Tell us about your Black Friday Experience: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly...

[MickeyMousePal]

I just went to Best Buy at 2 in the afternoon. I got Supernatural Season 3 for $14.99. Also the Shield Season 6 for $13 with a $3 off coupon and TMNT 2003 series Season 2 Part 1 for $13.99.

[Barbossa]

Wow, the shopping! You guys do know that you are in a recession now do you?
CTV.ca | Stock markets hit by big losses; U.S. recession official

[aimster]

^^ I've known for the at least last 5-6 months when the government was still denying it.

[AliKzam]

Okay, let's see. I have two jobs and both required me to work Black Friday. My first one is a department store that I had to be a from 3:45am to 11:30am. I had a better BF there this year than I did last year. This year, my customers were all nice. Last year, the line outside didn't want to let me go in the store because they didn't belive I worked there. Also last year, I had customers complain that we didn't have enough registers open, when we had every single one open. Oh well, sometimes people don't think, do they? The only thing that bugged me was our GM had told us earlier in the week that he was making us waffles for breakfast. When my lunch break came, there was a griddle with batter and instructions in the break room. I didn't know how to make waffles before, but I do now.
I went home and slept for three hours and dreamed I was still at my register.
When I went to my other job, it had been pretty busy there and everyone was a little slap-happy, which made everything go smoothly.
So all in all, it was a very long day, but it wasn't terrible.
My heart goes out to the family of the seasonal Wal-Mart employee in New York.

[Rex Dopey24]

Originally Posted by Barbossa

Wow, the shopping! You guys do know that you are in a recession now do you?
CTV.ca | Stock markets hit by big losses; U.S. recession official

gee, where have they been? we have been in recession for quite a while now and they just realise that?

[aimster]

^^ Living under a BIG rock, apparently.

[Rex Dopey24]

yeah lol.

[Disney Wrassler]

Originally Posted by AliKzam

Okay, let's see. I have two jobs and both required me to work Black Friday. My first one is a department store that I had to be a from 3:45am to 11:30am. I had a better BF there this year than I did last year. This year, my customers were all nice. Last year, the line outside didn't want to let me go in the store because they didn't belive I worked there. Also last year, I had customers complain that we didn't have enough registers open, when we had every single one open. Oh well, sometimes people don't think, do they? The only thing that bugged me was our GM had told us earlier in the week that he was making us waffles for breakfast. When my lunch break came, there was a griddle with batter and instructions in the break room. I didn't know how to make waffles before, but I do now.
I went home and slept for three hours and dreamed I was still at my register.
When I went to my other job, it had been pretty busy there and everyone was a little slap-happy, which made everything go smoothly.
So all in all, it was a very long day, but it wasn't terrible.
My heart goes out to the family of the seasonal Wal-Mart employee in New York.

I give you so much credit! Heck, I work one job in retail and know exactly what you are talking about. Okay, two days ago, a woman came in talking on her cell phone and we were busy as heck at the register.

My AM turned around to face and greet her and the woman cussed her out for looking at her and then left. Then yesterday morning, she called our store to let us know that she called our District Manager and the Vice President of The Region saying that we were treating her like a shoip lifter.

What the??? My AM simply wanted to say hi and she said we were following her around the store like she was a shop lifter when in fact she only stayed in the store for a few seconds, literally, and we were too busy at the register to be following anyone around.

Then yesterday was a very very very very very busy day. My AM had worked all day and about 8 minutes before closing an old woman walked in. As usual, we politly reminded her we were about to close and she started getting rude with my AM claiming that my AM was being rude to her and kept ranting about it.

All my AM did was give her a polite reminder at the end of a stressful day and this customer gave her more BS. Enough of it that it got to the point that all the customers in line let her cut in front of them because they too we getting sick of her running her mouth.

I too send my heart out to the man who died for such a stupid, useless, and pathetic reason. It's so sad.

But I give you so much credit Ali and beyond that. You got a lot of respect from me my friend.

[aimster]

^^ I seriously do not miss working in retail. You couldn't pay me enough to go back.

But back when I did, one night one of our usual customers (she would be waiting at the door for it to be unlocked at opening nearly EVERY DAY) came in less than 5 minutes before closing time. And she finally left around 10 minutes after we were supposed to be all locked up. I absolutely hated working until closing time. I tried to get the 7am-4pm shift or a shift that ended at 7pm at the latest whenever possible.

Thankfully the last Christmas Eve I ever worked in retail, I was done for the day at noon.

[AliKzam]

Thanks very much, Disney Wrassler. Yeah, this time of year, the crazies really seem to come out, as everybody wants to buy presents. You just hope they're crazy but harmless, and that management is smart.
Today at my other job, I got to be a part of our company holiday video. I got to be the one who displayed the right way and the wrong way to handle a difficult customer. It was a blast (I threw things)! If the video gets posted online, I'll provide a link for it.

[Disney Wrassler]

So far my customers have been pretty good. Not physically harmful, but I have seen people, yes adults, cuss my manager and AM out in front of kids. I mean they were shouting!

Aimster, I so hate it when that happens too. We want to go home and then here come in people who want to do their entire shopping list five minutes before we close!

Sometimes I get a laugh out of it though. Here is one story in particular. My mom was driving my car that day and so thus she had to pick me up. So she waited in the parking lot for 10 minutes prior to when the store closed.

Then with five minutes left, she just see's this big group of people enter our store . It just sounded funny how she said it.

But it got noisy really fast.