Holidays

Thanksgiving is a always viewed as a "second" to Christmas. The holiday is always tucked behind the back burner and shadowed by Christmas. Everyone just use Thanksgiving as a gauge on how the economy is doing. The news said that retailers took in $12.4 billion in sales on just Friday and Saturday. The first two days is a 6% increase over last year... however, selling on these 2 days don't mean a merry christmas all the way. The discounts helped fuel the good sales. It's the regular selling holiday season that will determine a good or bad year. We contributed to the $12.4 billion by buying a Christmas tree early this year. We finally picked out our first, fresh-cut Douglas Fir at Home Depot. It's exciting to decorate the tree and dress it with lights, ornaments, garland, etc while listening to a medley of Christmas carols. So, ok, it's only November, but with Christmas only 24 days away, we needed to maximize window display time....

So we are also in the midst of writing our annual reviews. After spending nearly 3 hours writing my 5-page merit review, I suddenly had a flashback of my college years. My review felt so much like my Poli-sci papers -- lots of fancy words, but no substance. I had very little to show and to prove that I did my job well this year. Most of the sales forecasting and numbers (as we call them) were given to me. Even if I had to spend hours analyzing data to come up with my stance of how sales would turn out, the numbers would be eventually edited and revised. Regardless of how the business did for the month, I had very little ownership of its success or failure. Therefore, given these circumstances, I was reluctant to honestly take any credit. I know that I didn't do well so I'm not too hopeful on how much raise I will be getting next year. I just know that it's a matter of time before I find another route to escape.