So feeding trolls is fun and all, if, big if, if the troll is amusing. Arguing with this one is just depressing all around. Well, maybe, CS is getting his/her jollies from it, but it sucks to be everyone else. I just hope s/he has a good flame-out planned.
I needed a new jogging watch and was out anyway so I stopped at the local mall this afternoon. It actually wasn’t that bad. A little bit more crowded and slow moving than usual, but I didn’t see anyone acting like a complete dick. Maybe its’ a good thing I avoided the “big box” stores.
Damn, Skippy, just when I though you were making some sense, you post that and show you did not even read the Op through if that is what you really think the Op was about.
Damn, Skippy, just when I though you were making some sense, you post that and show you did not even read the Op through if that is what **all ** you think the Op was about.
Speaking of twits, I hit Submit instead of Preview and screwed up my post.
Feeding the Black Friday frenzy, of course, are the breathless media reports of the teeming hordes braving the battling throngs, camping out for hours ahead of time in order to be first through the doors, and on, and on, and nauseatingly on, on every local TV news show today. And this after breathlessly reporting yesterday on the wild excitement among the shopping-mad masses anticipating the joys of the mercantile mania to come.
Meanwhile, in Iraq, Sunni people and mosques this day were attacked in revenge for the bloody mayhem inflicted in a Baghdad Shia stronghold yesterday. Six worshippers leaving their mosque were doused with kerosene and burned to death. This yawner of a news item wasn’t the six o’clock lead story, wasn’t even second to lengthy followup stories about an explosion in a town north of Boston that devastated a neighborhood (no deaths or serious injuries, mind you) the day before Thanksgiving. Nope, the Iraq story ran a distant third after the breathless reports on Black Friday, complete with interviews of bargain-crazed shoppers.
Black Friday is fucked up on so many levels – including calling it “BLACK Friday”. Used to be, that descriptor was reserved for things like stock market crashes that sent the country into a major depression. Now? Just another melodramatic moniker for a day of greed made god.
**CS ** has been here for 5 months, so **TPTB ** have yet to decide **CS ** is a troll. I do not have Troldar[sup]TM[/sup], so I assume I that while I might be feeding a troll, I might also be dealing with a cranky SOB that has had a shitty day and then comes to the SDMB and shits in the Pit.
You are probably right and if so I am being a grade ‘A’ feeder. I should also go crash; it is late here on East Coast.
Maybe it’s “Black Friday” because of all the people in mourning over the special deals that they missed because they didn’t show up early enough to be first in line.
Me – I slept in. I was perfectly happy to stay away from crowds and traffic.
I take your point, but it seems to me that using that term also trades on its historical use in the other context. The Wikipedia article on it offers the “in the black” theory first for the name, but also notes:
I daresay both usages have contributed to the term.
Anyway, I stayed out of the malls today, as any sane person would do. Of course, I stay out of them if at all possible in any case.
Me too. The first time that I bought something online I heard the angels singing. I knew that I would never have to buy a gift in a mall again for the rest of my life.
This poster shouldn’t be ragged on for whining like a teen, instead he should get a pat on the back for working on a “holiday.”
I work for a medium sized company which needs to operate 24/7/365. We hire a fair amount of college age kids. I now realize how hard it is to find good employees of that age who are actually willing to be “inconvenienced” to work. You should see the look on the faces of potential new hires when they are informed that part of the job is working on weekends and at least working on one, if not more than one major holiday when they first start out. If you find quality people that are willing to work difficult schedules, they are rare and valuable.
I blame the retail companies for this ridiculous Black Friday junk. I did go to one furniture store today at about 7:00pm because I read that they were having a huge sale. Much to my dismay, if I would have been there at 5:00am, I could have bought the chair I wanted for 25% off. Throughout the day, the percentage off the regular price went lower and lower. By the time I got there, the same dang chair was only 5% off. Bastards.
myskepticsight - Today I was fortunate enough to get an open parking space very close to where I normally park at around 2 PM (the day I force myself awake before 5 AM for a freaking shopping trip is the day I shoot myself), and the places I usually shop were only a little more crowded than usual.
I ended up at Circuit City waiting to pick up a VCR I’d just paid for. The counter woman, on the phone, assured me that it’d be quick. It wasn’t. She then picked up a second phone before finishing with the first caller (one of those insanely complicated problems that should never ever be forced on a bottom-rung clerk in a million years) to call inventory to get my purchase. Several minutes passed. She assured me again that it wouldn’t be long. She was clearly terrified that I was going to get irate and scream my head off at her.
I looked behind the counter. Everyone was busy, and the whole place was clearly understaffed.
VCR arrived. Transaction completed. Front-liner looks almost relieved to see me out.
Yell at her? Complain? Make a scene? Hell no. If anything, I wanted to give her a hug.
So count me in as a sympathizer. It never fails to strike me how unbelievably clueless some customers are. And how incredibly irate some of them get. (Seriously, getting into a screaming lather over things that are out of anyone’s control?) Overcommercialization is an unfortunate reality. Obnoxious behavior is unforgivable.
(Also, “Black” Friday? I can’t be the only person uncomfortable with that, can I?)
I went into a Circuit City today at around 11:00 AM, fully expecting the cheap SD memory cards (for my eventual Wii if Santa can find one) to be sold out, but I didn’t even bother finding them. I had my 21 month old with me (no stroller for the record) and there was no way I was fighting the crowds to get out of there with a purchase, even if they had the item I was looking for. I couldn’t believe it was still so crowded six hours after opening, especially because I assume the OMG HUGE DEALS were gone by then. Especially after coming from Ikea which was an uncommonly peaceful experience - seems like they were actually slower than normal. :eek:
When I was a student I worked at Harrods (top London store) during sales week. The floor manager warned us about the mob mentality of the wealthy shoppers who were crowded on the pavement outside.
When the doors opened, there was a massive rush, with people barging each other out of the way.
I was in the glass and china department and we had dozens of breakages as people fought over reductions.
This went on for hours … unbelievable.
As for Carol Stream :rolleyes: , obviously she would be rejected for any job.
No doubt her day starts when she rolls out of her filthy pile of rags on the street, snarls at passers-by and staggers drunkenly to the nearest McDonalds. Gazing enviously at the counter staff, who have skills she can only dream off, she heads for the dustbins at the back and rummages for a half-eaten burger.
Later she marches into the public library and uses her appalling body odour to force decent people off the computers so she can post to the SDMB.
Actually I must apologise for the above paragraph … to the homeless for comparing them to Carol Stream.
