Stupid Black Friday

Black Friday:  The day where people try to buy their family's love by getting up before dawn to brawl with other people over cheap, mass-produced, junk that will be returned on December 26.  This activity replaces spending quality time with our family.

This year's Black Friday wasn't as bad as some of the previous years but it was still chaos.  All the sale crap items were covered with plastic wrap awaiting the 5am start time.  It was the employees job to guard the junk until 5am and prevent people from getting at it too early.  This made me nervous because a couple of years ago, an employee got cut with a knife when she tried to stop a customer from cutting the plastic off of a display before time.  The year before that, a worker got a broken arm when he was knocked down in the rush.

It was never clear if an employee with a fast watch started it or a customer got impatient but a display in the electronics section got cut open early and it caused a domino effect through the entire store.  The crowd went feral as cries of "It's started!" swept through the store.  They ripped open the protective plastic to get at the coveted shiny things.  Managers were shouting "Just let them take the stuff" as they were concerned for employee safety.  That got no argument from us worker bees.  We were all outnumbered by 50 to 1.  We sort of huddled in a corner to watch the frenzy.

Then, we all had to wade back into the fray when we noticed that mothers were dangling their small children head first into bins to get at stuff.  You wouldn't believe the effort we make on a daily basis to save customers from themselves.  About 90% of the stuff we had on sale disappeared in the first 20 minutes.  I spent the remainder of my day telling people "No, we don't have that anymore" and getting bawled out.

I was so happy to leave for home.  I swear, I was ready to slug the next person who got my attention by grabbing me.

Oh, and my favorite exchange with a customer was:

"Where are the bikes that are on sale?"

"They are in the main aisle right in front of toys."

"I don't believe you!"