The Holiday Formerly Known As Thanksgiving Debriefing Thread 2015

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

After three and a half hours of sleep and a couple crazy-ass dreams (I'm taking acting classes and preparing to study abroad in India? Oh-kay), it's up and at 'em for another ten-hour shift.

Last night was nuts for 2-3 hours, then it was like a busy weekend day during the holiday rush. Still a lot of people shopping and pushing heaped-full carts around. It never truly got dead.

Out of our over 850 doorbusters, we're out of three that I know of: a camera drone for $50, a 32" TV for 80 bucks (which we then oversold because nobody checked to make sure we had the correct number of pull tags out. So we had to give a guy a more expensive TV and take a loss on it. Yay for planning!), and the As-Seen-On-Tv Star Shower (aka Christmas Lights for Lazy People. Seriously, we've been out of stock on that for close to a month!)

The hamburgers and brats we were served last night were gross. Here's hoping that the Qdoba taco bar is better.

[flyonthewall]

We did out BF prepping on Wednesday. I stayed late so it was done. But the stuff has to be put out tomorrow morning before the store opens(early).


Most of the prep was sale signs. SOOOOOOOO many sale signs. And they have to be prepared and displayed in a special way that is convoluted as hell. >.<

[Smapti]

Last night at 11 PM I arrived for my Black Wednesday/Thanksgiving morning freight shift. It was even more balls-to-the-wall than it's been in past years. When I arrived, we still had seven registers and six SCOs open and lines on all of them. By midnight we were able to close SCO, by 2 we were down to four cashiers, and by 3 we were finally down to two, which we stayed at for the rest of the night.

Place was as crowded as I've ever seen it late at night. I had to lay on the horn of the electric pallet jack near constantly while hauling the load onto the floor. We've been sold out of fresh turkeys and frozen Butterballs for days, which came as a complete surprise to a number of people. (Kudos, though, to the one guy who waited until 1 AM on Thanksgiving day to go to the grocery store looking to buy a turkey-sized deep fryer. Spoiler alert: we don't sell those.) On Wednesday morning, we had 10 cases of turkey-shaped butter sculptures (which, until this year, I never realized were actually a thing). We sold the last one at 1 AM to a lady who drove all the way from a town on the other side of the Major Body Of Water In This State because she heard we still had some in stock.

The phone was ringing constantly pretty much all night. At one point, all four of our lines lit up at once, which I've never seen happen on freight. Most of the callers just wanted to know if we were open and at what time we closed today. One guy asked what time we were closing on Thanksgiving, and when I told him the time, responded, with a great deal of relief in his voice, "Great! Do you sell condoms?" I guess the late George Carlin was wrong - sometimes you do get laid on Thanksgiving.

When the cart collector left at 11 PM, all the shopping carts (and we have about 500 or so) had been brought in from the lot. By 5 AM, the cart room was empty, which meant that someone had to drive the electric cart caddy out into the 20-degree pre-dawn fog and rustle up a few dozen ice-coated shopping carts to hold us over until the morning cart clerk came in. Guess who got to do the honors? This guy, who neglected to wear a jacket to work because he didn't think he'd be needing one. It's a good thing I don't mind a little bit of cold - 10 or 15 minutes of will put a lot more spring in your step than the most caffeinated beverage on our shelf.

We managed to finish up and bail out pretty much on time just before 8 AM, which is rare on busy nights like this (although, since Thanksgiving is one of the days we get automatic overtime pay for, the management definitely doesn't want us around any longer than we need to be). The store was already pretty packed once again by then. It's been a few years since I worked day shift on Thanksgiving, but I recall them having to lower the steel gate to the entryway about half an hour before closing time and post security at the exit to stop more people from getting in, since contractually all hourly staff must be off the clock no later than 30 minutes after closing time on holidays and that's pretty much the only way they can ensure that that happens.

I lucked out and don't have to come in tonight - we're closed until 7 AM tomorrow, but we bring in a skeleton crew at midnight to basically just clean up all the damage left over from the Thanksgiving crowd. The next few days will pretty much be dead for us, so our nightmare is over. For those of you whose nightmare is about to begin, we salute you.

[Slave to the Phone]

What are they complaining about? I get $16 a month and I'm probably about to be cut off.

I'm sorry about that, honestly I am. This is the richest country in the world, nobody should be hungry.

Actually, I was the one complaining about the pitifully low amount of food stamps. People who don't have access to a kitchen or who don't know how to cook and budget simply cannot survive on less than $7.00 a day.

Currently, I have the turkey bones and stuff we won't eat cooking in the crock pot to make stock. Most people throw those wonderful things in the trash because they don't know how to use them.

Covers my mouth lest I get into fratching territory again.

In other news, turkeys will be very cheap over the weekend. I'm going to get a couple more. They are cheap protein, easy to cook and well worth the 50 cents a pound they will cost. Then, come Christmas, the SC's will complain that the same frozen turkeys they turned their noses up this weekend are so expensive when they are back in demand. BUT THEY WERE ON SALE A MONTH AGO!!!

[notalwaysright]

What are they complaining about? I get $16 a month and I'm probably about to be cut off.

I have been cut off. I can't complain, I know the system, fratcheting, etc, etc. I agree, $6.40 per day is not bad. I just worked how how much I got per day when I got the most, and it was $4.67. And I was pleased, and could eat fairly well if I paid even a small bit of attention to sales and coupons and such. At the lowest, I got $3.67 per day, and that was okay, though I had to make some adjustments. Before receiving benefits, all I could afford was about $3.33 per day, and that was a bit hard. Even $100 for groceries per month was hard to scrape up. (quick, rough math here!)

[Food Lady]

it really is a pitiful amount, $6.40/day for an adult

What are they complaining about? I get $16 a month and I'm probably about to be cut off.

[Slave to the Phone]

Unlike retail, I actually got Thanksgiving off. The days before hand were crazy. All of our food stamp customers waited until the last minute before coming in to renew or to complain that they didn't have enough on their card for a proper holiday dinner. All of them were very upset about how long they had to wait.

Sadly, I have run out of fucks to give.

They had a month to come in and renew. They get a certain amount every month and they know how much they get. The government doesn't give more just because its a holiday. (it really is a pitiful amount, $6.40/day for an adult and 7.60 for a child) Do you see all of those other people sitting around waiting? Your wait time is long because they all came in first.I'm sorry that you think you should get moved to the front of the line because you need to go shopping. Sit your complaining ass down and wait behind the other 147 people who want to do the same thing!

[Rosco the Iroc]

What a waste of time today. Slow and only one certain religious group showed up and any wonder they have a stereo type. At least the bossman took the hint and we closed 2 hrs early.

[FormerCallingCardRep]

I have been here since 8:30 this morning and in the first half hour I took 10 calls. Six of them were due to the NBA channel being off air due to the local station having the transmitter down and three were people wanting to pay their bill so the kids could watch the parade and the other was to let us know about an accident that took down a power pole and they lost their cable.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

And I'm off to embark on my 20+ hours of work out of 27. Wish me luck!

[Dreamstalker]

Mom and I were out earlier today to get a coffee on her way to work (local Peets had a BOGO coupon); I walked back home. The "downtown" area is basically deserted and I jaywalked across the major intersection Saw people pulling into and walking up the footpath of the (obviously closed) store. One genius even started to try and move the carts blocking the door--yes I yelled at him (he had no idea I work there and I didn't give him any indication). One of the few times I can actually yell at a "customer" and not worry about repercussions.

One would think the deserted lot is a clue...*looks at site header* Right.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Side note, the drive though at the Taco Bell, was also BUSY! I was expecting slow, people home getting sleep, but I misjudged that by a lot. Was super fast, though.

Wish that had been the case at the Bell last night for me. It was PAINFULLY slow.

[Seanette]

McDonald's last night was pretty bad. We went into the dining room, which wasn't all that full, but service was still a little on the slow side because the drive-through was so slammed. I'm not getting mad or anything, since the workers were definitely not standing around goofing off, they were BUSY.

My husband now works at the same thrift store I do, and he worked yesterday (we're both off today and he has tomorrow, while I'm working). He said it was pretty normal over there. Last year, what was Black Friday for other places was pretty much a normal workday. I'm on closing shift, so the BF shoppers would probably be at home exhausted by then anyway.

[notalwaysright]

We did BF prep last night until late, because the SM is nice. Since it's done now, nobody has to come in at 2 AM on Friday to get ready. Anyways, I was in the drive through lane, and could see the nearby grocery store. It's nearly midnight, and normally there's maybe a half dozen non-employee cars... Last night it was pretty full, I'd guess 30-40 cars.

Side note, the drive though at the Taco Bell, was also BUSY! I was expecting slow, people home getting sleep, but I misjudged that by a lot. Was super fast, though.

[Dreamstalker]

Last night was batshit-crazy until about 9PM. Shithead called me in early at 3 and he was hilarious to watch. Turkey with his head cut off running around, answering a million questions but not the ones that needed to be answered. He had put a newbie on Express and she was clearly having a hard time so I decided to bag for her mainly so I could field questions and I also wound up with the spare manager key for awhile. He didn't like either of those, but P told him tough shit, don't put a newbie on Express during the busiest day of the year unless you're ready to help them.

He left at 6, so we actually got out of there on time as he wasn't closing. Lots of people coming in at 10:30 looking for twine, cornbread mix and other things that they had at least a week to get. Somehow, we got all the returns cleared by 10:45.