Typical Day
Pinky Sugarbells wakes up at 6:00AM and slams a hand violently onto her alarm clock. If she wakes up to "Frosty the Snowman" one more time, she may go ballistic.
Besides the song being annoying, she knows the guy personally, and that lazy bum is anything but "alive as he could be."
After a quick shower, she pulls on her striped socks, green frock, and curly shoes. She's been pushing for the Workshop to adopt Casual Fridays for months now, but nooooo. "Everything has to be uniform." Corporate baloney. Bah humbug.
Next, it's downstairs (via candy cane pole) for a quick bite on her way out the door. She doesn't have time to fix herelf a proper breakfast of spaghetti and mini-marshmallows with maple syrup, so instead she just grabs a boiled custard bar for the road.
Pinky's bobsled pulls up outside the Workshop and she briefly gets into it with Twinkle McJingles over a parking space. Once that's sorted out, she clocks in (more corporate baloney) and starts her workday.
For the first few hours, she's assigned to sewing arms onto Leslie Leper dolls. They have to be attached in such a way that they'll fall off precisely three days after purchase. It's a delicate job, and requires some definite skill, so it's truly an honor that she's been selected to be on this team. On the downside, it means she's going to be working alongside Cupcake Sprinklepants, who's always had it in for her.
"You're doing it wrong," says Cupcake, looking over Pinky's shoulder.
"I'm doing it perfectly fine," says Pinky. "Mind your own business."
"No...no, you're not. The arm is supposed to separate under the armpit. The way you're doing it, it's going to come loose from the top. What are you trying to do—scare kids?"
"Okay, so I did one that way. You're...throwing me off. Don't hover like that."
"If you did things the right way, I wouldn't have to hover."
Grrrr. Pinky could say more—much, much more—but she can't handle another week on disciplinary leave.
When the noon jingle bell rings, Pinky and all of her co-workers break for cookies and hot cocoa in the Workshop cafeteria. Pinky can hear several other elves talking about her so-called "attitude" behind her back in the cafeteria line, but she's used it by now. She's there to get her work done and to do it well, not to make friends.
With the afternoon comes wrapping duty. Not every elf is entrusted to work in this department either—the skillsets of toy-making and seamless-gift-wrapping don't always intersect. But Pinky's a whiz with a pair of scissors and a roll of Scotch tape. And she's got Santa's handwriting down pat, so none of her gift tags could ever be mistaken for forgeries.
Midway through the afternoon, Santa puts a temporary halt to production and calls for everyone to assemble in the conference room for a brief meeting. Ugh. Pinky can't stand this type of bureaucratic nonsense. Can't he just leave her to her sewing and hammering, and not waste precious minutes of every day by building everyone up with useless pep talks?
Sure enough, Santa zips through a PowerPoint presentation that he put together himself (bless his heart, technology isn't his strong suit), showing all sorts of encouraging graphs and charts designed to build up the elves' elf-esteem, make them feel better about the job they're doing, and all that mushy garbage.
After the meeting, Pinky gets back to wrapping for the remainder of the day—the pile of presents never seems to get any smaller (physics doesn't work in quite the same way up at the Pole). She doesn't clock out until 7:00PM. She doesn't earn time-and-a-half for the overtime, but despite her issues with the 'Shop, it's just not in her to do anything half-wrapped.