Black Thursday, A.K.A. Thanksgiving

It has been way too long since my last update but I’ve no excuse other than my own lack of motivation to write.  So, after cleaning up the place, let’s begin, shall we?

One thing I’ve come to notice about holiday shoppers is the fact that they always think a better sale is somewhere off in the distance.  It’s like they’re Dorothy wishing upon a rainbow for some giant tornado to come and take them to Oz.  Oz, obviously, is the local electronics store.  Hey, sometimes you have to take what you can get.  This last Black Friday – which, thanks to greedy corporations, was more like Black Thursday – saw some really good deals.  Deals on nothing I really would care about but deals, nonetheless.  So that was a few weeks ago.  Yet, I still get customers coming in who are confused about why the prices have gone back up since then.  As if everything is supposed to remain constant through the passage of time.  That’s why I’m still a young 20-year-old whippersnapper instead of the old, dilapidated age that I am.
Me: “Well… they were on sale for Black Friday.  Those were really good prices.”
Super Genius Customer: “Oh… so they’re no longer on sale?”
Me: ”No, they are, but Black Friday had some REALLY good sales.  Better than what they are now.”
I tend to repeat myself when I’m talking to customers because most customers are like five-year-olds with ADHD.  They never pay attention.
Then the inevitable question follows:
“Do you see them going back down that low?”
“Uh…”
Some times I’m not a hundred percent sure they’re not joking.  I mean, people spent the previous two to three months just waiting to buy that big purchase because of the possibility of a Black Friday deal.  Not even the guarantee – just the possibility!  Then, when Black Friday comes and goes, but while the customer is still under the impression that Black Friday means every day until New Year’s Day, they finally decide to stroll in and check things out.  When they see the prices have changed, they want to know when the next Black Friday-type sale will be.
Uh, next Black Friday would be my guess, but what do I know?  I just work here.
They then ask when the next holiday sale might take place.
When I shrug my shoulders and shake my head in dumbfounded confusion, they throw out possible options.
Labor Day?  President’s Day?  Martin Luther King Jr. Day?  Christmas?
MLK Jr. Day threw me for another loop because I usually associate it with solemn reflection, but I suppose we should thank corporations for ruining that for us.  Christmas, however, knocked me back out of my haze.
“Black Friday kind of was our Christmas,” is finally my response.
The sad look of disappointment when they hear that is then followed by, “Well, I guess I’ll just wait and hope for the best!”
Ah, there’s that American spirit!  That can-do I-can-wait-for-better attitude!  HOO-RAH!
Wait for another holiday to roll around just in the nick of time as your fridge finally gives up the ghost and dies?  That’s Russian Roulette that I wouldn’t want to play.  Yikes!  Those are the same people who come in and are upset that they can’t get next-day delivery because all their food is spoiling because they waited until the last minute to buy something.
But, I suppose that is the American spirit.  You just keep waiting and hoping for a better tomorrow that may or may not come in the hopes of saving an extra ten dollars.  Never lose out hope, shoppers!  There’s always 300 odd days left until next Black Friday!  Perhaps that 25-year-old stove that won’t heat on two of the four burners will make it.  Or you could just suck it up and buy something and be done with it.
…Nah!
More soon from the frontlines...

Black Friday Deals... On Thursday!

It’s that time of year again!  The time where you spend a day of thanks to remember all that you have and all you should be happy about… just a month before you receive things you desired and probably didn’t even need.  I’ve experienced way too many holiday seasons working in retail.  Far more than I ever intended to experience.
This will be a quick post since I’ve mentioned before how pointless I find people lining up as early as Wednesday for some piece of crappy technology that’ll be obsolete within the year.  However, I did want to point out something I heard at my job recently.
One of my coworkers, trying to look on the bright side of only opening at midnight on Thanksgiving, said something along the lines like, “At least we don’t have to open at 10pm or 8pm like [some of our competitors].”
To which I say, “Buuuuulllllshiiiiiiit.”
You see, do customers think the store just magically looks the way it does when they walk into the stores?  Do you see those displays set-up around the store?  Do you see how there are stacks of flyers or ads or pamphlets laid about in certain parts of the stores?  Well, the places you shop don’t magically look like that because a jolly fat man in a red suit makes it look that way.  We’re not elves selling toys made in Santa’s workshop.  There’s no fairy dust that magically turns stores into winter wonderlands.
Since the stores are “closed” on Thanksgiving, everyone has to run around after our store closes for the day on Wednesday like their heads are chopped off trying to set everything up for Friday.  Of the 2-3 times I’ve done this, I’ve stayed to at least 1am.  Then what do you do when you get home?  If you’re me, you have to eat something & then you’re too awake to fall asleep right away.  So, typically, I’m not asleep until around 3am.
Then, since the store now opens at midnight, if one has an opening shift, we’re scheduled an hour or two before the store actually opens.  I’ve started as early as 10pm.  So from midnight on Wednesday to – let’s say – 2am on Thursday, and then again from 10pm to midnight, I’m most definitely working on Thanksgiving.
It’s that kind of thinking that retail companies want you to have.  At first it was, “I’m working 4am but at least I’m not working at midnight.”  Then, when everyone started to open at midnight, we all thought, “I’m working at midnight but at least it’s not ON Thanksgiving.”  To which stores like Target have decided to start opening their doors at 9pm or so ON Thanksgiving.  It’s time we all got together & realized that sales aren’t worth it.  EVERYONE deserves a day – 24 FULL hours – off from work to see the people we don’t get to see very often.  This is something customers AND employees should agree on and need to work together to fix.
Customers need to refuse to shop at stores that open at midnight (or earlier).  Employees, well, I guess the only thing we can do is to keep getting the word out to people we know and tell them to hold off on sales.  My parents never stood in line at 4am for a toy and if I was ever upset that I didn’t get something for Christmas, I quickly got over it because I always got more than I probably deserved.  And so will your kids, relatives, friends, and whoever else you’re in line for.
Incase I don’t get the chance to update before it arrives I wanted to wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving.  I thank you all for taking time out to read my rants and ramblings.  This is just a little project I decided to do as an outlet but it means a lot that you all are reading it.  If you’re living outside the States… Count yourself lucky you’re not apart of the crazy bull that is associated with the Christmas season here in the States.
Moor soon from the frontlines...

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas... In July

     One of the most common anecdotal stories you hear in the retail world is the slow creep into November that Christmas has made.  If you’ve ever seen all the commercials that air for Christmas in the first week of November, you understand what I mean by this.  It seems like hyperbole to suggest that at some point, retail giants will force us to start watching Christmas commercials in January, but at the rate things are going, we may be at that point in another 10 to 12 years.  This year seems to be one of the worst ones out there for retail life – and I’ve seen several.

     For the most part, I’m spared some of the early Christmas displays for awhile but why do places like Macy’s feel the need to put up their Christmas trees no later than September?  It is just plain sickening.  My job usually waits until at least November to roll out holiday-themed gift cards but this year was the first time they brought them out before Halloween. Halloween!  As in October 31^st!  It should’ve been at that point that I realized this year wasn’t going to be like the others.  I love Christmas and all, but let’s leave Christmas for December.

     Then came word that there were a few retailers who were going to open on midnight on Thanksgiving.  One or two others were going to be opening up even before that.  For some, this would be the first time they’d have to work on Thanksgiving at their jobs.  For those of you outside of the U.S., this caused quite a commotion among employees and shoppers.

     Shoppers were upset because they’d have to get up even earlier or leave Thanksgiving earlier to get the good “doorbuster” deals.  Let me start out by saying that if you’re standing in line for a $5 coffeemaker, it’s probably a shitty coffeemaker and not worth missing time with your family.  If your family members are upset because they can’t receive every single gift on their list or they don’t get a certain amount of gifts, just tell them to be one of the millions of homeless people who don’t get a proper Christmas at all.  That’ll shut their ungrateful mouths up, huh?  And if you’re complaining about getting up even earlier to get the deals, well, you’re already up at 12-1am to get to the stores and in line anyway, is getting there earlier going to kill you?  In a few articles, some shoppers that were interviewed said they felt bad for the employees that would have to miss their holiday meals.  I bet you that they were still waiting at midnight to be let in for their special sales despite their sympathy.

     Some employers said they felt really bad about changing the hours and making their employees work these crappy hours but that the ‘demand’ for earlier hours was there and that to remain competitive with others, they had no choice but to open earlier.  Like the old saying goes, “If your friend jumped off a bridge, would you?”  I bet these CEOs are really bummed their employees will have to cut into their family time but somehow they’ll be able to overcome that grief – perhaps on their yacht or their vacation home in the Bahamas.  Any way you cut it, it is just simply greed.  I’m all for making a profit and I hope people spend tons of money at my job because that means I keep making money but there has to be a line drawn somewhere.

     In retail, most of us only get 3 holidays off:  Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.  It’s something in exchange for the crappy wages and the generally crappy conditions we have to put up with.  With the insanity of holiday shopping and the demands of working at stores, we already get family time cut into as it is.  What if someone has more than 1 family they celebrate a holiday with and they spread their time out over 2 days?  They’re already missing that 2^nd family celebration and now you’re asking them to miss the other?

     I’d like to experience a Christmas season overseas just to see how they act.  Do they trample over each other to get a pair of $5 jeans before Christmas?  Is blind, hungry consumerism as rampant overseas as it is here?  Something tells me it’s not.  I wonder why that is?

     Again, I’m all for making a profit, and I knew what I was getting into as far as working long holiday hours, but there has to be a line drawn.  I don’t think as retail workers some common courtesy is too much to ask for.  You should have major holidays off.  You should be able to request a day off of work during the holiday months if you need to spend it with family.  You shouldn’t be made to feel like a criminal if you come down with the flu and have to call off of work.  These things happen quite often at my job and others that I’ve heard about.

     I figured with all the Occupy Wall Street and the ninety-nine-percenters out there that the midnight open that some companies did would create a bigger backlash but I was sorely disappointed.  From the looks of it, idiots, instead of staying inside and just going on Amazon like sane people, ended up showing up at midnight.  It’s called the internet, people!  Use it for more than porn, okay?  It’s not just Wall Street and the government that needs to be taught a lesson about capitalism run amok.  It’s also the retail giants that treat their workers only slightly better than slave labor and their customers like cattle that can be manipulated into buying anything as long as they call it a “holiday sale”.

     I’ll have more to say on another post about holidays but this rant is long enough.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to hurry out the door – there’s a great sale going on at JCPenny!  If I buy 4 sweaters, I get 5% off the fifth one! Sweet!

More soon from the frontlines...