 of them on clearance in January.

The stockings. ETL-LOG always decrees "ABSOLUTELY NO BACKSTOCK" so the stockings pile up in great big mounds and constantly end up in the floor. It looks ghetto as fuck.

"Shatter resistant" ornaments that are set to the top shelf, are top heavy and always come crashing to the floor.

Various noisemaking shit like Ladder Santa.

Fragile chocolate Santas that can be crushed just by gently pulling them out of the carton with your fingers. Chocolate fragments smeared all over the tiling.

People who come in looking for a very specific DPCI of lights on December 23 and being mad, or at least surprised that they're all lost like tears in rain. Imagine being this person.



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[OneArmedJesus]

BTS, mainly due to the fact my role as a Electronics tm is usually limited. Besides
the occasional call to seasonal to unlock something or to push calculators

Xmas, is pretty crazy at my store

 

[MBIMv]

I think I prefer BTS over Christmas. People aren't coming in looking for a target exclusive toy that is on sale and brickseek says we received 30 when UPS hasn't show up yet.

 

[can't touch this]

I wonder which toy it'll be this year, are Fingerlings still in

 

[MBIMv]

I wonder which toy it'll be this year, are Fingerlings still in

The 96 Hottest Toys Your Kids are Asking You For in All of 2018 - https://www.imbringingbloggingback.com/lifestyle/best-new-toys-for-christmas-2016-2017/

 

[jlog]

My store is considered a resort store, so summer is our busy season. I'm in softlines so back to school sucks way worse for us than Christmas.

 

[Pikachu Libre]

The 96 Hottest Toys Your Kids are Asking You For in All of 2018 - https://www.imbringingbloggingback.com/lifestyle/best-new-toys-for-christmas-2016-2017/

I really need that robot baby toy to stop being a thing. I genuinely think most toys are still cute - but not that one.

 

[NKG]

I'd say back to school is a nightmare....so many people pissed we don't have enough t-83s in stock or that they are locked up

 

[fx0007]

I'd rather do back to school and christmas together than have to do babies. Then I have to acknowledge that that area of the store exists and that the displays probably shouldn't be mismatched all over the place.

 

[Times Up]

At least during the holidays, we get an extra buck an hour on weekends, at least some of them. Most folks understand that lines at the front are going to be long. And my store puts a little more effort into break room food. With back to school, lines are long (no 3 or 4 open registers aren't enough for tax free weekend) and pbj and cereal aren't sufficient snacks when I busted my ass in the blistering heat.

 

[jlog]

At least during the holidays, we get an extra buck an hour on weekends, at least some of them. Most folks understand that lines at the front are going to be long. And my store puts a little more effort into break room food. With back to school, lines are long (no 3 or 4 open registers aren't enough for tax free weekend) and pbj and cereal aren't sufficient snacks when I busted my ass in the blistering heat.

We get an extra dollar more an hour everyday during the summer... but back to school has been kicking our butts.

 

[AmICrazy]

Christmas last year *did* have fucking Amplified Gifting though.

and it was really bad when we found the unlocated assortment boxes a few days before Christmas for the half-empty fixtures that were a piece of crap and would not stay to together for more than 2 seconds.