Black Friday Can Fuck Off

It’s threads like these that make me glad I (a) don’t work in retail, and (b) make a point of being pleasant to every customer-facing employee I deal with. Which is enlightened self-interest, of course; I hardly ever have a bad experience. Funny, innit, how treating someone like an equal rather than a servile drone smooths such transactions, eh?

Truth. Every once in a while, I’ll have a dream that I’m still working there, and I’ll wake up and feel relieved.

I’m not saying they’re horrible nightmares like people with PTSD have, of course. I hope you didn’t think that’s what I meant.

Ok, so more like the still in High School and need to take an exam you have not studied for type nightmare? My sisters both had those into their thirties. I think I had a few in my early twenties.

Jim

Exactly! Or you’re public, and you look down and you’re naked. That sort of thing.

I think it just goes to show how heavily it weighs on my mind.

Like so many things in law, the precise definitions of these terms vary from one jurisdiction to another. Not all states define them as you have; assault, in particular, varies widely in its usage, often including various forms of physical contact in addition to threatening behavior. See assault and battery.

Bless you, son.

I worked in retail when I was but a wee lass and it taught me lessons I will never forget. I make a concerted effort to be pleasant even if I’m in a distressing situation and to acknowledge employees instead of treating them like customer service robots. (Not that I was ever nasty before, but I saw first-hand how much a kind word and a smile can mean.)

People who work retail, especially during the holidays, go straight to heaven when they die. They’ve already had their hell on earth.

Can you please tell me a which of my non-Pit posts were “inappropriate in tone and placement”? I would like to learn how to be a better poster.

P.S. I am a she. The whole “I can’t tell if it’s a he or a she, 16 or 66”, thing is rude and snarky, don’t ya think?

Pardon, in Kansas you can file assault charges if they curse at you, from my understanding Is that better? If they clench their fists, and you feel threatened in Kansas, then it’s battery.

She meant skeptic. As in, skeptic didn’t come off as any particular age, and certainly not a whiny, angsty teenager.

* cough *

Guin, store like Kmart and Wal-Mart depress the hell out of me, even when they’re not frantically busy. I can’t help feeling like just another rat in a retail maze.

I’ve done the Black Friday shopping thing with my MIL and SILs a few times, and we mostly go for the fun of watching the crowds go nuts.

We know what we’re getting into. We know the parking lot will be full and we know that the lines will be long. So we’re cheery and giggly and enjoy a nice lunch with fruity alcoholic drinks when we’re done.

One year we got to Wal-Mart right when they were starting their 5am sale on DVDs and basketball hoops and such. There were huge pallets in the aisle and the clerks were standing in front of them, keeping everyone back. Then slash went the boxcutters as the plastic wrapping was cut, and it was a mob!

We stood back by the underwear and jeans watching. We saw other clerks ducking in the aisles to hide.

Watching the crowd can be fun. I don’t need anything that bad that I have to fight a crowd to get it, but it’s still fun hanging out with the MIL and SILs.

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It was down in Calgary, too - I barely squeaked out enough cash for my groceries at Safeway. I had no idea why the interac system was down - I assumed the extreme cold and/or recent snow had something to do with it.

I do all my Christmas shopping on the day after Thanksgiving. I’m one of the crazy getting up at 4:30.

However, I do this for the following reasons:

  1. I’m poor. My husband and I have a limited income, hence it behooves us to fill our ever-expanding Christmas list as inexpensively as possible. Like it or not, the sales that morning are the best. Since the vast majority of my shopping list is made up of people under age 10, gifts need to be given on or before Christmas, really.

  2. The majority of my gifts must be shipped out of state. In order for me to be sure they’ll get to their destination in time, I need them in the mail by the first week or so in December.

  3. I get the Friday after Thanksgiving off work. My Saturdays and Sundays are generally fairly booked, well in advance, particularly during this time of year.

  4. I hate shopping with a passion that cannot be denied.

  5. Shopping online is, in my case, either more expensive than shopping in person or less convenient. Yes, I don’t have to leave the house, but it results in presents trickling in a couple at a time to my house from online orders to be wrapped and stockpiled until all orders for a particular household have arrived, then reboxed and resent to their destination. You have to start this process generally before Halloween in order to be sure you can complete the process for timely delivery. If you have the presents wrapped and shipped direct, it costs extra - and costs extra for every present (generally 5 - 10 bucks). See point 1 above. Also, if you have it shipped direct, it results in the recipient getting a trickle of presents that may or may not be wrapped and correctly addressed. Also, some of my presents are intended for destinations that are not covered by many online ordering delivery systems.

In general, I find that if I set aside one day to get the whole freaking thing done, I can write up a list (generally making extensive use of the sales flyers) and get the whole damn mess over and done with (buying, wrapping, boxing, mailing) in a single day. I habitually pick Black Friday because it’s always a day off work for me, the freaking Post Office is open, the prices are generally at their lowest, and it’s temporally conveniently located such that presents mailed on or about Black Friday typically arrive at their destination during the late second week or early third week of December. Golden!

Of course, it sucks large to be out and about that day. The crowds are evil, the people are heinous, and the whole thing is exhausting. But then I’m done and I don’t have to worry about it again until next year.

I, personally, make it a point to be as calm and reasonable and polite as humanly possible to the salespeople at the stores though. Actually, this is my general policy and not specific to Black Friday shopping. This year it got me an extra 2.0 gig flash memory stick for 25 bucks, so there you go. The rewards of virtue.

As an aside, the crazier stores (Best Buy this year!) had policemen hanging around the entrance controlling the crowd. They lined people up in groups of 50 or so and let them in one group at a time - stopped letting people in round about 500 and started the “one in, one out” rule.

Indeed and it seems that the real trolls in this thread have turned into those who are ripping carolstream a new one. And CS is unperturbed and I agree with her assessment about someone in retail going waaa waa waaa on black friday. But if someone was to not concur and tell em to STFU this is the place. And apparantly it is ok to do that in this thread.

Granted the op was expected and turned out well for the season. Personally i prefer to shop late at nite online. :dubious:

Sorry, but I agree- this rant is misplaced. Why oh why do we get rants from retail drone complaining about the customers, instead of the *management * I don’t know.

Dude- it wasn’t the “asshole customers” that made you work 16 hours straight- it was management. It wasn’t the customers that decided to have such BIG SPECIAL PRICES- it was your own store management. It wasn’t the customers that decided to open early- it was Management.

I am tired of dudes whining about their customers- dudes who who owe their jobs to the customers who come in and spend their hard-earned money at their retail establishment. If the customer’s are complaining that you ran out of the big special deal early- then it’s not the customers fault- it’s *your companies * fault for not having enough of the item in stock. If they didn’t have nearly enough of a special sale item- that’s their fault- they fucked up. They shoudl have got more or not discounted it so heavily. If they really know they aren’t going to have enough, and the whole idea is to advertise a “loss leader” on something they only have a few of- that’s fraud in some states. Even putting “quanities are limited” doesn’t always help- they need to have enough to meet normally expected needs. If not, your employer was commiting consumer fraud in some juristictions. IANAL, YMMV. At best- it’s unethical to advertise an item that you know only a few will get, but you hope many more will come in and buy something else. And- it’s your management that’s being unethical, not the customers.

Look- Black Friday is a bad and horrible time to be working retail- I agree 100%. But blame the retailers who create and push the whole Black Friday thing, not *just * the customers who are just responding to it. Sure, some customers get “over the line”, but I think the target of this rant is misplaced- most of the blame here falls upon the store management, not the customers. Damn, dude, the customers were going through Hell with you- it’s the owners (who were sitting home, with a big glass of single malt and a cuban cigar, chuckling at the morons who succumbed to their blandishments, and their poor underpaid and overworked drones) who deserve your ire.

If as a retail sales drone, you start hating the customers- your life will be miserable. Get out now.

DrDeth do you agree though, that people can choose to behave with a modicum of courtesy and respect? The customers in the OP were not doing so. They employed verbal abuse/cursing against a retail drone. (And as I said earlier, they could have assault charges filed against them in Kansas.) They were in the wrong too. Pitting the people who engineer such fiascos is a whole 'nother thread I’d say.

The Best Buy where I was for Thanksgiving had a line around the side of the store at 8:30 on Thanksgiving night! I’ve never seen a line that early, and the store didn’t even open until 4 AM or maybe 5. My thepry is that the stories of people waiting in line for the PS3 and Wii were so fresh in everyone’s mind and they all wanted a piece of the crazy action.

For the record, I shopped on Black Friday, because, like Aangelica, I’m poor and there are some good bargains. The Bergners store has a $10 off any item over $10 coupon good from 5 AM to 1PM. I got a medium jar Colonial candle for one dollar and change. I may be poor, but my apartment smells like teakwood.

Blaming shoppers for making BF unpleasant is like blaming sharks for being attracted to blood in the water. If we’re looking for a culprit, look to corporate management – they’re the ones throwing the chum overboard.

I shop after the early sales are over on Black Friday. It’s a much better experience, and there’s usually still plenty of good sales, if not the Super Special Sales. I’m unfailingly friendly and courteous to both my fellow shoppers and the staff, and find most of the other shoppers to be more laid back, courteous, and friendly, too. I think the feeding frenzy/mob mentality of the early morning SSS’s are the bad part of the day.