Job Loss at Santa's

The conveyor was going full tilt, and I was having a hard time keeping up with it. Surprisingly, I was sweating, even though the temperature at the plant averages twelve degrees Fahrenheit.

Joey was running the machine, turning up the speed to the redline. He's always trying to get a promotion, so he is quite the taskmaster. Gotta hand it to him though, he works his ornaments off, and I do hope he gets recognized for it someday.

We were all working harder, and all of us were seeing fewer cookies in our stockings. It was getting to be impossible to support a family of reindeer, who were only employed for one day a year.

Competing with low cost high quality goods from the Asian market had decreased the demand for "heartfelt" handmade items to countries like Belgium, Yugoslavia, Switzerland and the like. Our plant became automated three years ago, and the "heartfelt" in our heartfelt handmade toys had become more cookie cutter than handmade, but we still tried to add that magic touch we were famous for.

Santa himself was wearing thin, and I do mean thin. He's nervous. Our market keeps shrinking, even though he has tried to expand our line, and improve our productivity.

The line suddenly stopped.

"We need some more cow catchers, I'm going over to Mike to see what the hold up is." Joey called over his shoulder as he headed over to the other side of the plant. "Go ahead and take five." Joey added, lifting up his cocoa mug as a tip for me to get my refill while I could.

Darlin' was chunking ice into the cocoa maker. "It'll just be a minute, Hun."

Darlin' was a recent addition to our team from our southern plant. It had already shut down and Santa was hard pressed trying to keep as many of them on our team as he could.

"So Sugar, did you hear the latest? Rumor has it that someone today will have to be let go. And maybe another the week after that. Then who knows, the season will be over, so the pink slips will fly."

"Are they going on seniority or production?" The sweat from working the line was now chilling me.

"I heard it was production, but you know Santa has his favorites." Darlin' slammed the lid down on the cocoa machine. "What is this world going to be with bunches of unemployed renegade elves let loose on the world wreakin' havoc?"

The red light came on signaling the cocoa was ready to dispense. I didn't even want to think about what Darlin was contemplating, she was rather dramatic in my opinion, and I needed to get back to the line, so I wouldn't look like I was slacking.

I shrugged at Darlin' and filled my mug. I made my way back to the line, and saw the looks from elves at the other stations. Every station was running full out, not so efficiently, the high speeds were causing the machines to malfunction and I could hear the quality control squads on the other side of the plant giving one of the stations instructions to slow it down.

Waiting. Waiting for Joey. Come on Joey... let's get going. Then the whole plant stopped. Every machine, every conversation, the copy machine, everything. We all looked to the offices upstairs, and saw Santa's figure through the glass.

He came down the stairs, hat in his hand. "You know folks, I can't think a proper way to let one of ours go. There is no right way. We are at the point where our operation costs are out of control, and to simply try to hang on so at least some of us have a job to show up at each day, some of our team is going to have to sacrifice for the good of us all." Large blue bags under Santa's eyes revealed his physical state was declining in response to the stress.

"Which ever one of us has to leave our team today will not be forgotten, and as soon as we can get back on our feet it will be our priority to work to reunite our family of employees. In my hat I have the names of all us here, we are simply going to have to draw a name from the hat. I'm not going to sugar coat this, because soon we will have to use this hat again and draw another name unless things get better."

Everyone stood frozen as Santa pulled the first name from the hat of doom. "Strawberry Shortcake".

Strawberry ran off to the restroom, and her friends ran after her. Santa rolled up his hat and went back upstairs without a word.

"Ha! I'll bet every candy cane I have in the bank there was only one name in that hat!" Darlin' announced to the gathering that had formed at the cocoa machine. "Old Mrs. Claus was gettin' sick and tired of lil' Strawberry distracting all you boys! Her only crime was bein' too cute!"

The crowd dispersed quickly, whispering among themselves as they headed back to their stations. With this information, Darlin' had just secured her position in the rank and file of the workers on the floor. She was the official "pot stirrer", whose authority and power can be amazingly effective, as any company with a "pot stirrer" knows.

"Let's just go Joey." Joey saw I was ready to fire the machine back up.

Joey loaded the cow catcher parts into the hopper for the wooden train engines, settled them to make sure they wouldn't jam and hit the button. The machine was so loud there was no chance of any further conversation. The other machines on the floor roared to life and did the same which was fine with us all. Busy busy, just think of work, a nice break from the ugly that had seized even our little family.

And that's how, even in the the most magical of companies, the sparkles fly and reveal not all that glitters is gold.