I Work at Spirit Halloween. It’s As Bloodcurdling As It Seems.
In What It’s Like, people tell us, well, what it’s like to have experiences many of us have not even imagined. In this entry, we spoke to Carol, a 20-year-old from California who is one of the many seasonal employees at the parasitic Halloween superstore Spirit Halloween. Spirit isn’t exactly known for being an awesome working environment; the company’s corresponding Reddit community overflows with the horror stories of seasonal work. So Carol reflected on both the highs and lows that come with working at Spirit—from horrifically overcrowded storage areas to stocking a million billion Barbie costumes. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
I don’t have any managerial experience. I’m only 20 years old. But when I interviewed at a Bay Area Spirit Halloween in August, the higher-ups told me that I’d be a good fit as an assistant manager for the store. That was really surprising because I’ve never even worked in retail before. I told them that I had spent some time as a camp counselor—apparently that made me manager material. They said I seemed “organized.” Who knows!
I started in September. It was my first time working for Spirit Halloween, and let me tell you, it’s definitely going to be my last.
If you’re unfamiliar with the store, it’s essentially a seasonal chain that pops up in vacant retail locations in the fall, and they sell a huge variety of Halloween costumes and decor. I’ll have this job until the end of October—when Halloween wraps up—and then everyone will be off to find more sustainable employment afterward. In practice, that means working at Spirit Halloween is a chaotic affair. Everyone in the building is on borrowed time.
I almost felt like quitting on my first day. In order to stock our store before opening day, the staff needed to haul in a ton of cardboard boxes—crammed with all sorts of plastic Halloween-y material; pumpkins, masks, and so on—to the storage area. So, me and the rest of the people on staff had to yank them out of the supply truck and shove them in the back room. It was a ton of labor, and given how many boxes there were, we had no hope of organizing our storage facility with any foresight. We stacked the boxes so high up that they almost seemed to tilt and sway in the air—think the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but with boxes filled with plastic skeletons. I’d honestly get scared that with one false move, they were going to topple over and crush me. Imagine getting buried under a ton of Halloween costumes!
A lot of people at Spirit have had similar experiences. I heard a rumor that another store in our area had to be shut down for the day after the safety inspectors noticed that those boxes were blocking off the emergency exits. It’s a lot of material. In my first two weeks at the store, when customers asked me if we had a certain costume in stock, I’d say, “I’ll check in the back for you.” And then I’d just stand in there without knowing what to do. There was, like, no room to look through anything. Nowhere to hang anything up. It’s just a mess back there.
I feel pretty short-staffed on most days. Spirit keeps a lot of employees on these four-hour shifts during the weeks before Halloween, before bumping everyone to a standard eight hours in the days before the big night. That means we’re often scrambling around the store. We’ll be stocking shelves, but there won’t be enough people on the floor talking to customers, checking them out at registers, and making sure they can find everything. But if we aren’t stocking, then we won’t have the costumes ready to go when we get super busy on the weekend. My location also isn’t outfitted with a fitting room, which means people are always trying on costumes in the middle of the aisles. That can make a real mess, as they leave cardboard and plastic all over the floor. Visitors also never put the costumes they don’t want back where they found them. A solid chunk of my work day is spent moving children’s Spider-Man suits out of the adult racks. Is it really that hard to show some courtesy?
Customers also tend to get pretty uppity when they make an order for pickup. I’ve had moms and dads show up, like, 30 minutes after buying a costume from the website, demanding to know why it’s not ready yet. I’m like, “Ma’am, did you receive an email saying your order was ready? Or is it still marked as pending?”
It’s one of the pitfalls of seasonal work. Spirit Halloween is only here for a few months of the year, and because of that, I think our patrons don’t have quite the same respect for the employees as they would at a Target or a Walmart. People really go feral when they walk in our doors.
I like my co-workers, though. A lot of them are younger than me, but they’re cool. I expect I’ll hang out with some of them after we get out of here. My manager is another story, though. I feel like she makes up arbitrary rules about how Spirit Halloween works all the time—stuff that seems contrary with store policy. But none of that matters now that we’re in the last week of the store’s existence. It’s not like I’m going to be adding this experience to my LinkedIn.
By the way, I should say Barbie is going to be a huge Halloween costume this year. I get asked about Barbie stuff more from our customers than any other costume. If you’re going as Barbie on the 31st, be prepared to be dealing with a ton of lookalikes.
I only have a few more shifts left at Spirit, at what should be the most hectic time, and honestly, I’m hopeful that they’ll be less stressful than the first two months. We’re about to pass the deadline for both returns and exchanges, which means we’ll no longer have customers bringing in skulls with chipped teeth, or ill-fitting Ken costumes, looking for store credit, ever again. I’m sure the last-minute shopping rush will be hell, but whatever, I can deal with that.
This job is way too stressful, man. I’m looking forward to seeing the back of this place. A few weeks ago, I actually started crying in front of my district manager because of how overwhelmed I felt. She told me that this will probably be the hardest job I’ll ever have. God, I hope she’s right.
Editor’s note: When reached for comment, a representative at Spirit Halloween issued the following statement: “Spirit Halloween hires over 40,000 seasonal employees annually, many of whom return to us year after year. Our flexible schedules appeal to the lifestyles of our seasonal workforce. As you can imagine, with over 1,500 temporary locations our track record of success has been built on organization, planning, and preparation while putting our employee safety first.”
