Black Friday Debriefing Thread 2011

[Amusement Gal]

My mother left early and dragged me into Wally World for their Black Friday deals. There was a huge wall of people in every single aisle, pushing, shoving, and generally be shouting jerks. I think some little bitch tried ramming through with her cart, and making her friends push everyone to the side. Boyfriend claims he was at least punched in the stomach once. We only got ONE thing, and that's because everyone else came through like a tornado. And the only reason that we found it is because we were stuck in that aisle as soon as they broke it out of the packaging.

On the other hand, my store opened up at Midnight, is supplying the breakroom with (edible!) food all day, and had no fights, angry people, NADA. Most of the people who would be grouchy (someone tried to use all the wrong and expensive coupons), were too tired to pick a fight! We let everyone in little spurts, that way we weren't swamped. We had all the registers opened up, and generally with all the people we started with, the rush ended in maybe an hour and a half. Of course, after all the Black Friday people left, we were absolutely dead for at least four hours. I fought hard to stay awake, but crashed on the couch for a good bit. I signed up for a double-shift today, so I'm not over yet!

But the funny thing? All the people complaining, were all complaining about the nearby stores. We had a Kohl's about ten minutes away, and people said they were in line for about 2-3 hours because they only have three registers. Which is why I'm sorta glad I'm working today AND too poor to contribute to any of it.

[bhskittykatt]

We were pretty busy at the motel yesterday. Being close to the border, we have a lot of Canadians who come down for the doorbuster deals. Probably 60% or more of the license plates in our lot were from north of the border. Since they had their Turkey Day a while ago already, it's just a big sale for them.

I'd never been out on Black Friday, but I went to the gym this morning, which is up by the mall and big box stores and oh...my...GOD! I have NEVER seen the mall parking lot that full! The main lots were full, the overflow lots were full...sheesh! And I had to deal with traffic on the way up there, which I normally don't have to deal with at 5am. It wasn't bad traffic. Lots of people speeding to rush to the next store, and a lot of out-of-towners who were lost and couldn't figure out which lane they wanted. Still not used to seeing that much traffic that early though.

[Android Kaeli]

I actually had little to no trouble this year, mainly because it wasn't as busy as I thought it would be.

Last night I had a few people walk out without buying anything and leaving their unbought stuff at my register. Between two customers -- almost back to back of each other, there had to be maybe three other customers between them -- both left enough stuff they didn't want to fill my entire return bin. And I hadn't had ANYONE ELSE leave anything more then one or two items the entire short shift I worked on Thanksgiving.

A few people couldn't understand how our coupon system worked today, although it was printed clearly on all of the coupons when they could be used. The majority of people got it, it was a pretty good deal -- 30% off entire purchase, including sale items but excluding doorbusters and the usual exclusions. Even WITH the exclusions there were a few good deals.

One of the last customers I had before I left at 10:30 am [started at 4:30 this morning] had a return/price adjustment -- which took the better part of a half hour to do. I do want to point out that in no way, shape, or form was she ever sucky at any point, she was VERY pleasant about it and was one of few customers that I would gladly take another return from. She did have a long reciept and it did take a while because of it, but at least this one customer saved me from having to take others.

It wasn't as busy as I thought it was going to be, even went to Wally World after work to get a few items.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Watch people riot at a Walmart...



over a $2 waffle iron.

That's our society. Ain't it great?

[Victory Sabre]

Watch people riot at a Walmart...



over a $2 waffle iron.

That's our society. Ain't it great?

All I can say is that crack kills.

[Rine]

I worked 3 AM to 3 PM. I'm pretty beat. It was an okay day, aside from some register troubles...so instead of six registers in one area, we only had five. It got to the point that the line captain had to cover the broken register with a trash bag because they kept asking her why she wasn't on the register ringing them up. (And they weren't nice about it either! Some nasty people out there...OMG, you have to WAIT on BLACK FRIDAY?! WHAAAT?!) It wasn't even that long. I don't think people were in line longer than five to ten minutes.

I think that's my pet peeve. Lack of patience.

However, lots more people gave us nice compliments on how well we prepared compared to other stores like Wally World and the Bullseye. We let groups of people in for appliances and electronics to get in the right lines upstairs...most received tickets for their items so people couldn't jump lines and that sort of thing.

Still when we opened the doors finally after escorting about a hundred people in, we had runner. We didn't hesitate to yell at them.

[Kaylyn]

$2 waffle iron? Hubby says that's a perfectly valid reason to riot. You don't know about his waffle obsession. :P

[MiddleofNowhere]

Was in at 4:15 a.m. for 5 a.m. opening, or as I called, O Dark-Thirty...

It was the most frightened I've ever been at a black friday opening because we opened after our mall did, so we not only had folks streaming through our outside entrance, but two internal mall entrances. People were screaming like banshees and running at a full tilt to get to...

$1.50 socks... yup, people elbowing, nudging and screaming over crappy dollar fifty socks...

I also witnessed:

A man walk through my area who had obviously crapped his pants...
A group of 'wangsters' get stopped by our LP and run upon being stopped...don't know what they stole...
Listening to people rage about how certain items weren't on sale because, 'ya know, it's black friday, you gots to have deals...' Ummm... how 'bout NO?

And the usual general rabble, 'where is X item?' I reply, I'm sorry X item sold out last week/last month/this morning'. Then RAGERAGERAGEBLARGEELEVENTY I can't believe you're out of X! You ruined Christmas!

By last count, I think I ruined a dozen Christmases...

Next?

[simplyanother]

Worked 9-5. Which straddled the two coupons, the 30% off entire purchase which was valid til noon, and the 50% off one regular priced item, which started at noon.

I only had one really cranky customer, and he was pissy because he handed me a piece of paper that wasn't a coupon, and wanted me to use it as a coupon. It said "50% off one regular priced item". And...that was it. It was obviously cut out of the ad, but it wasn't the coupon. It was missing the stores name, the terms and conditions, the bar code, the valid date and times, etc. IF he hadn't gotten pissy with me, chances are, I'd scanned one of the other coupons in my drawer, even if I wasn't technically supposed to. But he was a dick, so...

Okay, I lied, I had a few cranky customers, but he was the only one who irritated me enough that I remembered. So, all in all, not a bad day.

I had a lot of customers who were pissed because they couldn't use both coupons, or because they couldn't use the 30% off at 2pm, or the 50% off at 9:15. And the exceptions to that were confusing, and just as fun as ever.

I had one customer who made me cry, but it was because of something sad, and not because she was mean or anything. I felt so badly for her, having to go through what she was going through, during a holiday.



BUT NO Turkey Bucks, so that was awesome, I freaking HATE turkey bucks, and I hope they never ever bring them back. EVER. EVER EVER. I'm still stung from my first experience with them...years ago. lol

[retailsweetie]

Bustice opened at midnight. I was scheduled to work 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. From what I heard, there was a line outside the gate at 11:30 last night (which I thought was odd, because when we opened at 5 last year we didn't have a single customer for half an hour.)

I had one odd customer who called us and asked if we had bookbags. Uh... this isn't BTS time. Most people don't look for those this time of year.

Also had two old ladies demand that I explain how to operate our slap-band watches. Thinking they'd just purchased the watches, I told them to look for the directions inside the price tag. Here's how it went afterwards:

"You mean you don't know how to show us?"
Me: (Well, I haven't worked here in a few months...) "No, but..."
Them: (Cutting me off) Well you should. This is ridiculous.
Coworker: (Demonstrates how to set the watches because she's done it more recently than I have)
Them: See? That wasn't so hard. And now you know how to use your product.

Uh, ladies? I work at a *clothing* store. The watches are merely accessories. Also, my job is to operate the registers, not watches.



It broke my heart to tell a little girl we don't carry anything with the letter "z" on it. I just wanted to rearrange the N on something for her, but unfortunately that's not how it works.

[Sapphire Silk]

Watch people riot at a Walmart...



over a $2 waffle iron.

That's our society. Ain't it great?

My eyes! My eyes!

Thank god, I've gone blind

Ass crack lady managed to get four of the suckers . . . dug her way through the crowd like a mole!

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I think we now know how she's come to be able to show it off like that.

[ADoyle90815]

Watch people riot at a Walmart...



over a $2 waffle iron.

That's our society. Ain't it great?

At least no SC used pepper spray unlike here:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lano...y-attack-.html

[violiavampyr]

Not to bad. Only really one notable toothless EW.

[BeenThereDoneThat]

When I got to work it looked like we were pretty steady with calls, but I guess it was rather average...and after a bit they started sending people home (mind you, I started work at 11:30 AM...by 2 or so they were sending some people home who normally left at 6:30!!). After lunch it was pretty quiet, which was nice since I had things to follow up on (i.e. I got to catch up a bit) and I was all wired anyway for some reason.

What was also weird was the overflow of some other groups into our area since we have empty workstations. We had some people from my original vertical in there...bizzarro I hope tomorrow is slow, or at least that the customers I do talk to are less troublesome than the ones today. They weren't all sucky, they were just...complicated.