Black Friday

**Martianinvader** · #1 11-12-2009, 10:02 PM

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Bla...&fr=fp-tts-701

This year, stores are taking a different approach: all the print ads for Black Friday Weekend have "accidentally" been leaked.

Looking through them was kind of disappointing. $279 is sweet for an HDTV, but not one from a weak brand that will probably explode shortly after the warranty expires. I want New Super Mario Wii at $10, not Zowie Horse Babyz. And when I ask for $12.99 DVD sets, I don't mean Gossip Girl. Can they try harder?

Mind you, I would never actually go out for a Black Friday sale at the time they expect me to. Everyone knows the most horrible people on Earth go to the store at that time. They log off 4Chan, get out of their coffins and come to Target with their concealed billy-clubs. If I hear of deaths from this Black Friday, I won't be surprised. It makes me wonder if in the future it could get so bad that the government would have to step in and ban Black Friday, making it a law instead that major sales must be spread throughout December.

The best thing to do on B.F. is to go later in the evening, when the stampede has subsided and the employees have restocked. You can find a lot of good deals there, with none of the hassle or loss of sleep. No one knows this but me.

takineko · #2 11-13-2009, 04:01 PM

I was told at my job Black Friday sales are no different than regular sales we have. And we're only busy for a short time and then we're very slow. We mostly sell appliances so it's kind of obvious people don't buy a big washer and dryer set for someone for Christmas unless they're married and pre-decided on what they wanted.

HomeMoviesFan · #3 11-13-2009, 09:09 PM

Why are Target and Best Buy so reluctant to put as many blu-ray discs as they can on sale for BF? (I counted four to five at the most) Considering how pricey they can get, you'd think that would be the number one thing they would offer in the movies department.

Aside from that, I've worked in an outlet clothing store on BF before years ago. Every person on was on staff, and my job was to patrol (I'm not kidding you here) a space of the store six feet long, five feet wide. I could not leave that spot for eight hours, and boy was it excruciating, because BF shoppers KNOW what they want. In those eight hours, I helped about three to four people in total. On a normal eight-hour shift I would help out easily over twenty to thirty. The rest was hordes of shoppers walking past me rudely and having to constantly refold undone shirts and check for shoplifters. (surprisingly common on BF)

To this day I refuse to go black Friday shopping. If there's a good deal, I tell my mom (who does it) to buy it and I'll pay her back later. This year, my friends want to go laptop shopping on BF...I still haven't told them whether or not I'll be joining them...

mobo85 · #4 11-13-2009, 09:50 PM

The stores may or may not be taking a page from Franklin Roosevelt's playbook- in 1939, FDR controversially moved Thanksgiving to a week earlier at the request of businesses who wanted to extend the Christmas shopping period. This decision was not well-liked, and Thanksgiving was moved back to its traditional date two years later. Of course, most businesses are giving the Christmas shopping season an even bigger head-start by starting it in October or so nowadays.

(Although Black Friday is a large shopping day, it is not, contrary to popular belief, the largest shopping day of the year- that day is usually in December some time before Christmas. The date varies each year.)

J. B. Warner · #5 11-14-2009, 10:20 AM

I won't be shopping on Black Friday, I have to work that day. It sounds all well and good, except that I work at Wal-Mart now.

Fortunately, I'm just a cashier (if I've been assigned a different position for the day, nobody's told me), and also fortunately, I won't be working those ungodly 2:00 AM hours when all the crazies come out. So maybe it won't be that bad.

Last year, I went to the mall on Black Friday, just to see how crazy it really was. To be honest, it didn't look all that different from any other Friday night, except it was hordes of families roaming the mall instead of hordes of teenagers.

takineko · #6 11-20-2009, 10:49 PM

Have I mentioned on Black Friday I'm supposed to be running the registers I've never used before? And no one has trained me to do it yet? I have to ring up thousands of dollars worth of appliances with warranties and store credit cards and delivery fees and dates and a half dozen other things I can't remember or have never heard of! Yeah no pressure... ~has a panic attack~

I'm a price checker. This is a sales persons job. But this year in order to make sure the customers are actually taken care of [usually we have way too few sales people working] we run the register while the sales people stay on the floor doing paper work and making sales.

I hate Saturnalia.

veemonjosh · #7 11-21-2009, 01:24 AM

I now work as an intern at Borders every Tuesday and Friday, but THANK GOD I don't have to work Black Friday.

I mean, really, EVERY YEAR I hear of people being trampled to death all because the people behind them wanted to get the most idiotic deals. It's honestly barbaric beyond belief and a horrifying start to an otherwise joyful season...I agree MI, the government should seriously outlaw Black Friday.

So if anyone needs me next Friday, I'll be hiding in my room with hatred for the materialistic world.

HomeMoviesFan · #8 11-21-2009, 07:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by veemonjosh

I now work as an intern at Borders every Tuesday and Friday, but THANK GOD I don't have to work Black Friday.

I'm sorry...Borders has internships?! The actual bookstore? That's kinda...odd.

veemonjosh · #9 11-22-2009, 11:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HomeMoviesFan

I'm sorry...Borders has internships?! The actual bookstore? That's kinda...odd.

They've been offering internships for quite some time...

I don't see how it's so shocking and odd.

takineko · #10 11-22-2009, 11:35 PM

NC covers it beautifully http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-thYW3No8Y

HomeMoviesFan · #11 11-25-2009, 03:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by veemonjosh

They've been offering internships for quite some time...

I don't see how it's so shocking and odd.

Retail stores, since they revolve heavily around part-time and underage labor anyways doesn't seem like internship material (it's not so hard to actually get a job there without an impressive resume), unless those doing them are under 16. Thus begs the question: what 13-year-old on this planet would do an internship?!...

takineko · #12 11-29-2009, 01:50 PM

Black Friday for me was relativly harmless though exhausting. Wound up doing nothing I thought I was going to do, but I stayed busy.

I heard someone was trampled in a Walmart in CA? But they lived?