there on the shop floor, talking to customers, selling, being part of it all.
The store itself has seen better days, it has barely any customers and the stock wouldn’t look out of place in a museum, but I still love the old place. That’s why I was so excited to get a job here two years ago – even if it was only in the stockroom. I thought I’d only be working there for a short while, until they saw my potential and moved me on to the shop floor. But that still hasn’t happened. At least it hasn’t until today . . .
I glance up at the clock on the front of the store. It’s still only six thirty. I chain up my bike in the parking bay and find I can’t tear my eyes away from the store façade. Hardy’s is a beautiful four-storey Edwardian building with warm sandstone bricks that sit above the modern glass-fronted ground floor. Beautiful arched baroque windows line the entire first floor like a dozen eyes peering down on the street. Above them, thin rectangular windows are poised like eyelashes to flutter at passers-by. The rooftop silhouette is dominated by ornate columned balconies and a central domed tower, which is now lightly covered in a layer of snow. At the front of this tower is a clock that has been telling the time to passing Londoners for a hundred years. But looking at it now, the hands seem to stay perfectly still, like they’re frozen in time. Even the windows seem to stare blankly back at me. It’s as if the store is in a deep sleep.
It might be the 1 December but you wouldn’t know it here at Hardy’s. It’s supposed to be the busiest shopping period of the year, but each day the store is like a ghost town. And to make matters worse, the board of directors has decided to go minimal on the decorations this year. So they’ve got rid of Hardy’s traditional, crowd-pleasing fifty-foot-high Norwegian spruce, which has stood next to the central staircase, dripping with decorations and proudly guarding its bounty of beautifully wrapped gift boxes each December for decades. Instead, in a fit of frugality, Rupert Hardy, the fourth generation Hardy family member to manage the store, suggested that we make use of the two dozen tacky silver artificial Christmas trees that his father, Sebastian, had bought back in the 1980s but never used. Rupert said that they are a nod to the new, trendy ‘Christmas minimalism’, but we all know that it’s just a money-saving measure. But at what cost? I feel like asking. No one wants to shop at a place that is devoid of Christmas spirit. And customers only have to see the sorrowful-looking windows to conclude that Hardy’s is severely lacking in yuletide cheer.
I sigh as I look at the spray-on snow framing the dozen small, sad trees, which are apparently meant to symbolize the Twelve Days of Christmas, three in each of the four big store windows. They look pathetic. And now the real snow that has settled on the pavements this morning is illuminating the sorry state of our halfhearted Christmas windows even more.
I walk into the staff entrance at the side of the building, swiping my card and smiling at Felix, the security guard, who is, as ever, utterly occupied by his Sudoku. Along the corridor, I pass the staff noticeboards featuring details of the latest ‘Employee of the Month’. This month it’s my good friend Carly. I’m really happy for her; she deserves it. She does a great job in the personal shopping department, with her gift for finding the right style for anyone, no matter what their size, shape, personality – or even proclivity. (She once had a pre-op transgender client who, after two hours with Carly, walked out of Hardy’s looking like he no longer needed an operation. Amazing.) She says she’s like a matchmaker, except with customers and clothes.
I can’t pretend, though, that I’m not disappointed that it wasn’t my turn to be given the accolade. I’ve never been awarded Employee of the Month, whereas Carly’s received it twice in
The store itself has seen better days, it has barely any customers and the stock wouldn’t look out of place in a museum, but I still love the old place. That’s why I was so excited to get a job here two years ago – even if it was only in the stockroom. I thought I’d only be working there for a short while, until they saw my potential and moved me on to the shop floor. But that still hasn’t happened. At least it hasn’t until today . . .
I glance up at the clock on the front of the store. It’s still only six thirty. I chain up my bike in the parking bay and find I can’t tear my eyes away from the store façade. Hardy’s is a beautiful four-storey Edwardian building with warm sandstone bricks that sit above the modern glass-fronted ground floor. Beautiful arched baroque windows line the entire first floor like a dozen eyes peering down on the street. Above them, thin rectangular windows are poised like eyelashes to flutter at passers-by. The rooftop silhouette is dominated by ornate columned balconies and a central domed tower, which is now lightly covered in a layer of snow. At the front of this tower is a clock that has been telling the time to passing Londoners for a hundred years. But looking at it now, the hands seem to stay perfectly still, like they’re frozen in time. Even the windows seem to stare blankly back at me. It’s as if the store is in a deep sleep.
It might be the 1 December but you wouldn’t know it here at Hardy’s. It’s supposed to be the busiest shopping period of the year, but each day the store is like a ghost town. And to make matters worse, the board of directors has decided to go minimal on the decorations this year. So they’ve got rid of Hardy’s traditional, crowd-pleasing fifty-foot-high Norwegian spruce, which has stood next to the central staircase, dripping with decorations and proudly guarding its bounty of beautifully wrapped gift boxes each December for decades. Instead, in a fit of frugality, Rupert Hardy, the fourth generation Hardy family member to manage the store, suggested that we make use of the two dozen tacky silver artificial Christmas trees that his father, Sebastian, had bought back in the 1980s but never used. Rupert said that they are a nod to the new, trendy ‘Christmas minimalism’, but we all know that it’s just a money-saving measure. But at what cost? I feel like asking. No one wants to shop at a place that is devoid of Christmas spirit. And customers only have to see the sorrowful-looking windows to conclude that Hardy’s is severely lacking in yuletide cheer.
I sigh as I look at the spray-on snow framing the dozen small, sad trees, which are apparently meant to symbolize the Twelve Days of Christmas, three in each of the four big store windows. They look pathetic. And now the real snow that has settled on the pavements this morning is illuminating the sorry state of our halfhearted Christmas windows even more.
I walk into the staff entrance at the side of the building, swiping my card and smiling at Felix, the security guard, who is, as ever, utterly occupied by his Sudoku. Along the corridor, I pass the staff noticeboards featuring details of the latest ‘Employee of the Month’. This month it’s my good friend Carly. I’m really happy for her; she deserves it. She does a great job in the personal shopping department, with her gift for finding the right style for anyone, no matter what their size, shape, personality – or even proclivity. (She once had a pre-op transgender client who, after two hours with Carly, walked out of Hardy’s looking like he no longer needed an operation. Amazing.) She says she’s like a matchmaker, except with customers and clothes.
I can’t pretend, though, that I’m not disappointed that it wasn’t my turn to be given the accolade. I’ve never been awarded Employee of the Month, whereas Carly’s received it twice in
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