Thanksgiving/Black Friday SC thread

[Rine]

I hate coupons! My store had a coupon out in the ad today. You had to have the flyer to get the 10 dollars off. I was nice to a few people that said they "forgot" their ad in the car, etc. But it pissed me off so much when other customers would interrupt me while I was ringing up another customer and ask for a flyer or a coupon. This one lady shoved an old lady to the side as I was trying to give the old lady her change and the SC lady bumped my hand, sending coins flying. She didn't even frickin' apologize...she just said, "Do you have a flyer? I need that coupon!"

I was like, "No, ma'am. I don't. And the line starts back there, thank you."

It was a madhouse in the store today.

Also, we had a cashier who was six and a half months pregnant who fainted/passed out on the salesfloor early this morning. We had to call an ambulance. Very scary. I hope she's all right...

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

we had this one guy throw a fit cuz we were sold out on turkies. he reached into MY cart to grab my bIrd then got neck vein i had one too many hot peppers pissed at me

Im in ur shopping kart, steelin yur turkee....

i actually had to do a little shopping after work, because my mom wanted me to pick up a couple things for her. We had a cookware set for $34.99 she wanted and I was able to snag one of those, along with a deep fryer for $17.99.

Originally today, I was supposed to be covering the candy department, but it was deserted, I mean people were mobbed everyplace else in the store and there was nobody heading to candy. So instead I went over to housewares to aid in crowd control and build endstands and pull things off of high-rises.

This might end up being a decent Black Friday. It seemed to be about as busy as it was last year.

[teelaz]

I know what you all mean, I had to take my son to work this morning to Best Buy at 4:30 am and we live a mile away and we past Target on our right with a line up and Home Depot on the left with a line up. We then got to the street that we had to turn down where there is a Kohl's and the parking lot was full, no empty spots. The kmarts that is right next door to Kohl's had a line up and when I finally got to Best Buy the line was wrapped around the building, I was shocked! It was only 30 degrees F! Way too cold to stand outside to save a couple of dollars. I was glad that I was only dropping him off and not shopping, went back home and went to bed. It was his last day there because he is moving to New York and transfered to the Best Buy there, I wish him all the luck!

[Antisocial_Worker]

I got off work this morning at 7am (I left at 7:30 because the first shift bitch is always, always always late), and have to pass by a mall on my way home. The lot was totally full. Nothing but a see of car roofs from end to end.

[Kara]

I always loved it when people would come in at 4 or 5 in the afternoon and have the nerve to be pissed that we were out of whatever cheap piece of crap we brought in just for the ad. It's like, see that surging sea of people covering every inch of the store? Yeah, it's been a little busy. If you wanted it that bad, you should have been freezing your ass off at 4am with the people who got one.

[ZumZum]

I work for THE purse store at one of the outlet centers that opened at midnight.

This is my new job, just started in October and I LOVE it.

So the line started at 11pm. We didn't open until 11:55pm. We had a line outside the store until 3:30am.

I was on register from 12am-6am. Could not get off to save my life.
I'd do it again in a heartbeat. It was so much fun.

The only SC's we had were those that made up their own prices. We put them in their place real quick. LOL

[TequilaSunrise]

*limps in*

Holy Mary, Mother of God. My feet and legs are throbbing, and I also have blisters on my feet. I'm dyin ovah heah.

We did over $500K tonite, well over, in fact.

The groovy thing was that we got out at 11:45pm, zone and strays done.

But I hurt, oh how I hurt...

*limps out, keels over*

[Aggravated Associate]

I always loved it when people would come in at 4 or 5 in the afternoon and have the nerve to be pissed that we were out of whatever cheap piece of crap we brought in just for the ad...

THIS.

I had a very impatient man with a very thick accent come in tonight around 9pm, and say, "WHERE IS KEYCHAIN."
"What kind of keychain? We have lots. There's a whole pile of them over here... Did you want the animal ones, or--"
"KEYCHAIN. KEYCHAIN FOR PARKING GARAGE."
"I don't understand."
"FOR PARKING GARAGE. KEYCHAIN. PUT ON KEYS."
"You want a keychain... We have several... what does it do?
"KEYCHAIN. KEYCHAIN. KEYCHAIN. RECORD."
"Oh. You want the one that records. Let me check."

I then radio my manager, who states clearly and loudly over the radio in my hand that we had exactly FOUR of them that morning. That morning. 16 hours ago. I repeat this to him, just in case he didn't hear. He then says,

"I don't think so."
"...Excuse me?"
"You have them. My friend was here. He said you have lots."
"Well, my manager just said that we only had four this morning, we more than likely sold out--"
"NO. YOU HAVE THEM. WHERE ARE THEY?"

I then proceeded to SHOW him the two extremely empty hooks they had once been hanging on.

"NO. YOU MOVED THEM. WHERE ARE THEY."

Another manager then wandered up and told him we were, indeed, sold out. The guy then started yelling that he had driven over 40 minutes to our store (even though there was one where he had allegedly driven from that "had lots" {?! Then why drive all the way out here, moron? It's a KEYCHAIN. } He seriously wandered away yelling to no one in particular that he couldn't believe this and he'd never trust (who?) again, and how dare we not have what he was looking for and what is he going to tell his wife and next time he'll call first (Good idea.) and rabblerabblerabblerabblerabble.

It's Black Friday. You wanted a keychain. How are you seriously going to be angry that we sold out of something on the biggest shopping day of the year by NIGHTFALL? Ridiculous.

[starla671]

I work at a little seafood restaurant and we had quite a crowd in today. Of course they didn't tip worth a flip because they had spent all their money shopping that morning!

I tell ya, they can have that 4 and 5 in the morning crap, I'll just stick to Ebay to do my shopping...keeps me sane!

[queenbb]

our store wasnt that bad, it was busy, but for the most part pretty easy going. we had security and police all over the mall grounds and extra security checking receipts at the doors (except for the auto center)

we did about 17,000 in the auto center which is pretty good considereing, and since every one came in at different times we didnt have much of a wait other than for those who we needed to go and get tires for from other stores. it was a good day all in all. i imagined it much worse

[Alpha Strike]

I always loved it when people would come in at 4 or 5 in the afternoon and have the nerve to be pissed that we were out of whatever cheap piece of crap we brought in just for the ad. It's like, see that surging sea of people covering every inch of the store? Yeah, it's been a little busy. If you wanted it that bad, you should have been freezing your ass off at 4am with the people who got one.

I was reading some article online in which folks who were shopping Thursday night or BF were being interviewed. A couple of them were complaining that items were sold out and that they felt as those the stores in particular had lied to or cheated them. My only thought after reading this was to wonder how people that stupid could possibly function on a day-to-day level.

This is my new job, just started in October and I LOVE it.

Wow. You're either crazy or the most positive person alive - or maybe just a bit of both.

We did over $500K tonite, well over, in fact.

Glad to hear you made it back in mostly one piece. I have to ask though - what sort of business do you work for that can pull in well over 500K in a day?

[HawaiianShirts]

I don't have any major SC stories from Black Friday. Just whiny people who didn't get the sale item they wanted because they didn't show up early enough. Just how early is early, you may ask? My store (major electronics), opened Friday morning at 5AM. Those who opened started pre-selling the really hot items in the line at about 4:30AM. Customers started lining up... at 8AM Thursday! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we had some idiots who were willing to sacrifice their Thanksgiving dinner with family just to get a cheap glorified typewriter of a computer or an off-brand LCD TV that will die by Christmas next year.

I had to close. Fortunately, traffic died off an hour before closing time so we could get all the products back where they belong. We found a computer abandoned on top of some CD cases, movies everywhere, GPS systems stuffed behind webcams, a DVD player where video cards should be, a printer under a shipper of video games, and a microwave dropped off to play with the iPod speaker docks, just to name a few.

It'll be the same story today, only we'll be sold out of more stuff. People come in for the sale items, find out we don't have them, and either leave angry or decide they have to get something and grab the next cheapest version of whatever it is they were originally looking for.

With any luck, I'll have my teaching certificate by May, and this will be my last Black Friday... Ever!

[Rapscallion]

She ended up paying with 2 dollar bills and not saying anything (she did give me a dirty look).

Yes, well, how many dances do you think she had to do for those?

Rapscallion

[FlamingSickle]

Well, this is my first post; after reading this thread I just had to register and share some stories, though, thankfully, they're not quite as horrendous as others in here.

Thursday night, just for the heck of it, several coworkers and I went to an outlet after work to possibly buy stuff but mostly to wander around. I'd never been Black Friday shopping before, so it was kind of fascinating to me to see the crowds of people and long lines for things like Coach purses. What really made me feel bad for the employees, though, was when we walked into one of the larger clothing stores. It looked like a tornado had swept through each section. There were piles of loose clothes tossed on top of what was barely recognizable as once neatly folded displays. Corners were filled with clothing people had simply tossed there when they decided it was the wrong size or they didn't want it, not caring that someone later would have to pick it all up and organize it.

But enough about shopping; there were a few stories from my own work, a movie theatre in which I'm one of the managers. This particular day I was mostly with the ushers or on the popper, so I didn't have too much customer interaction, but there were a few good examples of suckiness. One involved an entire group of people waiting to get into Enchanted, and they were so determined to get good seats that they began to enter the auditorium at the same time the people from the previous show were letting out, making it impossible for us to clean it before it was full again. (The rules say we can make up to a quarter of the auditorium's capacity leave for cleaning if they snuck in early. Any more than that and we're stuck.) I hope they liked dealing with all that trash in the aisles and cup holders.

Another woman and her family bought tickets at one of our automatic kiosks and then failed to do the obvious next step, which would be to walk to the ticket-taking employee in the middle of the lobby, surrounded by the two box offices and roped pylons, to have theirs torn. Instead they skirted box office, walked past the restrooms, got to their theatre, and proceeded to ream out a random usher who happened to be there that they had "wasted" their $75 (US) because they could have easily snuck in. Never mind that it was Black Friday, that at least one of our employees hadn't shown up, that we simply never have enough people to man all fourteen auditorium doors, and that she didn't use common sense to realize what she should do after getting the tickets where everyone else seemed to manage just fine.

The rest of the time I was there was fine, aside from vomit in theatre 2, people complaining they had bad seats when they came right at showtime, two of our ushers slacking off with an ex-employee and missing another entire auditorium because of it, and a constant low supply of popcorn from the sheer number of people ordering it. I'm just glad it's over.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

We were forecast to do $255,000 of sales. We beat that by about $25,000. Which is pretty damn nice when I overheard the visiting suits talking amongst themselves saying that some other stores were well below forecast.

We also got lots of compliments from shoppers about how helpful we were and how we kept the shelves full of stuff, and the suits got to hear all that. Some other people who visited us after visiting other stores were talking about how bad the service was at some of those places.

But of course, there always has to be somebody who likes to complain. Such as the fucktrumpet who bought some furniture and started pissing and moaning that we didn't have it ready for him right away! Wanna know how long he had been at the store? Thirty minutes. From selecting his items to checkout. Boo Fuggin' Hoo.