Ghosts of Christmas Past-WalMart Style!

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

I have worked many jobs over the years—most of them in retail.  While I no longer work in retail, my job as Lawn & Garden Department Manager at WalMart is hands down THE MOST FUN I have EVER had on the job!

I just pulled out my Christmas music CDs and the memories just flooded back—the memories I made with my WalMart buddies are very special and always will be.  So I decided they would be my next blog post!

At Christmas time, lawn and garden transformed to Christmas, and I must say, I had the best looking department around!

We always had a big display of Christmas trees and Christmas music played all the time.

Good ‘ol John used to spend hours decorating the ceiling for me and putting up our Christmas tree display.  He hung the items from the ceiling with a scissor lift that, let’s just say, he wasn’t the most careful driving around!  There would be times when he wouldn’t “quite” clear a corner and he would take out the base of some endcap, and you would here “Whoopsie….” and he would just drive on…..LOL.

We all had our favorite CDs, and my team thought it was big fun to hide my favorites from me.  On my list of favs was Michael Bolton, who suspiciously went missing A LOT!  One time I even found him taped to the rafters way up high!  (ahem….CHAD!)  How could you not like this one?

Whenever I hear that, I think of my right-hand man Gary “swinging” his nonexistent hair to the side like Michael Bolton used to do…..lol  Gary was the best!  He did anything I needed him to do.  However, for some reason, his wife didn’t like me.  She didn’t like it when he talked to me (hello, he could have been my dad!)—so whenever she was in the store, which was A LOT, he stayed away from me, and he would say our safe word, “Buckeye alert!” to let me know she was there!  Lol……

Then there was Matt—he did the best Santa voice ever!  We put him 10 feet behind a life-sized Santa and had him talk through the microphone—really surprised/scared some folks!  Most of those people weren’t customers, they were people who worked there, so it was good fun to stand back and watch him do his magic…..lol

The guys loved to play tricks on me.  All the time.  I don’t know how many times I tried to put on my coat and my sleeves had been zip-tied together so that I couldn’t put my arms in.  I used to have my telxon and my cart to do my price changes, make labels, whatever.  What really annoyed the hell out of me?  I would leave to help a customer, come back and try to use the telxon and the battery would be missing!  (CHAD, EDDIE)  Or I would try to move the cart and it wouldn’t move because the wheels were zip-tied together….

Such great memories!  I have enjoyed reminiscing so much that this blog post turned into 3!  I have been sitting here typing, remembering and laughing……all great times that I will never forget.  Every Christmas I think of these guys when I hear the music that brings it all back.

Tune in tomorrow for part 2!