Black Friday? BAH, HUMBUG!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’ve never understood the mindset of the Black Friday Collective, people lining up (like cattle, or dare I say it, Sheep, yes, I said it, and I’m not ashamed) hours in advance, or even the day before, to get the latest blinky/shiny/fuzzy/noisy piece of overmarketed crap, err… consumer fetish gear at discounted prices

Maybe it’s because I deal with the general public for eight hours a day, but I have NO desire to be anywhere NEAR the throngs of mindless, charging bovine-esque surge of mindless consumer-units, I HATE the general public, and the crass materialism of Black Friday (or any overpriced media-hyped consumer event, really)

To make matters worse, since I work in a retail environment, I have to listen to the sales staff get harrangued by these “good little consumer drones” while they drone on and on about the “deals” they’re getting, and complain that we don’t have any BF deals

On top of that, our vendor messed up our shipment, it was supposed to arrive Wednesday for the BF Hordes, but it never even got loaded on the truck, so it’s arriving midafternoon today, so in addition to not having “deals” available, we have to deal with low inventory levels to boot

but that’s an aside, the fact is, even if I wasn’t working retail, I’d STILL hate BF and the throngs of little consumerist drones

I’ve never shopped on BF, and I never will, every year I boycott the madness that is BF, I make a conscious effort to buy NOTHING (aside from lunch, or fuel, stuff I buy anyway) this day, it’s my little “Screw You” to the marketing drones

BAH, HUMBUG!, BF Go Away!

2

My remaining few shreds of sanity are worth far more than any mere monetary savings I might get by shopping on BF. There’s a chance that I will, at last, use my walking staff as an attitude adjustment staff on an especially deserving person.

3

I avoid these kind of sales. I have always had a fear of being trampled, like that poor guy at Wal-Mart today.

4

I might go out later this afternoon just to watch the mayhem. Nothing better than a large crowd of overstressed sheep to make me feel smug & superior. Not that I am smug or superior, I just like to feel that way. :slight_smile:

5

I do all of my shopping online and avoid stores that sell gifts from Thanksgiving until January. The one exception is that during the last week I go to our cute (but useless for real shopping) downtown and wander around listening to carolers and buy cards and wrapping paper. I’d never go out on Black Friday and I think that the whole thing is nuts. I doubt that the fact that someone was trampled and died this morning will do anything to slow the stampeding herds down.

6

Black Friday really affects certain businesses more than others. I wouldn’t want to go to Best Buy or WalMart today, but the places we went were just busy, not zoos. We went to a Toy store at 8 this morning (where we got interviewed by a Wash Post reporter), went a Game Stop, World Market and Target, all in the same couple of block area, then went and had some lunch and got home at 12, our Christmas shopping for 3 kids and some relatives done. Except for a couple of items, we are D.O.N.E. w00t! I can’t believe it!

7

And in the height of stupidity and “it’s all about ME”, now a worker is dead. People amaze me–and not in a goo way.

Walmartworkerkilledinrush
For what? A few bucks on a flat screen TV? They HAD to have that DVD player or digital camera THAT badly? Insane. A 35 year old man is not usually at risk for a"heart attack". I have to wonder what the autopsy will show.

8

Happy Buy Nothing Day!

9

I’ve gone shopping the day after Thanksgiving in years past, and it was both fun and successful. Our kids were little and we could find toys for really great prices. I would go with my mom and sister, or sometimes my husband. When we were getting cranky, tired, and hungry it was time for a nice breakfast or lunch. I don’t know - I never looked at it as anything other than what it was - a way to stretch our dollars a little further.

This year I decided not to do it. I sat down and plotted my ‘plan of attack’, but then realized that many of the things that were on that list were for our own use. Sure, the cookware set was a steal, but was I willing to get up at 5 am to go out and get it? We don’t need to get toys for the kids - the youngest will be 14 soon. I think that this year I’ll shop online for the most part.

I went back to bed this morning. I was upset to hear that someone died at a Walmart this morning. What is wrong with people?

10

I’ve never shopped on Black Friday, and probably never will. It is absolutely the worst day of the year for shopping and I can’t imagine why anyone would bother.

11

Just drove by our local walmart. (Boy do I hate the idea of “our”, “local”, & “walmart” appearing in the same sentence!!).

Anyhow, at 12:30 local time on Friady it was no more busy than on a typical Saturday at that time.

Maybe Black Friday will come to have a different meaning after 2008. One can only hope.

12

Now there’s a username-post combination I can enjoy :slight_smile:

I’ve only gone BF shopping once. We went to Best Buy and stood in line for at least an hour (don’t remember the exact time anymore) to buy Half-Life. Seeing how much fun the game was I can’t say that it was a bad decision. Of course, right after we went to a nearly deserted CompUSA…

And Buy Nothing Day makes me want to buy stuff.