Black Thursday/Friday Debriefing Thread 2012

[klhanson]

Hey kl, what is the word on a picketing at your mart of wal?

Went to work last night and three people were camped out in front of Big Yellow Price Tag. I wonder if they will still be there when I go to work this afternoon? What could they be camping out for?

there has been talk about it but i dont think anyone at our store is doing it.. all i've heard is possible employee walkouts about wages and making us work holidays

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Off tomorrow, and working 12-4 on Friday. At our store (grocery store) Black Friday is pretty slow, so it should be a chill shift. It's today that I'm afraid of

Same here. I'm working 7-1 on BF, but we'll be pretty dead most of the morning (or that's been the case the last few BF's.)

I'll be in the back mostly checking in vendor deliveries, so I'll have enough to keep me busy between that and scanning out reclaim and marking down stuff to put out on the Clearance Center.

And no, I won't be shopping at all this weekend . .. we traditionally change out the dining room linens and get the table set for the Christmas the weekend after Thankgiving anyways - I may not put the tree up, but the table will be set and the living room will be decorated.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Boy!

Black Friday Thursday hasn't yet started and already I want to make the streets run with blood. My electronic specialist's blood.

Though part of the suck is on corporate's part. Because they didn't want to totally give up on today as a sales day, they decided to release about 100 of our 600(!) doorbusters this morning, with the rest starting tonight. We're open until 1 this afternoon, and then we re-open at 9 tonight.

Because my manager couldn't put anybody on for electronics this morning because that was the only way he could make the schedule work for tonight and tomorrow, I had to set the ad over there. And electronics specialist didn't sort it at all!

There were two file boxes with ad signs back there. I was told one was the ad for this morning, and the other was the ad for tonight. I grabbed the one for this morning and started putting up signs when I noticed some items not scanning at the right prices. Turned out I had most of tonight's ad in that box. Most of this morning's ad was in the other box--the one I wasn't supposed to touch.

So I had to sort the signs in both boxes before I could even start putting up signs. It's a damn lucky thing I was assigned to do that ad. Anybody else would've just put the signs up and left us to deal with the missing signs, customer confusion, price checks and overrides later.

Every year we have problems back in electronics. And that's where the money is.

[Victory Sabre]

Last night I went to the "Yellow Tag" store to get some iTunes cards - DAMN YOU AC/DC FOR WAITING TILL NOW TO PUT YOUR COLLECTION ONLINE! There were people camped in line for the midnight opening tonight, and the line wrapped around the building. They were there in their tents and fishouses, generators and propane heaters in tow. I asked the person at the counter when they started lining up. The person at the counter said at open time.

I wonder how they'll smell after being in line for a day and a half?

[Mytical]

Just paid $20 so I didn't have to deal with the madness of the crowd..though I have to wait a bit longer for the item. Well..I actually bought it for somebody else. My cousin wanted a new laptop, and came to me to get them one. I had a $300 budget. Anything left over was mine to keep. Was going to go get the $179.99 one at Walmart, but they had a 199.99 one online, so saved a trip. Made a tidy sum for doing it to..most likely what I didn't spend will go back to him anyhow.

[Simbacat]

I had to finish the ad set last night. What a nightmare. My DM came in as well, which lent some excitement to it. DM is actually very awesome, though, thank God.

About to go in for my Black Friday shift. Have a good day everyone and good luck at work today.

[sms001]

My wife just called to check in. She went in at 4 am for a 6 am open and there are already cars in the lot. This is a big box, but specialty store mind you, and their door busters are pretty niche market. Consumerism at its finest.

[bhskittykatt]

Only thing I have to share from last night was a Canadian couple that came down for the sales, and they were wondering why everything was closed in town. Now, I know they have their own Turkey Day in October, but most of them that come down for Black Friday sales are at least aware it follows American Turkey Day and that the two holidays are related. I had to give them a major derp moment.

I'm not sure they've ever done Black Friday before. When I told them that the Target was starting its sale at 9pm, the gal said to the guy "Great, we have some time then." They checked in at 7pm. They were already probably too late to find parking, let alone if they were going to wait a couple hours. Not sure how that worked out for them.

Today, I get to go find parking after the paper route at the gym, which is next to a shopping center that has a Best Buy. Normally there's not too much overflow into the gym's lot, fortunately. I have to pass the mall to get there. I'm used to the streets being empty at 5am, and Black Fridays always kind of weird me out to see the mall lot packed at that hour..

[Ghel]

My brother's wife dragged him to Mall of America. He posted "I don't know why I'm here" along with a couple pictures showing hundreds of people waiting in line for stores to open at midnight.

[Victory Sabre]

My brother's wife dragged him to Mall of America. He posted "I don't know why I'm here" along with a couple pictures showing hundreds of people waiting in line for stores to open at midnight.

I feel bad for your brother. I can just imagine the insanity there. There's no way in hell I would have driven the hour and a half to get there last night. And even a less chance in hell considering how bad the roads were last night. First winter storm and we get a bit freezing rain a bit of snow and a whole lot of wind.

[bhskittykatt]

Well, Hubs survived 12 hours at the Mart of Wall. He said it went pretty well. They had an 8pm sale and a 10pm one, and he said by midnight the crowds were pretty much cleared out. They had some police there in addition to Hubby's company, so security wasn't a problem.

The most annoying thing, Hubs said, were all the customers asking him for help. He forwarded this word of advice: don't wear a yellow vest in a Mart of Wall (though from the other stories on this board, it doesn't seem to matter at times anyway). He got all kinds of "Don't you work here?" questions, and the answer was "Well, sort of?" (He doesn't work for Mart of Wall; he's a security guard and his company was contracted to help provide crowd control, and they were wearing yellow "Security" vests.)

[Simbacat]

I just finished my shift and it really wasn't as hellish as I thought it might be. I was on register for three and a half hours and the customers were pleasant and cheerful. All in all, really not a bad day at all. I am, however, glad I do not have to go through this again until next year.

[Amina516]

Hubby survived his first Black Friday in retail at Best Buy. He says they were really well organized. Only excitement to report was a woman getting tackled by a constable for attempting to shop lift a Nabi kids tablet. She was dragged away sliding and screaming "I'm sorry. I'll put it back!".

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I finished my Black Friday at 1 this morning.

All in all not too bad. I've never seen the checkout lines get so long. Only casualties of the night/morning were 20-some coffee mugs on a display table that crashed to the ground when somebody whacked into it with a cart.

More tonight maybe. I was too busy running to the backroom, stocking and re-shelving to notice much of anything else.

[anyanka2]

Finished the first shift of the day at 10 am and have to go back in less than three hours to close . I'm exhausted, so much that I took a three hour nap once I got home. The store sold out of one item before 2 pm, but it was extremely slow between then and 8 am. It was just nuts when I left.

I didn't do any shopping at other places because I'm so worn out. One co-worker went out with family to the local K-Mart yesterday because I guess shopping Thanksgiving and black Friday are what passes for family time with her clan. One of their door busters was an inexpensive tablet with limited quantities in store. Both her and her sister wanted one for their kids. I guess none were for sale because (allegedly) the electronics person there set them aside for her daughter and daughter's boyfriend. She was understandably outraged at this and I guess there was some violence at that store. I can understand her being upset, but at the same time, that's a failure of store management to let employees know they can't hold limited quantity items. I can certainly see why the K-Mart employee did that - she had to work Thanksgiving, deal with irrational customers, and probably doesn't get much appreciation for doing her job. She needed to find some perk of the job, if you could call it that. At the same time, the same outraged co-worker was holding 3 doorbuster razors and 2 comforters for herself in the storage room.