Ah, the Christmas season is such a wonderful time. This is the time of year when the average person goes out of the way to brighten the night by decorating with lights, to organize parties for friends, family, and co-workers, and to greet strangers in the street.

This is a season for happiness and the joy of giving, when everyone gives gifts as tokens of their love.

This is also the time when everyone is trying to determine what to give, getting really stressed and depressed about it, and taking it out on the people who have to sell them things. Retailers love Christmas.

Retail employers, on the other hand, do not.

It is truly amazing how hideous some fully mature adult members of the human species can be when dealing with people who are serving them. "They give the word "serve" an ugly connotation. These are the people who have heard the phrase "The customer is always right" a few too many times.

Some people, as they walk into a store (or any other service outlet), appear to feel the dynamic of interpersonal relationships mystically change. One can see it in their, hear it in their voices. They become very rude and self-centred, as if they have entered not a place where people are paid to sell things to the public, but a place where they are free to put down anyone they want, simply because they're the customer.

Some are even abusive in public and feel no remorse. On the contrary, they feel it is quite appropriate to abuse people. One would truly have no idea it's Christmas, judging by their behaviour.

Here is a real life example. A store employee phones a customer to tell her that her order will be delayed because the supplier is temporarily out of stock. The customer gets upset and blames and insults the employee. The woman obviously needs a hearing aid because such a situation is the fault of the supplier, not the store, nor the employee.

Examples like this are in endless supply and only get more frequent at this "merry" time of year, to the point that I've seen women crying because of the abuse they've taken from customers.

Walking through door of a retail store, you remain human. All of the other people in the store are human. The staff will make mistakes.

Other customers will make mistakes. You will make mistakes. Retail employs people who are trying to make ends meet. They are feeling souls who wan tot do their jobs right and they feel bad when they get it wrong. Chances are a customer won't know the first thing about the job anyway

The customer/staff relationship is still a human one.

Everyone's day will be a bit brighter if people just accept that they are not all-powerful and nothing in life is perfect. Not even retail stores.

Laughing with the staff who have erred instead of insulting them is more constructive and will save you from looking like an idiot.

The squeaky wheel may get the oil, but the wheel that can't get along with anybody has no friends, leads a dismal life, and is eventually just put out with the trash.