Checkout tills are ringing, gifts are being wrapped, turkeys are on their way from the slaughterhouse, airports are creaking under the strain and delivery vans are hitting the roads. With extra pressure to deliver in the run-up to the holidays, workers are putting in long hours to meet the demands and Christmas wishes of millions of people.
So how are these unsung, hard-working heroes coping while they make the festivities happen for the rest of us? Here, five people in very different jobs reveal what their job is like over the Christmas period.
Gift wrapper, Amazon
Normally, I work 40 hours a week, but at this time of year I can be asked to work up to 60 hours a week. I get up at 5am in order to get into work at 7.30am, and I’ll leave at 6pm. It’s a tiring job, for sure, and, at Christmas, you have to pick up the pace. What I look forward to most when I get home after my shift is getting into bed and watching a film. Having friends at work gets me through it, though, and the overtime definitely helps pay for my own Christmas. It means I am able to afford the presents I want to give my own family, and treat myself as well.
I wrap 33 gifts an hour on average: nearly 2,000 a week at Christmas time. Ginormous kids’ toys and footballs are the worst to wrap. They can be fiddly and hard to put into the gift bags. I sometimes think of myself as an elf. It’s rewarding knowing I’m helping people who are too busy to wrap their own presents, and a couple of the gift messages I’ve seen have been really sweet.
I’m very good at wrapping now, which is the best thing about this job. I’m so efficient, I wrap all my family’s Christmas presents at home, even the ones my relatives buy each other.
Cabin crew worker, budget airline
We never know whether we’ll be working over Christmas until six weeks before. We get given a roster then, and we just work whenever we are told to. We have no choice about the days. I’ve been working at this particular airline for many years and I’ve worked either Christmas Day or New Year’s Day, or both, each year.
I find passengers tend to be more stressed, and more demanding than usual on Christmas Day, in particular. They also tend to drink more. It means you barely get a break. Last year we were run off our feet. Call bells were going off left, right and centre. I was on my feet for nine hours. I was so exhausted when I arrived home, I never ate my own Christmas dinner, I just went to bed.
This year I’ve got Christmas Day off. There are people who would pay a lot of money to swap shifts with me but I’m keeping quiet about it. I feel so fortunate that I can spend Christmas with my family.
Till and customer service worker, major supermarket chain
I’ve been working in this supermarket for 10 years. You often get verbal abuse from customers at Christmas. I’d probably say three times a day, on average, someone will shout at you or be a bit abusive at this time of year. Everyone’s under pressure, and sometimes the present or food they want simply isn’t available. Then they will say things to you like “You’ve ruined my son’s Christmas”, because a particular toy isn’t in stock. Last year it was Hatchimals. It does make you feel rubbish. I know the stock in the shop is not my responsibility but I still feel guilty. But you get yourself used to it.
I sometimes think customers think we are robots, when in fact we’re constantly having to make decisions and are multitasking for nine hours a day. An appreciative word makes a big difference. The week before Christmas is exhausting. We’re open 24 hours and it’s crazily busy – you often see queues even at 2am. There’s a constant flow of people. When I come home, only one word can describe how I feel: busted.
Turkey farmer
I run a small organic farm in Dorset and earn less than £20,000 a year. I rear sheep, cattle, pigs and chickens, but it is selling turkey and geese at Christmas that keeps the farm going. I make 20% of my profits from my Christmas trade. In December I typically start work at 7am and won’t finish until 10pm, seven days a week. Sometimes I stay up till midnight doing admin. I must work nearly 110 hours a week.
As well as feeding, watering and caring for my animals, I take them to slaughter and sell my meat at the farmers’ markets and directly to customers online. I basically do everything myself. I’m 51 and it’s often extremely hard work, physically, particularly at this time of year when the weather gets worse. And it’s relentless. You have so much to do in a very limited amount of time, it feels very intense – people are relying on me for their Christmas dinner. There’s a lot of pressure and responsibility.
It’s only at 6pm on Christmas Eve, after I’ve checked that everyone’s got what they are supposed to have and everything is fine, that I can finally relax. When I sit down to my own Christmas meal, I know my family and I will definitely appreciate how much effort and energy has gone into providing the food we eat.
Parcel delivery driver
I deliver around 250 parcels a day at this time of year and have been working for the last 21 days straight, without a day off. It’s exhausting. I’ve done the same route for the past six years, but at Christmas time I deliver to people who do not usually order stuff online. Their expectations can be unrealistic.
I’ve had text messages from people who weren’t in when I tried to deliver their parcel, asking me to deliver it to them at 6am or 11pm. People also text me expectantly saying, “I need this today, come back out and redeliver it now I’m home”, as if they are the only people you’re delivering to – and not just one of the 250 addresses you need to visit that day. It’s stressful. You’re aware the orders you’re delivering are very time sensitive and people can get annoyed more easily.
I only get paid for the parcels I deliver and, at this time of year the lorries are constantly late delivering parcels to the depot, which means I spend a lot of time in the morning waiting around, unpaid. Sometimes the technology I need to plan my route doesn’t work properly, which makes it difficult to load the parcels into my van in the right order. It can be very frustrating.
But I do get some lovely customers as well, and sometimes tips at this time of year. I’ve cried when I’ve been given a tip – it was a box of Celebrations – because it just really makes you feel like people appreciate that you’ve worked tirelessly all year. Anybody who goes out of their way to make a delivery van driver feel special, let me tell you: it’s 100% worth it.
