BLACK FRIDAY IS COMING. This is it! The start of the holiday shopping season. This is what those of us that work in retail work towards and dread every year. Our stock rooms are at capacity. The Christmas music has already been playing for a month. And the associates are ready to kill the customers. I’ll be in to work at 4am on Friday. Why? Because all of you crazy people decided that shopping before the butt crack of dawn was a good idea. I’ll see you there. I’ll smile and say hi to you. But that doesn’t mean I approve of this madness…I simply tolerate it because it’s the only thing I can do.
4am? HAH! Our store is opening at midnight. MIDNIGHT! Who the bloody hell goes shopping for toys at MIDNIGHT?!?!
Ugh…black, indeed. Don’t remind me.
Here’s how I’ve heard the plan is to go…
Step 1: Bring special deal item on pallet to sale’s floor.
Step 2: Be very calm about doing so. Make no sudden movements.
Step 3: Drop pallet in designated place.
Step 4: Withdraw store issued knife. Slice into shrink wrapping. Remove as much as possible.
Step 5: Observe for all customer approaches. Return knife to safe place.
Step 6: Chose safest route and RUN LIKE HELL!!!
Surviving Retail and Black Friday go hand in hand like marriage.
Just wanted to offer my pre-condolences….
I think my Walmart is actually being smart about “BF” We are giving customers tags similar to movie tickets. These they use to purchase the stuff at the registers where we remove half of it. They then collect it from our storage areas with their reciept…. No way this can go wrong or backfire…. nope…. nada…… *starts crying in the background*
I’ve gone shopping at midnight before for star wars toys. And I’ve gone to see midnight releases of new movies so I can understand midnight. Of course these places only stayed open until like 2 or 3am and then everyone went home and went to bed like normal people do. I can’t really see the need to be open for 24 hours. But then again some old Walmarts were 24 hours so what do I know.
Three quarters of the Wal-Marts around me are 24 hour stores.
I was questioning that very logic. Then again, I stopped by one in a major metropolis area at midnight to get a later dinner. Five registers open with over ten customers per lane. On a week night, no less.
A few years back, my branch went 24/7. Used to be that nobody knew it. (They literally dont’ advertise the fact.) A busy night meant 2 or 3 customers at a time and some local kids hanging out to watch the free TV.
Now, we went super. (Still, not advertised.) Our midnight crowd is what our morning crowd used to be. And, it’s all elevating to levels like the local casinos see.
Bad economy is what the other stores have to deal with. Wally’s? Why, they just spent well over a million a store on renovations. And, it’s working. Yearly goals were met, months ago. Expected losses were a mere fraction.
However, 24/7/365 (We USED TO have major vacation days off.) does mean no more lines circling the building at 5 in the morning. It no longer means a thousand feet rushing in the door, trampling everything in sight. It no longer means lives are in danger. People can wander in at their 3 am liesure and stake out the best sales. On BF, we all can take any kind of order we can possibly get.
…I don’t want to get up at 4 am, though…