Random Moments and Pictures

We celebrate all store staff members birthdays with cake. Any excuse for cake works around here, so we do our very best not to forget anyone! Even though we all get along great and laugh and joke on a daily basis, cake eating becomes extremely awkward. We all stand quietly in a circle in the spare office,  and comment only occasionally on the quality of the cake. This awkwardness extends to all other slightly formal occasions, such as staff baby showers, holiday gift exchange, and summer staff parties (during the day, not the after party). Why is this?

We have a love of themes and costumes; here at HHL any time a costume may or may not be appropriate we fully embrace the opportunity. We talk about the upcoming event for weeks in advance, thoroughly excited. When the day arrives and we walk into the store, and are so amused to see each others outfits. These events include, but are not limited to the following: ugly holiday sweaters, Halloween, themed customer events, as well as posing casually with a 9’ deck umbrella as if that was the normal thing to do, trying on an extra small child’s life jacket, and wearing obnoxious balloon hats during the biggest sale of the year. We are also extremely thrilled to see our customer’s reaction, or them oddly not reacting. It is very rare to have anyone coming into the store comment or even acknowledge the fact we are being silly!

Sometimes, our evening shifts can drag on! Friday night shifts until 9pm on occasion can include some strange behavior. One of my most memorable moments was a harmless game of hide and go seek, the store provides some interesting hiding spots, the unfortunate thing is once you are hidden and a customer comes in you either need to stay put or somehow reappear on to the scene to help out. I once had to escape the bottom of a 5 burner Vermont castings BBQ! I may have possibly come out and made a comment of getting those hard to reach cleaning spots. Don’t worry bosses; this isn’t a regular occurrence, although we have all stayed late to play a few times, next time you should join us!

So the moral of the story is, if you see us casually dressed as something unusual, cleaning those hard to reach places, or anything else that seems out of the ordinary it will not offend us if you to comment on it! Mind you, if only one of us is wearing an “ugly sweater” and not the whole group, you may have just caught us on an off day!!

See you all soon

Liana vandenHof-Rhodenizer