In retail, as always, the holiday season is crazy, but on this occasion it was 3 times crazier than usual, customers everywhere – stocking up due to a COVID outbreak – the very same COVID outbreak that caused our stores to be severely under resourced with staff. In the head office a small group of us dedicated ourselves to working many hours to try to backfill the major staff shortages, and while we couldn’t fix everything we did a pretty good job at helping the stores out. Due to the abundance of customers the business had a record month and turned over an additional $1million. Thankful of the effort the CEO sent gift baskets to all store staff to thank them for their hard work. When it was suggested that the team in the head office that worked long and stressful extra hours to help the stores with their staffing should perhaps also get a thank you gift the CEO agreed and dutifully arranged for his secretary to give each head office staff member 4 fifty cent chocolates each to thank them for their efforts.