Holidays Happen Because of You

By DAVID A. COOK
President

Those of you working in one of our grocery locations is likely reading this during an exhausting moment of the year.

Like any other industry, retail grocery facilities have busy times and slow times, and you better believe we are now full-steam-ahead in the busy times. Mother’s Day was just a few days ago and anyone who was shopping around or on that holiday knows how hectic things become.

Plans for parties — lunches and dinners and special treats — come together as customers pack into our stores for specialized cakes from the bakery, for snacks and drinks from the grocery departments, and of course, for lavish arrangements from our floral departments.

Anyone who has worked the weekend of Mother’s Day knows just how busy and exhausting these times can be. And let’s not forget that Memorial Day is right around the corner as well. So as our partners in the stores restock and recover from the blitz of Mother’s Day business, they are already preparing for the next great rush.

ANOTHER FLOOD OF BUSINESS
Memorial Day will bring yet another flood of business. Families stocking up for out-of-town gatherings or collecting supplies for their weekend-long cookouts will file into our stores in huge numbers. Beer and booze and meats and everything else you’re used to seeing at a family gathering will head to the shelves before leaving in carts.

In the middle of all this, let’s not forget graduations! Middle school and high school graduations will play a critical role in keeping us busy as well. Head over to your own bakery department to see just how busy they will be as orders for custom items or just a general increase in sales will keep them busy all month.

For most of you, I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. This is the beginning of one of the two busiest times of the year, when the weather and the calendar opens up and holidays demand the products and services you all make available in your stores.

You’ll notice that so many of these busy times of the year are happening because of one simple fact: people are spending time together with family and friends.

YOU MAKE THE HOLIDAYS HAPPEN
I’ve said it many times before but it always bears repeating: you make the holidays happen.

Families all over this state can thank YOU for their happy holiday memories. That cake congratulating a new high school graduate that people snap photos of before cutting and sharing? You did that. Those flowers that someone’s mother or grandmother loved and posed with for Facebook photos? You did that. The cookout that had plenty of quality brats, burgers, hotdogs, pork steaks and more? You did that.

So first, take a moment and appreciate that your job matters to more than just you and anyone else in your life that relies on your paycheck or your good union benefits. Memories will happen all summer long because you made sure the job was done.

Second, it’s important to spend time with our own families, even during the busy times. You’re helping countless families make the holidays happen and form their memories, so don’t forget to form a few of your own. Most people don’t live to work. Most of us work to live. We punch in and work hard so that we can punch out and go share the fruits of our Labor with the people we care about.

FRUSTRATIONS
During these busy times there will be frustrations. More than ever you’ll feel the squeeze of being short-staffed or suffer the frustrations of a load coming in later than expected. Those call-offs will land a little harder than normal, and those rude customers will increase in intensity and quantity for a brief period of time.

You’ll come home and someone might say to you, “how was work” and more than ever during these busy times you’ll look at them with weary eyes and say “it was insanely busy.” (You might even throw an expletive or two in there if you’re anything like the folks I worked alongside in the stores).

It’s stressful. It’s busy. It’s the industry we’ve chosen.

MAKE MEMORIES HAPPEN
We can’t make everyone’s day perfect. We can’t make every customer happy. We can’t make every holiday go smoothly. We can’t guarantee nothing will go wrong at work.

But we can make memories happen for the customers we serve and, in turn, we can go home, content in the knowledge that our work is important, and ready to make some memories of our own.