Tomorrow is the dread Black Friday for those of us in the States. And so I’m giving my best wishes for those of you who have to man the cash registers and confront the shrieking hordes tomorrow. Having done it myself, I know how bad it can be. So good luck, guys and girls. Don’t let the bastards get you down.
I plan on doing my part to help all you retail dopers. I will refuse to set foot in any store all day Friday. And yes, good luck.
Christmas is the prison sentence of the retail clerk. Christmas is the karmic justice of the register girl/boy gone very, very wrong. I’ll never EVER do retail Christmas again!! I, too, wish you all the best.
And by the best, I mean:
no exposed genitalia, no grabbing of the ass or teat, no lame come-ons or lines, no completely pointless questions when THE sign that will answer the question is right there, no botched transactions because clueless customer can’t decide what they really want, no loss of register tape or printer ink during the Christmas shopping rush, no FUBAR returns that eat up an hour of your time and make the other people in line hate you when it’s the dumbass client’s fault!
In summary: I hope everything goes SMOOTHLY!!
May the lines go fast and the transactions go clean!
As a drone to the retail nightmare, I plan to try and control my anger, and not bring my bat to work this year. On the bright side I don’t have to be at work til 2pm. Which means I shall miss all the masses breaking through the door looking for good deals.
Besides, who wants to shop at 6am when you can sleep blissfully away, belly full of turkey? I’m not that cheap myself…
Cheap…
and EVIL!!!
I am doing the same. I plan to stay home and be one less idiot in the stores and on the roads. My shopping was done as of a week ago, barring some last minute purchases for myself (Pirates of the Caribbean!).
And Sanguine, I’d like the same for em, but I think miracles are beyond the scope of this thread.
My personal Christmas strategy is to wait until approximately 7 minutes before all the stores close on the 24th, and then make a mad rush through, hopefully grabbing a few items that will vaguely resemble gifts.
I won’t be shopping tomorrow either…I’ll be at work myself. (Not that I would shop even if I were off; the only thing I hate more than crowds is…hmmm, gimme a while cuz I can’t think of anything at the moment that I hate more.)
But at least I’ll be relatively safe behind the bar; people are not nearly as rude to bartenders as they are to sales clerks. (Having been both, I can say this unequivocally.) And if they try, unlike the sales clerk, I can tell 'em where to go.
However, in the spirit of unity with all of us, I have steadfastly boycotted Garden Ridge ever since I found out about that horrendous sale of theirs where they’re open from 9 a.m. Thanksgiving day til sometime on Sunday. That’s cruel and unusual punishment for anyone unfortunate enough to work there, and I refuse to give 'em a red cent for it.
I mean, what if you really need a job so you get one at Garden Ridge, and then you end up working the freakin’ graveyard shift on Thanksgiving night? It’s one thing to have to work on holidays…I worked today myself…but at least I wasn’t forced to keep hours that are totally bizarre to me, selling pipe cleaners at four in the morning!
Sheesh.
Ditto on the good luck, Retail Dopers.
I’ll have a drink for you all tomorrow. 
Die by orange-sticker asphyxiation!
Thank you for the good wishes. Now begins the season of, “Do you think this will fit my wife?” and “Find me something that my daughter will like”. Also relentless bargaining and endless mess.
I can’t wait for mid-January.
Oh, can I say how much I love those? Especially when they shoot down every suggestion you make.
“Find me something that my daughter will like”…
I could write something here that would shock the CRAP outta that kind of clueless customer but I really doubt they’d enter a porn store with the intention of buying said daughter a gift… but I just may do it anyway and be labeled a freak.
No, I wanna keep my rep here on the boards as clean and proper so I’ll pass up this golden opportunity.
“Here’s Playgirl. Your daughter will dig it!”
And their wives/daughters come in on Boxing Day to say “I can’t believe you told him I was a size (24)(1)(12)(whatever)! And I hate this store! Why did he get me something here?!”
I suppose I’m lucky, being up in Canada. No “Black Friday” here. The Christmas decorations go up right after Halloween and the shopping rate slowly increases all the way up to Christmas Eve. It’s starting to be much more crowded now, but it’s nice to be able to ease into it and not have a huge rush. I don’t know how I’d handle what you people are describing! It must be Hell!!!
Oh, it is. People may start camping out the night before (they were at a local Best Buy). When the doors open, they rush in en masse and swarm over whatever’s on sale like ants. And then more people come in throughout the day in hordes. It’s madness. And I worked in a bookstore, I imagine a Wal-Mart or store in the mall would be worse.
The Kay-Bee toy store in the local mall had lines starting at the register, snaking through the aisles and leading out into the mall, where they’d been cordoned off with rope in a massive snake much like an amusement park ride’s waiting queue. Because you had to cram your way into the store, then leave the store to join the end of the line, the place was full of security guards making sure everyone who left the store either had a receipt or immediately entered the roped-off line to pay.
Or so I am told by a co-worker who went to the mall this morning. I slept late and went to work at 3:00. Kinko’s, at least, was quiet this evening.
From a ‘Retail Doper’:
Thanks for the good wishes! I am sure we will all need them before the season is over.
Those who avoid the Black Friday rush are jus’ plain smart. (Hint: a lot of stores who advertise the unbelievable bargains available at 6AM have just enough to last an hour or so…meanwhile, everything else in the store has been quietly marked up.
Hint #2: Shop as much as possible with local businesses. You’ll probably get a better deal, better service, and you will help your local community.
Thanks again!
What gets me is the sales aren’t usually that good, relatively speaking. Like say it’s 40% off this DVD player. Well, they only have 20 and 150 other guys are waiting in line. And it’s probably 30% off with free shipping somewhere on the Internet. And it’s more than a month til Christmas, it could probably be shipped straight from Taiwan and get here in time.
I think it’s just mob mentality, frankly. Everyone on the news and in the papers says “Must go shopping now!” and the great Zombie Consumer lurches out to do their bidding.