Attack of the pint-sized over-caffineited choir kids!

The BBQ Pit
#1

Ugh.That’s what I hate the WORST about the holidays and Friday we were treated to them in spades.Not only did every school (or so it seemed)in the district come to sing at our mall,but they all had to practice RIGHT outside the front freaking door of my store where I couldn’t hear myself or the customers at the cashwrap. And to make matters even worse,post concert (which from what I could hear only consisted of like 4 songs, all of them Christmas,most choirs performing the same 4 songs) these little hoodlums were turned loose on the mall for the afternoon. So here come the over-caffeinated, overly-hyper hordes of choir kids, screaming at the top of their lungs,waving their little arms about and generally acting like uncivilized monkeys.

I will be sooooo glad when the holidays are over and I don’t have to deal with this for another year.:rolleyes:

IDBB

#2

The only way to realistically deal with them is by using a highly potent nerve-gas.

Call it “vegetable soup”.

Make sure it’s boiling too.

Then you can really scald the little motherfuckers

#3

LOL:D
IDBB

#4

And, of course, their moms didn’t give them any money to spend at your mall, so those adolescent assholes were just taking up valuable space and consuming the air there–for free!

OMG, you mean they actually sang, like, Christmas songs? At Christmastime? Those little bastards!

Maybe for next Christmas, you could explore a career opportunity in something besides Retail Sales–I understand that most state penitentiaries don’t allow choirs of uncivilized arm-waving monkeys to come in and deafen the prison guards with Christmas carols.

#5

You seriously need to have loads of kids DDG. Or visit my cousin.

Then you’ll really wish there was a place like this:

#6

I may be alone in this, but I’m glad to see that children are still being taught some old fashioned Christmas traditions (ala caroling). My grandson gave to me this weekend a paper chain made out of red and green construction paper. He made it with his own, two hands. When he began to screech “The First Day of Christmas…” in his first-grade voice, I had to reach for a hanky.

Did your Egg Nog curdle, IDBB?

#7

Christmas time - a season to spend time with the family, soaking up the warmth and cheer.

Looking at the cherubic little faces all around, I take time to reflect on the blessing of Children, that can melt an old, jaded heart.

Then they open their mouths, and I take time to reflect on the blessing of Homosexuality, that will prevent me from accidentally producing one.

#8

IDBB, your OP reminds me once again how much I like it where I am. Christmas in Japan is a time for you and and your SO to get a hotel room and boink like crazed weasels. The family stuff is left for New Year’s, and there are no songs for that.

Here we go a-wassailing, baby!

#9

Let me guess…you don’t have those maternal urges? :rolleyes:
I cry for the deceased equine, how it suffers after death. So much abuse…

#10

You seriously need to lurk more–I have three.

And they all sing.

#11

C’mon, DDG – surely you’ve seen what a pack of unsupervised kids can do to a place like a mall, or a park, or anyplace like that. Well-behaved children are a joy, and I can’t tell you how proud I am when someone remarks to me about how polite my kids are. But a group of children without proper supervision or guidance can be a glimpse into one of the upper levels of Hell.

#12

Sauron…three cheers! Wild packs of unsupervised kids is EXACTLY why some malls (according to yesterday’s Dallas Morning News anyway) are banning children under a certain age from roaming the mall unsupervised.
DDG–I LIKE retail…I just do not like some of the things that go along with working in a large mall situated in the middle of what I call Suburban Hell. LIke Sauron said…I do not mind well-behaved,SUPERVISED children. But when asshat soccer mommies (or worse…asshat school teachers/choral directors) turn loose 300 bratty kids in the mall where I work,I tend to get a little asshatty myself and start screaming things at them. My manager had to kick out probably a dozen of these kids for playing on the escalatorin the store and a security guard busted them for playing on the escalator right outside the door.

Is it any wonder I do not like children?

IDBB

#13

Maybe you should bring this up with Mall Management. They arrange the choirs. They are the ones that allow children to roam unsupervised. They are the ones looking at the revenue stream brought in by the little hoodlums (and their parents who they believe come listen to their children sing angelically). Perhaps a policy change is in order.

#14

Get a different job, or complain to Security.

#15

I have to side with DDG here. Christmas is a time for children and yes they can be bratty and over-hyper, but they’re CHILDREN. That’s their job. :slight_smile: I would love to be able to hear a concert by these children. They don’t tend to do that too much here. I’m not trying to say that you’re wrong to feel the way you do, but you may want to stop and think about the season before letting yourself get too annoyed. Just a thought.

Buliwyf

#16

So if you work in retail, you have to like all your customers or get a different job? Wow. I’m seriously in trouble. I don’t work in a mall, but I don’t like every single jackass that comes into my place of business. Guess I ought to look for other work where the only people that come in have been preapproved by me.

#17

Christmas may be for children (although I don’t agree with this sentiment), but rudeness knows no season. A mall is not a playground and children should not be allowed to treat it as such. In fact, no one should have to suffer the brattiness of uncontrolled youngsters, any more than you should have to put up with rowdy drunks.

My kid has sung in choruses since she was in 2nd grade, and she’s sung in the mall on several occasions. Her behavior after those concerts was the same as after their performances at the nursing home - no running, no yelling, no horseplay. Had she acted up, it would have been her last concert until she proved she could behave. Or is that an outrageous notion?

#18

Good point. Being honest, I don’t mind kids acting a little ditsy, so long as they don’t start acting hooliganish, swinging off the tables in restaurants or bashing on the windows as they run by stores. Everyone has to have limits - kids are no exception.

Mind if I have your bank details too (insert smiley here - no I won’t do it)?

#19

Uh, yeah. If you make the foolish choice to work in retail, you either have to accept that it is your responsibility to supervise large numbers of other people’s children who come galloping through your store, or you should call the mall’s three or four security guards, who I’m sure will cheerfully ride herd on 300 screaming brats.

But screw the misguided malcontents working in retail. I’m sure the mall’s other patrons enjoyed having hundreds of children running around unsupervised, too. Christmas isn’t a time of year when anybody gets stressed out or busy or anything, and having children bumping into you, knocking things down, getting in the way, and making a ton of noise certainly wouldn’t contribute to anybody’s stress level, would it? Oh, no, we are supposed to enjoy the exuberance of the lawless little ragamuffins because they’re kids and it’s Christmas.

I agree that maybe you should talk to the mall management and see who’s supposed to be looking after these kids. There might be children mature enough to handle themselves alone at the mall, or with a couple of friends, but when they start ranging hither and yon in large groups with no supervision, first of all they act like it’s the Lord of the freakin’ Flies, and second, they pose a problem from sheer numbers. One or two misbehaving kids you can handle, but when you’re overrun with them, they can get out of hand easily. And you know what that can lead to . . .

[sub]“Listen, not a year goes by, not a year, that I don’t hear about some escalator accident involving some bastard kid which could have easily been avoided had some parent–I don’t care which one–but some parent conditioned him to fear and respect that escalator!”[/sub]

p.s. Oh, and also if the moronic adults who are incapable of paying attention to their surroundings and/or confining their shopping cart and/or their personal bulk to half the aisle and/or actually moving out of the way without their fellow shoppers having to say “Excuse me,” five times, with increasing volume–Do you know who I’m talking about?–if they would also stay home, that would be nice, too.

(I’m soooo glad my holiday shopping is finally done.)

#20

oooooookay,
not working in retail, I guess I never really thought about it too much. That said I guess I’ll just stand over here and be quiet.

Buliwyf