It’s the most wonderful time of the year, but for retail workers, it’s the most stressful time of the year.

The holiday madness usually starts around November, which is also the month of Black Friday.

Black Friday shows the ugly side of humanity. It might not be too crazy in the UK but in the US it’s like a battlefield.

Blackfridaydeathcount.com (yes, that’s a real website) reports that since 2006, there has been 125 injuries and 17 deaths. These figures are disturbing.

The Daily Star wrote about a Walmart employee called Jdimytai Damour, who was asked to use his body as a barrier for a crowd of over 2,000 people and as a result, was trampled to death. This should have been a wake up call.

While things might not be as crazy in the UK, they are still pretty grim. The British Retail Consortium reported that acts of violence and abuse against retail workers increases by 1,300 every day in the lead up to Christmas. The incidents included threats with weapons, physical assault and slurs. Even The Grinch had better Christmas spirit.

Retail workers are getting fed up. On the Reddit forum RetailHell, the question of whether customers are worse during the festive period was brought up.

The responses certainly didn’t hold back.

“Customers are absolutely worse during the holidays,” wrote one user. “They get snippy, they get even more impatient (somehow), they get pissed off that we’re out of something the day before the two biggest holidays of the entire year and they refuse to accept the fact that it’s their fault for waiting until the last minute.”

Another used agreed, commenting on how seriously a lot of people seem to take their Christmas shopping.

“Some people treat holiday shopping like a contact sport, in which they will only triumph with peak aggression,” said the user.

One user spoke about their own personal experience with nasty customers.

“I gave up on humanity around the time I got physically threatened because we only had the multipacks of wrapping paper left on Christmas Eve,” they said.

An online survey was also conducted on Typeform, where participants were asked about working in retail during Christmas.

When asked if they found working during Christmas more stressful, all nine of the participants said yes. Seven out of nine said they did not feel that they got time off and seven out of nine also said that felt like their work didn’t help with travel arrangements for getting in on days like Boxing Day.

Speaking of Boxing Day, the participants of the survey shared their thoughts on Boxing Day sales.

“I feel like sales really push people into over buying things they don’t really want or need,” said one participant.

“Think they’re just greedy”, said another. “They’re not needed at all.”

“Awful. Why are people there?” another participant agreed.

They survey also asked participants how they felt about the general public during Christmas.

“I get frustrated that that people are selfish and rude because they are stressed because they are over consuming and over stimulated but we keep upholding the same trends year after year,” said a participant.

Another participant ranted about how we seemed to have lost the true meaning of Christmas.

“They turn angry, nasty, stressed, uncontrollable emotions, everything is overwhelming and over dramatic.

“What Christmas now stands for is over consumerism and it’s a shame.

“People just care about making sure they have enough presents for everyone. But it’s not about that. It’s a religious holiday where family get together for a meal.

“But adults are fighting over gifts and stressing about their finances to provide their spectacular Christmas show of wealth and the more boxes under the tree, the better.” They stated.

One participant simply said:

“It makes me hate people.”

It seems like a lot of these impatient shoppers may find themselves on the shopping list.

Christmas Hell for retail workers