Nothing puts the month into perspective like making the store’s schedule through Christmas Eve.
The schedule, at least two weeks out, isn’t set in stone. It’s a kind of guestimate, an ideal for how I want to schedule the store. There’s every possibility that the schedule for the week beginning the 18th will need some revision–the company usually mandates which day in the week before Christmas store managers may take off. I assume Tuesday of that week is fine, but the company might mandate Monday the 19th instead.
It’s going to be a worrisome month. The lack of XBox 360 hardware, obviously. The company’s schizophrenia over payroll budgets for this month–spend more! spend less! spend more! spend less! I’ve felt for a long time that every Christmas gets a little easier than the one before, and certainly this season shows few signs of the overwhelming panic of years past. No, this December will be worrisome, even odd, but in the end I feel that it’s going to be a good month, even if sales may be somewhat softer than the company might care for.
I said on a conference call on Monday that this week, the week after Thanksgiving, is the slowest week of the holiday season. Traditionally, it always has been. And if someone can’t get the routine tasks done this week, he won’t get them done the next three weeks. Looking at the schedule, though, at least the way I’ve set it up, I see no difficulties in getting the important things done.
Still, this will be an odd month. I can feel it already.