Black Friday Debriefing Thread 2009

[Gibbo]

Nope, instead we have the infamous "Boxing Day" sales a.k.a. 26th December.
Not quite to the infamy of Black Friday, but still brings out its' fair share of SCs, EWs etc.

Shops shouldn't be open on Boxing Day as that day is for going to the football or watching football in the pub. I am so glad that where I work we are always closed on Boxing Day.

[XCashier]

I'm working at the fabric store, 2-10:30....BBL to let you know how things turned out.

Worked both yesterday and today. It was crazy busy, but no worse than I expected. Four people were cutting fabric at a counter barely big enough for three; needless to say, there was a lot of bumping and tripping over each other.

I, personally, didn't have many SCs, except for the people who wanted me to special cut their fabric, which is against our policy. (It holds up the line -- imagine being behind someone who wants five quarter-yard cuts from each of ten different bolts! -- and if the cuts aren't perfect, we get the blame, so no special cuts, you get the entirety of what you need.) Got a couple of folks who couldn't be bothered to read the entire signs and were thus utterly shocked that the calico was not 79¢ a yard (that price applied for the pre-cut and packaged quilting squares, as stated on the sign!)

Spent the first two hours of BF running fabric back to where it belonged, and with a line of people wrapped around the store, that was a challenge. Spent some time on the register, and most of the shift cutting, then closing the store. Needless to say, my cutting arm was extraordiarily sore at the end of the day.

Spent most of today on the cash register, which was a relief. It was less busy than yesterday, but only slightly. Some customers were just utterly shocked that a fabric store would be so busy before Christmas and asked for a specific time when the store would be less busy. Sorry, crystal balls aren't standard equipment for a fabric store.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Black Friday report from the wholesale club!

The Powers That Be decreed that we shall open at 7am all through the weekend, but fortunately, my weekday availability still lists me as unavailable before the afternoon. (My mother is having problems with blood circulation and whatall in her leg, so I do errands for her.) So I go in at 230pm.

I ask BL, the morning FDLP, how busy it's been, he replies, "Off and on." So before I clock in, I swap out the Blu-Ray movie in the main demo player (it had been the Princess Bride), but give BL the choice: the new Star Trek or A Christmas Story. He opts for Trek, so I swap it in, and leave both copies in the locker at the front door in case someone objects to Trek for some reason.

Clock in, grab a till, hop on register. Find out that TC, our closing FDLP for today, called out. (She got hurt when she fell at home.) Erg. So the plan is to have JB cover the door when BL's shift is up. Little Miss Panicky asks me why they don't put me at the door instead of JB, and I just shrug and suggest, "Because I'm a very fast and efficient cashier?"

So I'm on register for about two, two-and-a-half hours. MOD MS comes up to me, tells me take a 45min break, and then take over on the door. JB takes HIS 45min break, and then comes up to the front line. So I pack up my till, turn it in, go on my break. Take over for JB, who goes on HIS break, and then helps on the front line and does re-shops.

There wasn't really a lot of suck to deal with on Black Friday, until closing time. MOD JA made several "we're closed, come to the front" announcements, of increasing exasperation and irritation, for the last-minute shoppers who didn't want to take a hint. Turned away a couple of stragglers who tried to come in, and when 1030pm rolled around, after having seen several CWs leave, and with no sign that the MODs were going to give me the all-clear to leave, I finally just locked the doors, clocked out, and went home.

Why? Because I had to be at work today, Saturday, at 645am. So I wanted to get home as quickly as possible so I could sleep.

Get to work today, clock in, and we are DEAD for those two extra hours. Maybe ten customers in two hours. DEAD. GM MZ has Little Miss Panicky take over on the door for me so I can help him set up the new PC in his office (old one had gotten a virus, so Corporate sent him a new one), and provide some advice on how to back up some of his files. (MZ had no floppy or thumb drive to use, so I had him email the files to himself.) Got everything hooked up, he called the Corp. tech support line to get the log-in password he needed, and everything was hunky-dory.

Things finally picked up toward the latter part of the morning, though I'm sure there'll be Suck tomorrow evening. The wholesale club is having its "employee shopping night," which means its Xmas party, which means it's shutting down two hours early. I'm fully expecting Suck to strike when people try to come in to shop and get turned away, even though we've had signs up for the last two weeks.

More Suck to come on Dec. 5th, too, since a certain former vice presidential candidate is coming to the club for a book signing. Oh, that's gonna suck, you betcha.
(ETA: I say that's gonna suck not because of any political bias, but because it's gonna be hella busy and I'm sure people are going to get upset by the ground rules (no personalized signature, one book per customer, book must have been bought from us, must have the receipt, must be a club member....))

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

The swamp was probably hellishly busy today. We ran a big one-day sale with doorbusters and opened at 7, which coincidentally is the same time I left work this morning. There was a line of about 25 people gathered at the entrance when I left.

[Chromatix]

Also I saw at least two cars driving on the bloody train tracks because apparently since they share the same road they can ignore the two ton train that takes two freaking blocks to stop.

Surely you mean two thousand tons...

[Jester]

Don't know about bands, but there's a song called "Beer Thirty".

Great name for a song. Great concept. Unfortunately, I hate most country, and that song is no exception.

[EricKei]

Some customers were just utterly shocked that a fabric store would be so busy before Christmas and asked for a specific time when the store would be less busy. Sorry, crystal balls aren't standard equipment for a fabric store.

Simple answer to that: "February"

You could also try "3 AM, but we're closed at that time" -- But, of course, that would get people showing up a few days later screaming at you for not having someone waiting in the store to open it *just for them* in the middle of the night...

[Beisbolica]

This weekend, our Black Friday special was "ALL SHOES, BUY ONE GET ONE 50 PERCENT OFF!!!111" with banners! Flags! Signs! Tags! !! THREE DAYS ONLY!!!

And so here it is, Monday evening, and some woman saunters in and says, "Are the boots still buy one, get one half?"

I tell her no, that sale has ended.

Of course this is a complete shock to her and she says, "So I came all the way here for nothing!" I just kind of shrug and then she asks...

"Well, can you make a special one-time exception?"

Actually, yes, technically I could. But please tell me why I should. You clearly were here for the sale since you knew all about it.

I told her sorry, the sale was for Black Friday only. End.

Other than that, it wasn't too bad!

[ShadowTiger]

My Black Friday actually went extremely well. I'm overjoyed. Day went like this.

• Left the house at 6:15.
• Got there at 6:30. (The store was set to open at 7:00 AM, half an hour earlier than usual.) There were already three middle-age to elderly gentlemen standing out there in front of the store. Just three. I greeted them after trying to open the exit to get inside, though it was locked. They told me they were waiting there since 4:00 AM. I whistled my impressedness, and asked anyone if I could help them find anything. The store wasn't open yet, but I may as well help out. I told them which aisle to get the things they wanted, and one of the gentlemen told me that everyone was already inside. He offered to rap on the door with his keys for me to let them know I was here. I became shy and grateful and all that stuff, aww you don't have to, etc, but they were so nice about it... I felt awful about being inside while everyone was outside. God bless those folks. Seriously. I was touched. I mean I'm easily impressed, but... still.
• I get inside, punch in, vest on, collect and replace the baskets, dump the garbage cans into the dumpster, check on the restrooms for anything that needed to be refilled, and got called upon to do the Managers a favor and do one last minute adjustment on a sale item. It was a knife kinda thing with replacement blades. I didn't have enough time to finish it, and I didn't want to have to keep opening and closing the blade locker, so I kept a box of them under the hardware desk. That actually really worked out in my favor since everyone and their dog wanted a piece of that deal.
• I actually didn't get anyone complain to me that there wasn't enough stock. We had two staplers on sale, one of which you got for free after a $5 rebate. (Yep, free.) So many times during the day, I had the chance to say ".. ah, say no more." And led them right there, plucked exactly what they wanted down off the rack and into their carts, and emitted a "Anything else I can help you with? ^o^ " or "Mission successful! " and they perked right up.
• We were fed! They actually set up a fancy meal table in the back room for us. I wish people wouldn't have gathered around it so much, but we actually had a really great lunch there on our break, or from time to time when things were slow. There was coffee, dunkin donuts munchkins, coleslaw, potato salad, macaroni salad, soda, and two six-foot hero sandwiches.
• There was never a dull moment, but nothing was ever painful or strenuous. I was constantly taking stock of the sale items and running into the back room to get more. So many times, I would be carrying a whole bunch of goods in my arms, and a customer would walk up to me and ask for this or that, and I would already be carrying it. It honestly made my day. I'd tell them "I KNEW there was a reason I was going into the back room today. I just knew it! Haha, enjoy it! ^-^ " All had a good laugh.
• I don't even remember how many keys I made that day. I mean I literally don't remember. Keymaking is for all intents and purposes the highlight of my day.
• I wasn't dead when I got home. Always a plus.

So yeah, awesome day. I didn't get to do any Black Friday shopping due to not having the evening available, (Sabbath; Jewish.) but I had a great rest afterwards.

I always work Sundays as well. The sale had sort of continued. We actually had a few of the staplers left over. Shocking, really. The day was at least half as good. We had bagels in the back room instead of all that lavish mealery. I bit my tongue when eating a butter bagel. Still kinda hurts, but it's all good. Happy to be alive and doing what I love.

[Biggfredd]

When we had a retail store, our two busiest days were Dec 23 followed by Dec 24. Busy didn't even start until around Dec 12.