Tuesday 28 October 2014

Come back Derek....

A bead of sweat ran halfway down his forehead, pausing slightly at the last, great rift ordaining his twitching frown. Derek had been like this for days, the last days of October; the days he both looked forward to and hated the most. He’d considered another vocation, of course he had. The dehydration, above all else, plagued his thoughts, his home life. He thought of his wife and child, long since left on their annual Autumn get away (from Derek).

That was Derek last year, folks.

He was in charge of Christmas email sending here at Newsstand – it was his decision when it should be sent to potentially hundreds of thousands of Newsstand customers. For many years, he was THE man. Finger hovering over the send button for days on end – never missing that golden moment where weather, half terms, consumer optimism and an intangible whiff of Christmas forethought collided to create that wondrous retailer’s dream, the moment when the reader actually, vaguely appreciates a sales email.

This year, as Derek started displaying symptoms even early in October, we sent him packing…. he’s currently on a trip to see the Northern lights and Santa Claus in Scandinavia with his family. We told him it was far too early, but he wouldn’t listen.

Retailers up and down the country have their own fingers twitching away as we speak – in fact, this post was inspired (yes, OK, we hear you) by a magazine retailer who’s just caved in and sent theirs. We think they’ve bolted too soon, but we can appreciate the stressful times and, quite frankly, if they don’t have a man like Derek in their ranks, well, these things can happen.