Merry Christmas, Mr. Hendershott

There are many phrases that customer service workers repeat throughout their workdays, such as “How may I help you today?”, “Did you find everything you needed”, or “The fuck you want!?”. But there’s one phrase some customers wish they’d hear more often….

“I’m sick of these stores pushing their woke agenda,” says Dale Hendershott. “They’re telling their staff to stop wishing us a merry Christmas! Could you believe that? Saying ‘Merry Christmas’ should not be a crime!”

Hendershott, who in addition to being a yuletide platitude enthusiast is also a former D- history student, informs us that retailers are violating the “literal text” of the first amendment by not forcing service workers to wish him a merry Christmas during each and every interaction.

“And ‘Happy Holidays'?" continues Hendershott. “Might as well be saying ‘Hopping Horseshit’! You’re hoping that I enjoy the commemoration of the birth of our savior, not telling an Englishman to enjoy his vacation!”

Sadly, Hendershott is not alone in his campaign to be constantly wished a merry Christmas by customer service workers. In fact, there is a vast and flourishing community on Facebook Groups dedicated to the phenomenon.

One user of the group Broken Not Woken complains “I already paid $8 for a regular old coffee at Bean Bags, how much more do I need to cram in these soy-peddling heathens’ tip cups to warrant a merry Christmas!?!”. Another from a group called The Christmas Crusaders says “If there gonna keep slapping us in the face with a rainbow colored sawsage every pride month then they could at least keep the wholiest time of year holy!”. One poster from Whatever Happened to Service with a Smile? states “If this new generation spent halve as much time wishing us merry chrissmas as they do criing about how they cant pay rent theyd be million airs by know!”.

Questionable logic and atrocious grammar aside, the Facebook cranks make a good point: Why aren’t customer service workers allowed to say “Merry Christmas” anymore?

For answers, we joined Dale Hendershott at big-box retailer All-In-One in Tacoma, WA.

“I was here just last week,” says Hendershott. “I talked to at least four different employees and spent a good $250 on fishing gear and snacks for fishing and not once did I hear a single ‘Merry Christmas’!”

Hendershott informs us that store management, most likely at the behest of the corporate office, has instructed all employees at this location to stop saying the phrase as it could “offend the namby-pamby foreigners and non-Christians who want to ruin everything because they hate Jesus and America”.

“It’s ridiculous,” says Hendershott. “I remember coming here and being told to have a ‘Merry Christmas’ six times when I was only even here to drop one in the can. But that was before the woke mob took over with their war on Christmas. Now it’s just sad in here. Look around, you hardly see any Christmas stuff out at all!”

We approach one All-In-One employee whose nametag reads “Jacob” for more information.

“Hi, can I help you find anything today?” asks Jacob.

Hendershott laments that Jacob should’ve said “How may I wish you a merry Christmas today?”. Luckily, he’s soon distracted by another worker wearing a pronoun pin, giving us the opportunity to ask Jacob about the store’s anti-Christmas policies uninterrupted.

“I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about,” he informs us. “Nobody’s ever told us we’re not allowed to say ‘Merry Christmas’.”

We continue our interrogation, asking Jacob if he’s been instructed to keep his customer patter secular and if he’s allowed to acknowledge the holidays at all anymore.

“They really don’t get that specific with what we can and can’t say,” says Jacob. “If people aren’t saying one thing or another it’s not because there’s a rule against it, not unless we’re cursing or insulting someone. Now did you have an actual question or did you just come in here to ask me about some cancel-culture stuff?”

Since Jacob has clearly been compromised by management, we turn our attention to another employee whose nametag designates as “April” and who goes by she/her pronouns apparently.

“Are you guys really here just to complain about the war on Christmas stuff again?” she asks. “Wow, imagine having real problems for a day.”

“Hey, I just talked to the manager,” says Jacob who had left and come back, “and he says there’s no such rule.”

“Not true,” interjects Dale Hendershott even though we asked him to stop doing that, “it’s totally a rule.”

“This guy with you?” says April. “You should know he got banned from this store last June for filming himself knocking down our Pride merch table. He’s the reason we’re not allowed to display that stuff prominently anymore. You should both go before we call Loss Prevention.”

While it seems the staff are in on the cover-up of Christmas cheer, we got even less information out of Frederick Davis, the sales manager on duty.

“No, there is absolutely no policy in place barring our employees from saying ‘Merry Christmas’ or any other inoffensive greeting,” says Davis. “Now I’d prefer for you to leave now without further incident, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Well, we’ve clearly hit a dead end here at the Tacoma All-In-One as the entire staff, including management, either don’t know why they’ve been banned from saying “Merry Christmas” or refuse to tell us. Either way, like many before us (according to the Facebook groups on the subject), we have been silenced by the woke retail industry. Perhaps we will never know why Hendershott and his ilk have been stripped of their right to be told “Merry Christmas”. We only hope they can learn to shop without losing too much of that warm, fuzzy yuletide happiness in the process.

“I swear, these people get stupider every year,” we hear April say to Jacob as we walk off. “And is nobody going to acknowledge that it’s the middle of the friggin’ summer right now!?”

Nonetheless, we here at The Serving Times would like to take this opportunity to wish all our readers a very merry Christmas and ask that you stay hydrated and limit your sun exposure as this summer promises to be a hot one!