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.
