Black Friday Debriefing Thread 2008

[Tito]

-which is exactly what I did on Wednesday!

That used to be my 'Black Friday' as well back in my days, since I worked in a grocery store. On the real Black Friday, the store was dead.

[wraiths_crono]

well, I am working black Friday, however. I do tech support so my morning will be quiet, until everyone gets home and says: Hey why my tv no show me the movies no mo!" and then start calling

[Eddie The 'Ead]

This is my first black Friday workin, but luckily it's only a four hour shift. Plus I don't know if there'll be a whole lot of people since we're just a grocery store and now a big retailer.

[ferebee]

Edit: And one trampling injury.

I hope it wasn't this incident?

That is just horrifying! So much for the value of other peoples lives - there's sales to be had!

[BigBird]

One abandoned child, naked except for a diaper in the Wal-mart.

I'm sure if they wait awhile, someone will try to buy him...

[JustaCashier]

I've heard there was a trampling at a Wal*Mart in Long Island Ny where the shoppers literally broke down the door.

One employee killed, a pregnant woman injured.

I hope the tramplers were detained, or can somehow be identified, if not, and will face at least manslaughter and assault charges. I'd like to see stronger charges than manslaughter, but realize that might even be a stretch.

Mike

[Tito]

I'd like to see stronger charges than manslaughter, but realize that might even be a stretch.

Mike

I agree. The tramplers should all receive murder charges. No need for charging into the store like that.

[Deceptitech]

I'm sorry, I know this s a no-no..

People that line up like that for the "sweet deal", they don't deserve either the deal, or life.

I would have a Thompson my Grandfather gave me, loaded to bear preparing to defend the store.

You knock down an employee, you get the same.

People piss me off.

[Nile]

That makes me sick.

A human life lost over saving a couple dollars. Poor family..

God, I hope people face charges over this. That's just insanity.

[Jack Doe]

One report of a man and woman fighting over a Guitar Hero controller and the woman apparently giving it to the guy somewhere in the crotchal region, again, not sure where.

Thank you for that. I snorted and now my customer thinks I'm nuts.

Deceptitech: Agreed. The local Worst Buy had two deputies outside, one with a shotgun (and a sergeant yelling in a megaphone "When the doors open, you will proceed in a calm and orderly manner" in between singing Christmas carols.)

[persephone]

I've heard there was a trampling at a Wal*Mart in Long Island Ny where the shoppers literally broke down the door.

I was curious if it was a rumor or real, so I did a quick search. Looks like it's not a story -- this really happened today. So sad.

[MannersMakethMan]

I was curious if it was a rumor or real, so I did a quick search. Looks like it's not a story -- this really happened today. So sad.

I can't tell you how much I wanted this to be made up. Humanity is doomed.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I was freakin' exhausted when I got out of the store today.

My assignment was to stand by the stack of 65-piece dinnerware sets and help people load them into their carts. I only loaded up about 6 of them. Hint for management: if you want to sell a particular item, don't put me in charge of it. Last year they started me by candy and nothing sold out of that area.

It turns out the dishes were right down the aisle from one of the entrances, so I got to see the wave of humanity stream in. I was giving people high fives as they passed.

moment of today: While standing around waiting to load up dinnerware sets for people, I saw a lady descend upon the endstand of reed diffusers we had on sale on sale for something like $3.99, exclaim "REED DIFFUSERS!" and just about start crying as she loaded up her cart with the damn things. Of all the things you can get up oh-dark-thirty and wait outside a store in line for, you choose friggin' REED DIFFUSERS?!

No real fights or even pushing and shoving to report. Black Friday at my store is lots of people, but it's generally orderly. There were lots of appreciative people whenever I went and got them stuff they wanted, and no real suck when I had to people we were out of stuff.

The only suck was with regards to the lines. My store does line-queuing--we have these wooden pylon-like thingies used to divide the main aisle in HBA in half, and then we placed displayers and speed tables at the back of the HBA aisles so that the line to checkout weaved through HBA. An employee holding a bunch of red balloons was put at the back of the line to tell people where the back of the line was, and at the front of the line there were people to tell shoppers which checklanes were ready to take them.

And yet, while waiting in line 20 minutes at 7:00 to check out my few things, I heard complaining "This is so ridiculous!" Because a big mass of people huddled in front of the checkouts, pushing, shoving and fighting over line-cuttings real or perceived works so much better that one single-file line.

And also I hear people whining over how long the line was. Look, you had the same idea as everybody else in this damn town and had to rush out to my store with everybody else like a lemming, so shock of shocks, the checkout line is going to be long. Can we please drop the long-line complainers into deepest, darkest Nunavut with absolutely no telephone access so they can't go bug GK with their standing-in-line or lack of brainpower issues?

To wrap up: This Black Friday may turn out to be busier than last year's, just because unlike last year, I had to wait in line before checking out the stuffs I bought, but the final sales numbers will tell the tale. (It was also really busy yesterday--$20K over plan ). And that's another Black Friday down for me; that's a total of 10. People who work that many Black Fridays should get some kind of merit badge or something.

[ADoyle90815]

I had wanted that WalMart incident to be a rumor, and I hope those who trampled that employee to death face charges. I posted about this in that other thread, but 2 years ago, there was a near fist-fight over a parking space at my local shopping center. I've noticed that grocery stores are relatively calm as the SC's are shopping at other retail stores.

[videodrone]

I was giving people high fives as they passed.

Dude, at least you're having fun with it. Props