red cups are back!

tonight is the holiday roll-out for bux. tonight little green-aproned elves will magically transform the stores with red cups and holiday decorations. customers and partners usually have one of two reactions to the bux holiday season: 1.) "hooray! holiday!" or 2.) "WTF! it's waaaay too early for this crap!"

i fall into the category of the former.
i really love holidays at bux - truly, i do. even when customers get fussy because parking sucks, stores are crammed and our cd plays non-stop christmas songs, i adore this season. sure my shifts are fill ed with grumpy scrooges and stressed out housewives, but it's the people that embrace this time of year that make my job so much fun.

warm fuzzy #1 -
last holiday season we had a customer who needed fifty ten-dollar gift cards. usually customers that need such a high volume of cards are directed to order their cards online or call starbucks directly because it's a long process to activate all the cards. this particular customer needed the cards for the very next day and pleaded with us to activate all the cards in-store. seeing he was desperate we went ahead and started on his transaction. when a line started forming behind him he told us to go ahead and charge him for the other customers' drinks so they wouldn't have to wait for their beverages. he ended up spending an additional thirty dollars on other people's drinks, as well as stuffing twenty dollars in our tip jar.

warm fuzzy #2 -
a barista forgot to ask for time off so that she could visit her family (she hadn't seen them in almost a year). she was desperate to find coverage for her scheduled shifts and spent a couple hours on the phone looking around the district for people who wanted to pick up some hours. she ended up getting every shift covered except for one - and of course it was on christmas eve. the partners that were already scheduled that day told her not to worry about it and re-organized the shift so that her absence wouldn't screw them over. she was so thankful that she had christmas cookie bouquets delivered to each and every partner that worked on christmas eve.

warm fuzzy #3 -
the gifts and holiday cards regular customers give us baristas as a way of thanking us for our service. it's not expected but it's very much appreciated!

partner rant: you spent the first half of your shift bitching because you weren't given enough hours on this week's schedule. then you spent the second half of your shift bitching because you wanted to go home early. all your actions tell us is you want more shifts to skip out early on. if you really want hours then work the hours you're given!