Working 12 hours on Black Friday

[morgana]

I never shop on Black Friday. There's other days of the year you can get some good deals and sales on something without having to deal with a big crowd of pushy morons.

Ditto. Why deal with crazy people any more than you have to?

[Amina516]

I never shop on Black Friday. There's other days of the year you can get some good deals and sales on something without having to deal with a big crowd of pushy morons.

Ditto x2

Ive gone maybe twice...to black friday madness. Do you have any idea how hard it is to carry a microwave through a crowded Kohl's b/c there are no carts left?! Lol. You shoulda seen the looks I got when I did snag a cart though. Im surprised I wasnt stampeded.

Honestly though, online deals can be a hell of a lot better when you look.When the Zune first came out I got a 30 gig (the original) for $80...after I has just paid Over $200 for my hubbys a few months earlier. Thank you Amazon!

Im sincerely sorry to any retail worker that will have to deal with the insanity. If it makes you feel better, Ill be sleeping the day away, having had worked the night before.

[blas]

I'm pretty used to 12 hour shifts.....after a while of working 12s, you'd be amazed at how fast an 8 hour shift goes.

But I don't think I could survive 12 hours on one of the worst shopping days of the year, let alone dealing with people at Wal-Mart. Ick.

[Ashaela]

I don't care how good the sales are.... I will not, will not, will not shop on Black Friday. I can't afford to spend enough to make it really worth it, anyway, although my dad will go to Fry's and clean out their shelves. :-p

It really isn't worth it at all, no matter how good the deals look. I hate being crowded, I hate dealing with traffic, I especially hate dealing with people who are already on edge - the other customers would be fighting amongst themselves, afraid of losing a deal, or their place in line, or not finding what they want; the cashiers and CSRs would be angry and cranky at having to deal with those same customers.

Not to mention I will be a very happily just-back-from-honeymoon new wife on Thanksgiving, and I see no reason to ruin the occasion.

[trailerparkmedic]

The only time I have ever bought anything at a store on Black Friday was last year. I worked overnight, then went to the local Old Navy at 6 am to buy one sweater. The store was empty, thankfully, or I probably would have left.

I do shop online on Black Friday. A couple of years ago I got up at 4 am, bought what I needed, and went back to sleep. Much more fun than going to the mall!

I'm sorry for everyone who has to work.

[taxguykarl]

With the tax season calendar we have the equivalent of Black Friday on the 31st of January--the deadline for W-2's. On that day it is all hands on deck from opening to closing: 9:00AM to 10:00PM--later if we get customers coming in at 9:59PM...Yes that has happened. Our peak continues 'til about Valentine's Day. The traffic to the office slows to a trickle until April Fool's Day--then it gets crazy and don't get me started about April 15th.

[SuperDan]

My Black Friday holds five hours of polka music.

I did shop Best Buy on Black Friday once. What was it, three years ago when the Great Laptop Price War happened? Yeah, seven minutes after 9pm and I was seventh in line. Those of us in line made it fun for ourselves. I'd never do it at Wal-Mart, but Best Buy really does have their act together on Black Friday. For those of you not familiar with their system, doorbuster items are only available with a ticket, which they will distribute starting from the front of the line working their way back about an hour and a half before store opening. No ticket, no doorbuster item. If you really want, you can leave once you've gotten any tickets you want, provided you're back in time to close your sale by 11 am. Most BB stores will have conveniences for the customers overnight ranging from donuts to porta-potties to DJs (maybe so you can dance to keep warm). At least at the store I was at, there was a large police presence at the store, both uniform and plainclothes. The manager announced before doors opened that anyone caught running, shoving, arguing, cutting in line, or being in any way disorderly would be considered to be trespassing and would have their merchandise taken from them and would be escorted off property, to be arrested if they try to return. When the doors did open, the customers were instructed to follow a path through the store and not depart from the line until they arrive at merchandise they intend to purchase. The first wave at least did. Store security monitored the number of people in the store and allowed people in only if they were within their fire code limit.

With a system like that, I'll brave the cold, crowds, and lack of sleep. The local Wal-Mart, not so much. I'm wanting to say last year Black Friday had nine fist fights there, as well as people hoarding doorbuster items until their friends could get in, people taking doorbuster items from other peoples' carts, etc. I can deal with an organized situation. Not chaos and anarchy.

[Retail Associate]

Last year Black Friday was a real bust at my store. We're open 24/7 and our big sales started at 5AM. I had to be to work at 4:30AM that day and by 5:30AM the store was pretty much dead. They were asking people to leave work early because there were no customers.

I'm hoping for the same results this year.

(Thanksgiving, however, was a freakin' nightmare.)

[DGoddessChardonnay]

I've noticed that Black Friday is Hell for most retailers, but it seems to be the slowest day of the year for grocery stores.

Why is that? For starters, it's the day after Thanksgiving and most people have leftovers galore from their family feasting the day before.

Second, it's Black Friday and people have been out all night camped out at various stores wanting to be first in line at 5 a.m. (or whenever said store is opening their doors) for that "must have" item. They're not thinking at that time of day about going to the grocery store.

We'll see it start to pick up a bit right around noon, when most of the people are done with their Black Friday shopping and have to stop in and it'll usually be small orders (odds and ends they ran out of like bread, milk, eggs, drinks, et al.) And we're running the same ad as we were before Thanksgiving (the Litter Box runs their Thanksgiving ad for 2 weeks, which works great for scanning people as they're aren't bombarded the day after with a zillion ad changes.)

So why those of you who work in the retailers such as clothing/electronics/department/big box stores are being run to death, those of us in the grocery stores are basically bored most of the day.

Bored from the perspective of not having many customers. But not so bored we can't get caught up on other stuff, such as cleaning/stock rotation checks/et al.

Not sure if I'll have to work the day after Thanksgiving (our hours get cut a lot during that week as it is) but I'm hoping to. Of course, that's dependent on how my holiday ordering/delivery schedule works out.

If nothing else, I might be able to go in on Friday morning to do an order and leave (that following week I'm supposed to have a delivery on Monday if warehouse follows regular scheduling for HBA orders) and take off that Saturday (I won't have any hours left to work for that week anyways) and Sunday (start of the next workweek and I rarely work on Sundays anyways.)

We'll see though . . . *keeping fingers crossed for a 4 day holiday weekend to make up for the fact that she still couldn't get an entire week off for vacation this year*