What Is It Like to Work as a Christmas Season Temporary Employee?

[BobG]

Tis almost the season when all of the folks hired temporarily for the Christmas season get tossed out on the streets, to wander aimlessly about until they find the unemployment line.

I wonder what it must be like to be a Christmas season temporary employee. Finally, someone has captured the experience in its full glory.

David Sedaris's Santaland Diaries

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/47/christmas-and-commerce?act=1

 

[Astronuc]

I listened to it earlier today, and then I heard on the regional NPR station this evening.

I wonder what Christmas tradition calls for threatening or otherwise abusing one's children.

I was fortunate to grow up in little towns where we didn't have malls with visits to Santa at Christmas time. I never grew up expecting Santa, or rather Father Christmas from where I come, to bring gifts. Perhaps it was because my dad was a minister with a rather meager income, so I never learned to expect lavish gifts.

 

[turbo]

I listened to it earlier today, and then I heard on the regional NPR station this evening.

I wonder what Christmas tradition calls for threatening or otherwise abusing one's children.

I was fortunate to grow up in little towns where we didn't have malls with visits to Santa at Christmas time. I never grew up expecting Santa, or rather Father Christmas from where I come, to bring gifts. Perhaps it was because my dad was a minister with a rather meager income, so I never learned to expect lavish gifts.

When I was a kid, we all knew that Bun was the "Santa" who rode the back of the fire truck in the parade and tossed the candy. We still wanted the candy and the distraction. We never got lavish gifts, anyhow, no matter how we might have dreamed of them after seeing the Sears catalog. Ain't happenin'