Everyone going shopping on Black Friday, be aware of three things:
The retail workers are working 12 hours shifts. We are threatened with losing our jobs if we don’t show up unless we’re dying in the hospital. I had an assistant manager show up with fucking strep because he would’ve been fired otherwise. Yes, he did infect 7 and hospitalize 2 coworkers; who knows how many members of the public he infected.
The stores have, maybe, 5 of that special cheap thing you’re after. Corporate does this on purpose, and stores are not allowed to order enough. The prices aren’t even that much lower. They lie about how expensive something is to fool you into thinking you’re getting a discount. You aren’t.
Most of the workers you will come across will be new hires for the sole purpose of being bodies for about three months before they’re fired. They actually don’t know anything because they’ve been working there for maybe two weeks, and have had no real training. I was once hired at Staples a week before Black Friday and expected to know how to deal with phones, coupons, the online ordering site, and AS400 after five 6-hour shifts. This is the kind of person you will likely be dealing with at Black Friday.
Do me and my retail family a favor and don’t shop Black Friday. Any company that needs a sale day like Black Friday to get their sales out of the red doesn’t deserve to be in business.
This also goes for anyone that works shipment too. We’re suddenly expected to stay as late as they want you to even if they know you don’t have a car and rely on a ride to get you to and from work and know you can’t stay late. Shipment workers will suddenly start getting berated for not getting things done and it is by far the most stressful time to be a shipment worker for any store. Especially when they throw in new hires that don’t know how to process things and are expected to work at the same pace as the people that have worked there for a while.
Retail is shit around the holidays, especially Black Friday
ok fellow millenials, it’s time to kill black friday
LET’S KILL BLACK FRIDAY
This goes double for Thanksgiving. More and more places are opening late on Thanksgiving; Gamestop is opening at 3 PM on Thanksgiving. My employer is and always has been open 24 hours on Thanksgiving.
Sometimes going out is unavoidable, please be as kind and understanding to the people forced to work as possible.
I was at the mall tonight. More than 24 hours before the traditional ‘Black Friday’s is supposed to begin. Here’s what I saw: 3x a normal staff, all there to set up displays and work until the asscrack of dawn (stores are open until midnight tonight, recovery will take at least an hour before the team huddle to amp teams up pre-Black Friday). Every manager in the store was on shift. Some had been there since open that morning.
Everyone in the store had a headset. The guy ringing me up actually took his earpiece out to speak to me, which tells me two things – 1) this particular store has genuine people who ACTUALLY GIVE A SHIT about their customers and 2) there has been constant chatter in the headsets all day and this guy could no longer focus on both things at once.
The managers looked frazzled. I nearly ran into one because I wasnt paying attention and I thought she was a mannequin and when I apologized to her she just got this shocked look in her face and started laughing. Guarantee this woman had been there since 6AM and was so prepared for every iteration of rude asshole that it never crossed her mind there might be someone shopping in the store who didn’t want to choke her with her own lanyard.
Their plans were all battle strategy. I’m not even slightly exaggerating – they had contingency plans for their contingency plans. They were prepared for chaos and ready to take action given pretty much ANY circumstance.
Softlines team members were obsessively zoning any bit of clothing slightly out of place. I reached for a newly folded jacket with every intention of either touching it without moving it or refolding it neatly because I’m not an asshole, and a team member two rows over from me made a noise like a wounded animal. I did not touch her newly finished zone. This did not stop her from watching me for another three rows and I don’t even blame her.
Another manager asked if I needed assistance with anything or if I had any questions and I could see the Abyss in her eyes.
The point of this long winded story is that every retail worker who will be working Black Friday (or Thanksgiving because that’s a thing now) is prepared for you to murder their mother in front of them, piss on the corpse, and then demand to speak to a manager because their eye twitched while this was going down. The point of this is to say be kind. These people have bills to pay and corporate will fire them without a thought if they don’t show up for this day.
If you absolutely must shop on Black Friday, let them be quick and down to business when they ring you up. Don’t be offended or feel slighted, there are fifty people behind you and their corporate office has transaction goals they expect every store to beat, not meet. If they are out of a product, you’re shit out if luck and you should calmly and quietly move on. If you can, be neat and orderly.
Don’t expect to have lengthy conversation, and don’t be offended if people seem like they’re hurrying you. They are, and it’s for a fucking reason. If they DO latch on to a conversational point, let them talk at you for a bit, they obviously see that you are a human being who also sees that THEY are a human being and they need your quiet support more than anything in that moment.
Please and thank you go a long way. Manners maketh man. Give your retail workers some goddamn dignity.
Just. Like. Take care of each other. The people I saw tonight are preparing for the literal worst shift of their lives, and will be thankful if it’s only mildly terrible. Be that one person who they remember for being kind and understanding and LETTING THEM DO THEIR JOBS EFFICIENTLY.
Just. Be nice. Be kind. And get your shit and go.
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