Black Friday Debriefing Thread 2009

[SG15Z]

I work at a grocery store so we're usually dead on Black Friday. So I only worked like 11am to 5pm. However it wasn't so dead. I come in and it was a little busy. Like it was the same volume we get on a normal weekday. Which is slow for Friday sure but still busy for a dead day. In fact sales were really really good. You'd think it was a normal Tuesday.

I thought at first it might have to do with our Gift Card Sale. You buy $100 worth of select gift cards get $10 off. But no, no one was buying any really, they were buying groceries. It was just odd, I remember last couple of years looking for stuff to do. This year I didn't have time to do anything really. Oh and Management F***ed up big time but that's for the Morons in Management section.

Glad to hear everyone made it out ok!

[dalesys]

...as if I was hanging with all the gang of The Place. Good tunes, great puns, laughter and friends...

Been bending the stones, my child? Or is everything just Jake?

Beer Thirty would be a cool name for a band, too. Especially in any decent bar.

Heard of a guy who had "BEER30" as a personalized license plate on his red Camaro... changed plates after a month of getting stopped 3-6 times an afternoon...

[Victory Sabre]

"But it's in the BIN!"

We've seen this one a lot on CS.com, this man was majorly upset because a $49.99 headset had somehow found its way into our "$25 and under bin". After going around in circles with me on how I couldn't discount it because it wasn't actually one of the items included in that bin, he demanded a manager. They spent 5 minutes arguing about it (while a line is building behind the guy) before my manager finally caved and gave him the headset for $25. Grrrr...

I wonder how it got into the bin .

I really feel for those who had to work retail today. I would not want to be in your shoes.

The restaurant was slow today, because everyone was on the other end of town where all the big box retail stores are. I really don't like it slow, but it was good today, because my sister brought the niece and nephew up to visit me at work (alnog with a lot of turkey since I had to work yesterday). I had plenty of time to spend with the kids.

[simplyanother]

Uh, I apparently like to make really long posts. Apologies.

I was surprised by the lack of pissy customers. I had maybe 4 or 5. I ran a register and worked the floor, mostly ran the register.

The store was OPEN when I got there at 5:30 to work my 6-2 shift. Dunno why it was open an hour early.

First customers I encountered were ALMOST pissy, wanting to know shit I didn't know because I literally JUST WALKED IN.

Most customers were understanding when I explained to them that the excluded items were excluded from the coupon, except this one guy who had to argue with me--after I said "they're ALWAYS excluded" when he got the printed coupon for 40% an item for NEXT week with his receipt. "Does it say it on HERE?", no I'm lying to you. I actually get off on making customers miserable. What the hell do you think? Read the fine print.


The early morning coupon was fine, it was 25% off total purchase--including sales, EXCLUDING all the crap that is normally excluded. Still a good one. The afternoon coupon was a bitch. It was 5, 10, 15? dollars off a purchase over x amount. It did say that sale items did NOT count toward purchase amount.

That one, I agree with the customers about it sucking. Just because it was mostly useless.

SAME song and dance with the "I left mine on the table/my paper didn't have one/can we both use this?" coupons as normal, but so much more. I really don't care WHAT your reasons are, though I do sympathize. Still not going to give you my non existent extra coupons. If I had some extra, they'd go to the nice people. The ones I arbitrarily decided to be nice back to. Because I hate you. heh.

oooh, I had a few customers wearing t-shirts from BFADS.com/net/whatever. Hardcore shoppers. AT THE CRAFT STORE. Heh.

We had random backups for no reason. EVERY register in the store was open AND uh, a couple of our pin pads went down. Corporate should have stopped printing out the coupon for next week (Glitter Hell, where we kill a tree with every transaction) AND the stupid zip code survey which just pisses people off.

It wasn't so bad. Didn't seem as bad as the year before last (last year I worked late late and didn't really encounter any customers). I'm glad I got off at 2 though. They were getting so pissy.

The store was packed too. Several times I had to fight my way through the crowd to get to the register to ring. When you called for a price check, or a locked item, or a manager, or a tree, or ANYTHING, people had to fight to get to the front. (They really should have had a better line management system. I'd love to have a single feeder line whne it's super busy, but it's not completely feasible because every available space has crap in it).

Ah well. I survived. Didn't strangle anyone with a garland, didn't bludgeon anyone with a cricut, not blind anyone with a handful of glitter. So it's all good.

[Food Lady]

Well, here's the news from my store:

What goes on in that restroom???

So I had to clean the women's room. Had the usual diapers stuffed into little trashcans, poop-sprayed toilet seats (What are people eating??), etc. What I didn't count on was the handicapped stall. The TP holder was broken in half and the trash outside the stall had toilet paper with bloody handprints all over it.

It's called a doorbuster for a reason

I came in at 10 am and at noon people were still asking me about some $3 coffee pot. Obviously something like that will go right away. And it probably doesn't work anyway.

Coworker gets assaulted in cart fight

I asked my 18-year-old coworker about the big bruise on her arm. Apparently this morning people were fighting over carts and one grabbed her by the arm and threw her down. Really?? Over a cart?? Said coworker also got yelled at for not being polite in the ladies' room. The SC was the one who hit my CW with the door!

[SG15Z]

Obviously something like that will go right away. And it probably doesn't work anyway.

Heehee that's rhymes!

[LadyAndreca]

Not a lot of stories here. A few "but the sign said $x.xx!", most of which I just changed because it's Black Friday, the lower price wasn't too unreasonable, and I had to keep the lines moving. (Something I wish my fellow cashiers would remember once in a while. $19.99, $15.99, sometimes it's just not worth holding up the line over a miniature tree!)

Had my first customer ever steal merchandise in front of me, though. I knew he was doing it, and he knew I knew he was doing it. And, unfortunately, how to get his way. The guy had a paint roller + cover combo with the bar code on the roller cover...switched it out with one of our store brand roller covers...and handed me the cover with the paint roller's bar code and said "I don't need this since it comes with a roller". I KNEW there was a mismatch but couldn't find the barcode on the paint roller pole, and he got loud and belligerant about me wasting time and was I accusing him of stealing? (I damn well was! But SAYING that is a sure way to get fired unless I had proof, and I wasn't fast enough to find the bar code until after he'd left.)

I figured it out as soon as he left and I took a good look at the roller cover he left behind and reported it to the head casher, who just kind of took it in stride with a sigh and a "whatever". It irritated the hell out of me, because it was one of my last customers of the day and it's the first time I've ever let someone get away with it, to my knowledge.

[Can I Help Your A$$?]

Nobody at all was even annoying today. It was a very badly organized Black Friday, but it was just work.

I went in at 7 and just Followed the Principle of Slack, and everything just fell into place. "Bob" always comes through on his promises! Basically, I just reminded myself that it was just One Day, and it would all be a faint dream afterwards. I even found myself smiling at people, even though I was frought with Lady Problems.

I was also on about 4 Ibuprofens, which could have been part of my semi-blissful Black Friday. My muscles were just relaxed, and I was assured reasonable bathroom breaks.

The only faintly annoying thing was that people were really ticked off that the 3 dollar appliances were all gone (please. like they would not sell out). I was able to find people much better appliances at 15 dollars that actually had some decent capacity.

I got out of there and Bought Nothing. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) I wasn't able to honor "buy nothing day" as I managed to pretty much wrap up my christmas shopping online tonight.

Aaaaaand the Christmas Season starts!

This is why, oh British and other friends. Blame it on Macy's. You know how, Canadian friends, how you have the Santa Claus parade? Well, it's like that, only Macy's put it on Thanksgiving Day, which included all kinds of promotional opportunities for its store, sounding kind of a natural bell for the Christmas Shopping Season. It seems that Americans became zombies back then and have always tacitly agreed, no matter how much the stores protest and try to push it up to Nov. 1st, that "The Christmas season" starts after Thanksgiving. We like Thanksgiving too much, and won't give it up to corporate interests (even Macy's couldn't do that). We've been "chomping at the bit for Christmas to start," as Dickens says, and we throw up all the wreaths and light the community trees and things the day after. After we shop, because stuff is cheap that day.

And that, my Commonwealth and Other friends, is what Black Friday is All About.

[casey13]

Well, I worked till 11 on Thanksgiving. We had a bunch of people who wanted the merchandise for the full price, but there was nothing we could do. They were mostly understanding.

Then there was this large TV right when I was about to leave and it just happened to be blocked in by these Black Friday skids. Well, there were no pallet jacks around so the other kid went to look. Then he came back because the management wouldn't let them move the skids two feet each so he could get the 50" tv out.

So management decided that they would let them hold the TV for the full price and they wouldn't have to pay for it till they picked it up because we couldn't get it out. Well, apparently the "held for X person under X manager" wasn't enough to prevent someone from selling the TV. Our electronics associate was in grocery guarding a skid all night so who knows who actually sold the TV. Like we did have a ton of temps in and some of them were trying to hook up each other though. We think that's what happened.

So they came in the next day while I was working and we didn't have a TV. Management wasn't sucky and they did give them another TV for the same price. It was only a hundred dollar difference. They were understanding and then the manager took the TV out because he couldn't figure out the site (the ipods weren't on sale on the site, probably because they were sold out.)

No one was really pissed off at us being out. Only one person was but that was because the idiot decided to ask me if I would check his ID for the debit card. I said no and the next words outside of his mouth were "Good, because it's my roommates." What the hell? Seriously! Don't tell me that. I wouldn't let him use it because he opened his mouth.

One guy, I can understand why he was frustrated but I am also slightly ticked about it. He was using his wife's card. Yeah, last names match but still could have been a sister, mother, some random X person. I could get in trouble. The assistant said to just do it and he'd take the blame if anything happened.

Then amusing non-sucky bit was that I watched a manager move a non-shrink-wrapped pallet. We couldn't tip the gray ladder because it was too heavy so he tried the lift. He was slowly doing it and so I suggest that dropping one would be a quicker way to get one down.

Pretty good day. I clocked in early and immediately got stuck on the register.

[Android Kaeli]

Simplyanother, I know EXACTLY how you feel about the noon to close coupon and the 25% one too -- at least it wasn't as bad as a few years ago when Random Craft Store had the separate turkey bucks and the cashiers had to make sure that customers could use the right combination. That was a total NIGHTMARE and was glad that there wasn't any last year -- I guess too many complaints came in. o.o

[Jack7957]

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?

This will help explain it, also the origin of calling it Black Friday wasn't the day stores got "in the black".
A Brief History of Black Friday

They went to the Walmart here in town at 4am for a sale that was supposed to start at 5am. This store is open 24 hours - including Thanksgiving day - as in they've been OPEN since YESTERDAY. Does anyone else see the problem with the math here? So yeah, by the time she got there (when the sale was supposed to start) they were cleaned out of everything, because everyone had been there EARLIER. I'm not sure which is more wee-todd-id, my co-worker for going to Hell-mart on BlackFriday in the first place, or their management for not thinking "oh, hey we should probably close the doors until the sale actually starts". Did they assume people would WAIT???!!!!

WalMart changes their policies after last years death and were having all stores stay open overnight, not just Super Centers...
http://www.wkyt.com/news/misc/74172472.html

[lupo pazzesco]

<staggers in>

Sweet Tequila Christ! I work at a college bookstore! I should NOT have have the sheer amount of sucktitude I had today! I shouldn't have...gimme a sec to pull out the emergency wine stash...

Ok, so, here we go.

Hoodie Whores Galore
During the winter/holiday season, my store will put hoodies on sale. Well, we've had this one particular style of hoodie on sale as our special of the month. Marked down to $30 from $60, so, a pretty good deal, all things considered. So, naturally I've had an innumerable amount of people come up and demand I find their size for them because it's not on the table. Well, being that it's been on sale, and all 200 or so of them that we've had are now out on the floor and dwindled down to about 50, that's not surprising. Don't bitch at me. Don't whine, don't demand I go look in the back room because they're NOT there. End of story, you fail!

The stupid. It buuuurns
So, in a show of brilliance, management finally approved an idea a CW had of posting pictures of shirts that we have on special because our displays are all glass cubes. We've had a sign for these specific game day shirts advertised for $5, but they share rows of cubes with other shirts. Y'all know where this leads to, right? Grabbing $12, $14, or $18 shirts and demanding to know why they're not ringing up for $5. So, we made a little display that said THIS SHIRT $5, and a full color picture of said shirt...

Woman approaches me, holding one of our more intricately designed, $20 tshirts.

Her: So, this will ring up at $5, right?"
Me: "Um, no, only the shirt depicted in the picture is $5"
Her: Oh! So, only the RED shirts are $5.
Me: >.< No, only the shirt in the PICTURE is $5 (Because I just know you'll take a shitload of red shirts to the register and proceed to bitch and moan about them not ringking up for $5 you fail!)

Um, no...
SC: Hey, if I buy two hoodies can I get a third free?
Me: Er..no, sorry.
SC: Well what kind of Black Friday sale is this?!?!?
Me: .........

Yes, I actually said this...
SC: What kind of Black Friday special can I expect today?
Me: We're open. <Walks off to answer the phone.>
CW:

More Hoodie Whores
SC: Hey! You!
Me: <Deep sigh, since this is the umpteenth time I've been addressed as such> Yes ma'am, how can I help you?
SC: Where's this hoodie in women's sizes?
Me: Ma'am, that hoodie is a unisex style, meant to fit both men and women.
SC: But this is men's and i want it in a women's size! I need a large!
Me: Ma'am, you're holding a large...
SC: Not in women's!
Me: It doesn't come in a women's cut, since it's unisex, and meant to fit both men and women.
SC: That's stupid! It's men's! I want women's!
Me: ...
SC: Oh, you're useless! <Stomps off>

>.> Seriously...?
Me: <To a customer trying to exit> Excuse me, sir? If you're finished shopping, perhaps you could pay for the two hats you've stuffed into your armpits, please?

W. T. F?!?!
SC: So, what kind of black friday specials do you have on textbooks this year?
Me: ........
SC: I want to buy textbooks, but since they're so expensive, I thought I'd wait til now. Black Friday means lower prices, right?
Me: .... <Looks to the EMPTY SHELVES in the textbook section which we cleared down to make room to set up for next term>
SC: <Glances at the empty shelves> Oh...don't you have anymore in the back
Me: No, sir, I'm sorry, we don't.
SC: Well, thanks for making me waste gas for nothing...

No, really. Seriously...?
to my utter horror, I watched a father encourage his two children to snatch items out of another woman's basket, because she snagged the last scoreboard alarm clock and football player Christmas ornament. Naturally, this led to confrontation, though I think he may have believed she'd say nothing because hey, it's an adowable widdle four year old!!

Arguing ensues, in which he states she hasn't bought it, thus it isn't hers and still fair game. He got booted, and screamed that we were ruining his son's Christmas because he didn't get that clock.

If he hadn't been an asshat, I would've gladly informed him we're receiving a new shipment on Monday.

Way to go, douchebag. Teach your kids it's ok to steal. Thumbs up. </sarcasm>

Well at least you read the word Nike...
As of right now, all hats EXCEPT Nike hats are an additional 33% off, it's a sale we've been running for several months now. So, of course our hat wall is completely trashed, and this guy brings up about 7 different Nike hats to the register, then of course throws a screaming hissy fit because they're not ringing up as on sale. Hey, he saw the word Nike, so I guess he gets one-hundreth of a point for that...

Oh gods...>.<
To the customer who thought it was ADORABLE that jr. could take of their training pants and stuff them in the toilet, thus flooding the men's bathroom: Die in a fire.

That is all.

No! MINE!! (or, "And still more Hoodie Whores")
I wore a hoodie I purchased from the store about 1.5-2 years ago to work this morning because it was cold to me. As I got inside and warmed up, I took it off, folded it up and shoved it under the textbook counter, because it was so busy, I didn't have a chance to run to my locker or toss it in the break room. Ten minutes later...

CW: Hey, Lupo? can you help me look this up, it doesn't have a tag and he wants to know how much it is.
Me: Sure, whatcha got?
CW: <Holds up my hoodie>
Me: Hey, that's mine!
SC: Nu uh, I found it! How much!?
Me: Sir, that is MY hoodie, we havent' carried that style in over a year!
SC: <Whines> But it's the only one in my siiiiiiiiiize, and besides, you're to big to wear it, it's a men's hoodie!
Me: <crying inwardly because I've lost about 40 lbs, and if anything the hoodie is huge on me> Sir, it's MINE. I bought it. I brought it in. It's NOT for sale!
SC: Then you shouldn't have left it lying around!
Me: it was tucked under the counter in a CLOSED and roped off area of the store. To reach it, you had to have come under the ropes, behind an employees only zone and rummaged around.
SC: <stammers, trying to backpedal> Um..you see-but-he-and....it's the only one I found in my siiiiiiiiiize.
Me: <Takes the hoodie from CW and walks away> I'm going on my lunch now. Bye!

Don't know how that ended up or if he complained, but no managers came to hunt me down, so I think I'm good.



That's all I've got for now. May write more later, but bubble bath is calling my name...

[ralerin]

so, I've come to the end of my Black Friday.

It was busy in spurts. I was told to price and fold sweatshirts and after awhile, started dusting the shelves with the gift sets on them. I was put on the money order drawer, and management had Semi New Girl on the register I would've gotten had I not gone out to do dusting. So I did dusting, dusting, dusting, even was brave enough to tackle the Mother Of All Dusting Projects: the set of 7 glass shelves that stretch from floor to ceiling and that ALWAYS gets coated in a thick layer of dust days after I clean it and gets touched probably twice a year, if even. So I started it and didn't get to finish.

At least today was not terribly busy. We had more razor nitwits and people throwing semi fits over not getting their precious razors to shave whatever with, but it's not my problem. Nothing like the people from my "How Am I Going To Shave My Balls?" thread, most people were decent enough to leave it there.

[Merriweather]

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?

Basically, since Thanksgiving is always on Thursday, a lot of office and other non-retail workers also get Friday off (or take a vacation or personal day) to make a 4 day weekend. Shops of course decided to take advantage of so many having a free day, and bit by bit began having sales in to entice customers to start their Christmas shopping that day. The name comes from the fact that some stores do so much business from then thru Christmas, that they run "in the red" until the hoards of shoppers that day put them "into the black" and making a profit for the year. Most stores make more money on that one day than any other of the year.

Having lived in the UK for almost a decade (the 90's), closest thing you have to it is the boxing day sales a lot of the shops have. Or maybe Harrod's January sale - I seem to recall some tales of unseemly behavior by ladies fighting over discounted sheets or handbags, LOL.

[excuse me??]

Our Black Friday went well... except for one SC who (willfully) would not understand why we were out of an early morning special item at 5 o'clock in the afternoon.. my coworker replied to her on her level by simply saying "well its Christmas".. she wouldn't argue with that... and walked away happy.