Black Friday Debriefing Thread 2009

[Amina516]

I am not shopping, in fact I am off to my hospital job NOW, so come the AM, I will run home and jump in bed.

Be careful all! May da schwartz be wit ya.

[Bramble]

Heh, I could never go out on Black Friday. Y'all would be hearing about the girl who throttled some ass with their own intestines on the evening news. I can barely keep from doing that when I go regular shopping.

[kendiara]

Greeter at the Bookstore from 7am till noon...in theory. Greeting is interesting as you are 1) never supposed to leave the position and 2) take every customer to get their books. Its a space/time continuum issue there We have our district manager, regional vice president and CFO coming by tomorrow...cause that's the perfect time for our store GM to have to escort around big wigs and answer questions.

[ralerin]

Worked today. (>_<). Already got a taste of the entitlement whores and busy craziness. Shredded sales signs in gasps between customers because girl who normally does them is not scheduled for the rest of the week and I am the only one who knows how to do them in a sea full of newbies. Did I mention I was the ONLY cashier on tonight, during the busiest time of the night? When we had lines from here to Timbuktu? If I could have killed Store Manager for not scheduling some of those newbies to help relieve the load, I would have. I got called snippy for being snippy to a pair of entitlement whores. Sorry, if ralerin is hungry, exhausted, experiencing "feminine time" and listening to your harpie like shrieking about the products not being advertised, then yes. She will be snippy. Especially when denied chocolate and carbs due to diet.

I'm working 6 fucking days straight. In a row. When I have homework coming out of my ears. If I could also kill my college professors for assigning us a metric fuckload of homework this weekend, I would.

*sigh* I am not happy. I didn't get to relax with my family, didn't get to munch on turkey and stuffing and chocolate cream cheese cherry squares, didn't get to sleep in because Best Friend decided to wake me up at Oh Dark Thirty to wish me a Happy Thanksgiving and was slightly miffed because she'd been up since 6 baking and I was sleeping.

I get Monday and Tuesday off and if anyone calls me in they will get their heads (metaphorically) ripped off and chewed up.

</rant>

Edit to add: This is my first Black Friday. Tomorrow morning we are running a 2 hour special on "Grepsi cola", buy two, two liters and get $10 off your entire purchase or something. There will be hundreds of shrieking seagulls people coming in and demanding we give them their coupon at 10:30 at night or else they will call corporate.

[jackfaire]

Be careful all! May da schwartz be wit ya.

You work at the hospital? Wow that makes you my roommate's cousin's best friend's great aunt's grandkid's coworker.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Oh yeah--the suits. I'm sure they will be dropping by sometime tomorrow. Maybe multiple times.

And we have to put the coffee pot out again for the people waiting in line before we open. DM thinks this is a great way to "build brand loyalty" or some such corporate-speak BS. I think it just proves he knows nothing about the people waiting in line. Most of them bring their own coffee.

Speaking of coffee, I heard a certain coffeeshop featuring baristas in green aprons is opening at three. Is that just a local thing or nationwide?

[MageAkyla]

Well I'm luckily avoiding BF but I did work the wonderful Thanksgiving shift. I really can't comprehend why corporate thinks a CRAFT STORE needs to be open on Thanksgiving but meh, what can you do. It went surprisingly easy though.

I work at Glitter Hell as simplyanother calls it, and she's right, the coupons were the biggest suck. The amount of begging and sob stories I heard about why they couldn't be assed to bring their own was tiring. We haven't had coupons in store since last year. They aren't hard to get either you either sign up to be e-mailed them, get them from the paper, and for us they are even in the FREE pennysaver!

In addition they are confusing. The coupon has exclusions listed and then the ad itself has some items that the coupon won't work on either because of their large discount...yeah they don't read the coupon let alone the ad they pick up long enough to rip the coupon from it.

Either way I don't envy tomorrow's crew since half the big demand stuff is nearly gone although it doesn't help the DM wants us to send some of our stuff, since we're a small store, to some of the bigger stores so they don't run out as fast. *Sighs* and they wonder why our sales aren't higher.

[Summerfly413]

I want to work where you work! On our black fridays they DECREASE the number of breaks we get and INCREASE the length of our shift.

I'm working a 12AM- 12PM shift. WOOT.

Yeah it's some legal issue with the company or the state or something. You need to have a 15 minute break every 4 hours(it usually happens sometime in the middle to 3 1/2 hours in), then the one hour lunch.

I think I'm going to end up straightening a lot tomorrow. And it'll probably slow down to a normal day at least when 4 or 5pm hits.

When I left tonight at 9 there weren't at lines outside my store, not surprising. We were the only place in the whole plaza open on Thanksgiving.

[Food Lady]

I was on my way home from Thanksgiving dinner at 11:45 pm and saw all the cars at or on the way to We Be Toys.

I personlly don't have to be at my store until 10:00 am. I expect it will be like a very busy Saturday, a bit slower than the very early morning. I'm cashiering, and will probably float. I've already taken my ibuprofen and will try to sleep some.

[Alteran Ancient]

Oh yeah--the suits. I'm sure they will be dropping by sometime tomorrow. Maybe multiple times.

And we have to put the coffee pot out again for the people waiting in line before we open. DM thinks this is a great way to "build brand loyalty" or some such corporate-speak BS. I think it just proves he knows nothing about the people waiting in line. Most of them bring their own coffee.

Speaking of coffee, I heard a certain coffeeshop featuring baristas in green aprons is opening at three. Is that just a local thing or nationwide?

Thank god this "Black Friday" is non-existent in the UK... well, as far as I know. What's the logic behind it anyway? Why plage all retailers at this exact time of the year? Why not shop during one of the other 360 or so days in the year?

...and speaking of baristas in green serving coffee at 3; they're clearly there to appeal to the masses before the stores open. Clever idea.

[Jester]

I know y'all are going to hate me, but working in a bar, Black Friday really doesn't affect me.

I worked yesterday open till 7ish. We open at 11, I had to be there at 10 to set up.

Today I open again, though I might go in early to get some stocking done, since we were rather busy yesterday. I work till at least 5, when the second bartender comes in, but if it's really busy, they could keep me till 7, when the closing bartender comes in. (Yesterday there were just two bartenders.)

Tonight after work, I'll be at home cooking chili and drinking beer.

Tomorrow (Saturday) I have off, and have plans to bring my bike into the shop to get it ready for me to start riding me, then I'll go to a bar to watch college football, especially at 3:30 when Arizona State (GO SUN DEVILS!) plays our hated rivals, the University of Embarrasingzona.

Sunday I normally watch NFL football, but since my Raiders already played (badly) yesterday, and there's a chili cookoff, I'll be at the chili cookoff, drinking beer, trying other people's chili, and serving up my (hopefully) winning chili.

My retail friends, you have my sympathy. But if you need me, I'll be the one drinking beer over there!

[Rapscallion]

Thank god this "Black Friday" is non-existent in the UK... well, as far as I know.

January sales, mate. Closest equivalent we have.

Rapscallion

[EricKei]

Oh yeah--the suits. I'm sure they will be dropping by sometime tomorrow. Maybe multiple times.

The best part is, experience has shown me that they will judge performance, store cleanliness/organization/neatness, checkout time, SMILES SMILE SMILES, and all the rest on on this basis alone (especially if it's used for the basis for bonuses...), and assume that anything that is not absolutely perfect is that way the rest of the year, as well.

Thank god this "Black Friday" is non-existent in the UK... well, as far as I know. What's the logic behind it anyway? Why plage all retailers at this exact time of the year? Why not shop during one of the other 360 or so days in the year?

Some years ago, a large number of stores decided that it would be a good idea to have their best sales of the year the day after Thanksgiving. It worked, and it worked well. Thus, just about every store does it now, leading to the chaos we come to dread every year about this time.

The name derives from the fact that this is the time of year (and sometimes even the very day) in which retail stores finally turn a profit for the year -- in accounting speak, this puts them "in the black". Hence, Black Friday. Workers, on the other hand, quite justifiably see it as being closer to the Black Plague, instead. Store Managers and other salaried at many places (such as "GameStore") typically get screwed by this time of year -- our SM regularly works 80 hours a week from Thanksgiving week thru early January, while only getting paid for 40, mostly due to the fact that Corporate does not grant a significant increase in non-salaried hours allotted to the store.

[jackfaire]

I know y'all are going to hate me, but working in a bar, Black Friday really doesn't affect me.

Damn if it weren't for my daughter being up here I would move to Key West. Would probably be better for my writing

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Well...I live. Just barely, but I live.

I'm exhausted, but don't really feel I can sleep yet. Have to try anyway. I'll be back later with my stories.