Don't get me wrong, I love working at "the city." I get to blow up about 100 balloons a day, help plan a "Paw Patrol" birthday, a little girl's first birthday, and a retirement party, and clean the whole store while running around looking like a chicken with my head cut off. I think all of my coworkers and myself could say that there are thousands of pet peeves that only we Party City employees would and could experience.
1. Where do you work?
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"I work at Party City." "Oh, so you work at a party store? Like the ones that sell alcohol and stuff?" "No, it's like an actual party supply store, like with balloons and tablecloths..." I couldn't tell you how many times this has happened to me.
2. What's HiFloat?
HiFloat is the stuff that we put in latex balloons to make them last longer, this is something that we have to explain to every. single. customer. Even if they aren't buying any balloons.
3. Why is it so busy? It's the middle of June!
Yes, it also happens to be Grad Party season which means that we have 100 balloon orders to have filled that morning. Just wait till October...
4. "I need balloons."
This is the worst three words that anyone could say. It's equivalent to opening a can of worms. They could want balloons for today, tomorrow, three weeks from now, who knows. And they we go into what kind of balloons and all of the details about HiFloat, string color, bunches, balloon bags, and the list goes on.
5. You have so much stuff!
I know this already, I clean the store and know most of the products like the back of my hand. Also, having so many products is an advantage for the customers but not when they pick things up to look at them and put them four aisles away.
6. Halloween!
If I could pick what I wanted to be for Halloween, I would choose to not be a Party City employee, kidding of course. This is Black Friday of the year except it lasts for all 31 days of October.
7. "I don't know how you can stand listening to this all day."
Yup, our music is earplug worthy. Try a continuous station with the same 30 songs that sounds like Kidz Bop did covers of Kidz Bop with a dash of autotune and that's what I have to listen to during work. The only perk is that occasionally they will change up the songs and during Halloween and Christmas they change to seasonal songs.
8. "Do you have ____ I saw it online?"
"We don't... Unfortunately we don't carry all of the items in store that we do online." I think I say this about 20 times each shift and each customer will one of two responses: "I drove all the way out here and you don't have this?!?!" or "Okay...................." Neither of which are pleasant to deal with, but hey that's retail!
9. "I just grabbed them and put them in the basket."
Here goes five minutes of my life that I will never get back, again. I love our 15 for $1 candies, but when they have over 200 pieces and I have to count them all out by hand it gets annoying, if only we had a scale to weigh them out or something.
In all seriousness, I do love working at Party City!
