My second day on the job at Toys R Us was Black Friday and I was assigned to the Lego aisle. I quit by lunch time. *shudder*

SilentStrider: ZyklonAeon: Don't forget the myriad of poor people who have not bathed for weeks.

shhh, be nice. The technical term for them is "college students"

ok...i snorted over that...good job!

I used to work GeekSquad for Best Buy, and the last meeting I attended was the one where they were gearing up for the holiday rush. Our manager was explaining how they had to barricade the departments off, set it up so people took a number and were "power-sold" products as they were allowed into the departments to preserve orders. We geeks, alternatively, were to be alternating between setting up people's PCs with all the crap they wanted on them and manning registers to gett people outof the door. They would then have guys going up and down the lines asking folks about extra goodies and offering to retrieve said items for them if they wanted them.

I, of course, got another job and got the heck outta there, but did offer to come back in with an armed security team as a contractor. Sadly, i was declined.

/true story

Many Christmases ago, I went to buy a doll for my son. I reached for the last one they had, but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way. [The doll] was destroyed. But out of that a new holiday was born . . . a Festivus for the rest of us!

i really want a laptop car charger for the trip i'm going on tomorrow, but i think my life is worth more than being bored for 10 hours. i refuse to go anywhere near a store on black friday. *shudders*

Barbara Streisand. Singing "Jingle Bells". Over and over and over. And if I ever meet the dimwit who thought the canned mall music should be broadcast in the service corridors behind the stores, I will rip his nads off.

I work at best buy, last year, I was working the games area when I was slapped on the head from behind by a hard plastic videogame case. When I turned, an overweight african american woman with a memorycard in a game case was just about to open her mouth to speak. I put my hand up to cut her off, and told her that I didn't have anything she was looking for, period.

I'm human too.

I'll never forget how I was working overnights at Wal-Mart, and the boss had to page everyone around 4 am asking us to "please stop looking out the windows and laughing at the customers waiting outside"

I haven't worked retail, but I worked at a convenience store during the holiday season. Lonely depressed guys showed up in higher numbers. Unshowered and sad, I spent my time back in the alcohol cooler and restocked it so more could come in and drink away their sorrows.

Happy holidays!

This isn't retail - but may be worse:
Worked at airline ticket counter on the SUNDAY after Thanksgiving. People fly home on various days before Thanksgiving, but everyone wants to fly back to college, work, etc. on THAT SUNDAY.
We only had one empty seat on all 5 flights out of our hellhole, and that one empty seat belonged to some poor college kid on the last flight of the night going anywhere. His parents didn't bother showing up at the ticket counter to check his bags until the doors were already shut and the engines were spooling up. Of course it was our fault, and soon his mother was pounding both fists on the counter screaming at the top of her lungs. This was pre 9/11 (by about 10 years), I'm sure today she'd be getting more than a quick lecture from airport security.

I was working at a borders about 6 years ago and the lines where outrageous. They where around to the exit to the mall.
A lady walks up to the cash register and begins to write a check. I ask for her ID (required during rushes because of fraud) she refuses to show me her ID. I politely tell her (while there is a huge line behind her, I was one of two managers at the time) that she needed to show me her ID or she would need to play in cash.
She throws her ID at me and begins to cry and scream, at least 50 people where in listening distance. Her young daughter was astonished at her mothers actions. She shrunk to the size of a grape nut and gave me a look like "please god just get this over with".
After I ring her purchase and attempt to hand her back her ID she grabs my hand and rips it from me before I could fully extend. She then starts to go down the line talking shiat about me and borders. The WHOLE freaking line that extended to the mall exit.
Surprise! This lady was a middle class white woman. I swear my best customers where bikers, old people and poor collage students. Middle aged white woman are the bane of American society.

KCBlueGal

Coooooool....if you move the mouse back and forth just right on that Target link, you can make them into a funky trance song. Kermit and the Boring Guy were kinda tripping me out...

//Yes, I am stoned. Why do you ask?

I worked at Castle Park Golf N Fun. The biggest days of the year were Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Christmas Day, and New Year's Day.

People drop off the kids with money and expect them to handle $40-100 for the day. Kids dropped money and panicked, meaning we would have to search the whole arcade for money. Or they'd get bored on the golf course and start fights. One set of charmers ripped up flowers and threw them at each other.

I just show up on Black Friday to laugh and point at stupid people... No seriously, as a chauffeur it is part of my job to push people out of the way for my clients. I have yet to be threatened, your average soccer Mom doesn't stand a chance. I have no confirmed business these next few days so I guess I'll just get to point and laugh. I use to work retail for Brookstone and Banana Republic, never again!!!

I'm opening for GameStop tommorow..

/fingers crossed

I make enough money that I don't have to deal with the unwashed masses....

Wow, it must suck to be poor and have to act like cattle just to save a few bucks. Either that, or they just like being part of the unwashed herd.

i used to work at best buy, and someone would repeatedly phone me up and ask "have you checked the children...?"

I didn't know what black friday was until I saw a preview for a news story that was about this chick coming on to give tips on how to shop tomorrow.

WTF

Although me and my mom went to Wal-Mart one year on boxing day to get me a N64. Wasn't very busy. Prolly cause it was wal-mart.

/doesn't really hate wal-mart
//voting enabled anyway
///slashies!

I went out to annoy some people at Wal-Mart last year, but we were shoving our way to the Toy Department, and I saw some woman get biatch-slapped over some stupid toy.

Went around to the electronics, and I saw two women shoving each other for a chance to get to the discount DVD bins.

I am staying in this year, and I have to work the night shift at a deli. Who could possibly need meat after thanksgiving?

/shouldn't have asked that
//what could possibly go wrong?
///slashies

When you work for a private franchise of a national chain, you have little or no say in the advertising leading up to the day in question.
When the newspaper inserts say you open at 7am, but you really open at 8, people use words like "liar" "asshole" "motherfarker" and even once "lawsuit"
When the insert prints in tiny letters "Limited Quantities, No Rainchecks" apparently shoppers interpret this as "You're allowed to complain in loudly and violently when you don't your way."

I've never worked a black friday in retail, tomorrows my first. And unfortunatly I work at radioshack, which means we will get some stupid biatch coming in during our 6 hour sale for a god damn cordless phone battery. Also only about 50% of our customers have even heard of the word hygene much less doo anyhting about it. Christ it seems like every other cell phone I sell the customer has no teeth, and they are only 40!

I just thank god all we have to do is clerking for the first six hours, we're not expected to sell and cell phones (a 30 min process in and of it self.)

I will KILL anyone who thinks they can pay with a check before noon tomorrow.

Well, my Black Friday horror stories aren't that interesting, but my Black Sunday stories are diferent.

/woot KoL

Never worked retail. Never have gone shopping on Black Friday. Question for those that do:

Is it really worth it? I mean, from the coverage I see on the news every year, I think I would rather gouge out my eyes with a rusty fork than get up at 5 am, wait in line with 500 raging, aggressive soccer moms in the freezing cold, stampede into some store, engage in violence to get the door-buster of the day, and then wait in line for an hour or more to check out. Nothing about that seems remotely fun or appealing or even tolerable to me. And I would think most people would feel the same - yet every year the day after Thanksgiving gets crazier and crazier. Does it boil down to people feeling like this is their one "free day" to participate in a violent, angry mob? I'm really curious.

/antisocial anyway
//but especially during the holidays

I worked at Best Buy as a technician/Geek Squad agent. They would make us all not work on customer machines but play the retail game on black friday. So, as luck would have it, I was chosen to cashier. I was also the only female tech.

So when the manager left the vicinity, I turned around to another tech that hadn't heard what my orders were, said I needed to go on break and that he was supposed to "cover me" at the front lanes.

Bwahahahahaha

/hate black friday

These stories are making me want to get up early and go out just to see people acting like idiots to save 20 bucks on some pos dvd player.

When I worked at a Rite Aid and had a 50+ year old Meth addict skank with "Hottie" written in hot pink on her shirt return the same box of suppositories like 10 times.
ACK, ACK the mental imagery!!

"which is particularly stupid, as by law, you are allowed up to 4 hours PAID TIME OFF during business hours to go vote on a Canadian federal election day."

I've seen people get let go because they had to fight with their employer over this at different places a few times.

Of course it's a "lay-off" or some other shady excuse employers use so they don't break any laws.

Middle aged white woman are the bane of American society.

I will go on record and say that middle aged women, period, are the bane of American retail existence; I used to work in a store in a black neighborhood which also had a lot of white customers and found the middle-aged women were the worst pain in the ass customers. When they really got started on some unreasonable BS, there was no stopping them or calming them down; and they'd always walk off angry and make some remark disparaging the store (despite the fact that I want to do a good job, can anyone really think I would care at all if they mouth off about going to a competitor's store?). It was amusing when the ones who mouthed off the worst would come back and I'd recognize them; thus I perpetuated the cycle of abuse.

/heheheheh

I've seen two grandmothers fight over a Tickle Me Elmo before. I guess I'll have to watch them fight over Xbox 360's this year.

For entertainment purposes though, Christmas Eve is much more fun for people watching. I make sure my christmas shopping is done nice and early (at least a week earlier, to totally lower my stress level), show up at the mall around 2 hours before closing, and just watch. You get the mad rush of consumerism tied in with that last minute panic.

Now THAT'S entertainment.

Can you send a Target wake up call at 3 A.M.to someone you don't like? Just to be mean? MUAHAHAHAHAHA!

Sad to say I have worked retail for 10+ years. I could fill a book of horror stories, not only about Black Friday but the other 364 shopping days of the year. My trick was to always "volunteer" to work the overnight shift that way I would not have to fight the maruding herds, unfortunately I would have to put the store back together after it looked like a truck hit it. Always great to seeing the folks lined up in the parking lot at 3 am, with 6 different circulars and the different store opening times chomping at the bit.

There is always one hot toy a year that corporate puts in the flyer about 3 months before Christmas that cause near riots when the store gets their allotment of 24 pieces and its advertised.

My favorite "hot toy" experience was when one of my managers was able to get an entire trailer load of Teenager Mutant Ninja Turtles. We announced it ahead of time, had someone dressed as a turtle, etc. Fire marshall shut the store down 3 times, the glass front windows were swaying from the amount of people in the store, and the guy that had the Turtle costume on got stripped of it. Good times.

/Most people should not be allowed out of the house nevermind be allowed to carry money.
//Retail at Christmas is like hell with flourescent lights.
///Giving slashies this year.

Even though I loathe Wal-Mart...tomorrow they have Game Boy SPs for like $48. I know I won't go, but damn is it tempting to trade your values for values.

Luckily I'm out in a small town on the coast, so black friday means I have to actually stand in some line while everyone is talking to each other and the cashier about who was in town for dinner, and what stuck up city folk tourist assholes did when they couldn't find anything open on Thursday.

Man, when are those powerball numbers coming in so I can move out here permanently?

When the newspaper inserts say you open at 7am, but you really open at 8, people use words like "liar" "asshole" "motherfarker" and even once "lawsuit"

You've given me an idea of dressing up in a suit and saying I'm from "F-A-R and K law offices" and offering my services for such malfeasance as standing in line for more than 2.5 hours (state law, doncha know). Get them out of the line and hold them up past the opening of the store and do a Nelson HA HA.

quentin mcalmott Now that was the nerdiest thing I've read since... um... ever.

I will go on record and say that middle aged women, period, are the bane of American retail existence;

They do get bitter when there are no more eggs in the henhouse, don't they?

/puts on Teflon suit and ducks
//never worked retail
///doesn't get the "Black Friday" mania anyway

It is also fun starting rumors in large crowds...especially when you are wearing a suit. Although you might look out of place, you are also somewhat of an authority figure among the idiot masses.

I worked at Best Buy on black friday 2003 as a cashier. We we're allowed to wear coats around the store, becuase people would think you were butting in line, and we'd had employees attacked before. It was snowing that day, and ab out 4:30 am, right after we opened the doors stuck open. I was the first register and almost froze to death. Then, while the lines were still 3 hours long, something happened to the cash registers connection that made it impossible for us to take CREDIT CARDS. This lasted for over an hour. You haven't been yelled at till you tell some crazy lady who waited 4 hours outside in the cold for the store to open and then 3 hours in line to buy a CD that you can't take her credit card.
I work at office max this year, and we have a lot less staff. I think it will be better than best buy, I just hope I don't get too many people asking where the xbox 360s are. We already get about 40 calls a day for them. Why would an office store carry an xbox?

thisdaydreamer:

I'm deeply sorry for your loss. Now I wanna think of some funny story to help you...

This didn't happen to me, but a friend of mine worked Black Friday at Best Buy last year.

She dragged herself there at 4am to get hassled all the way into the store to let them in. What they didn't know was that some of the employees had banded together, and whoever wasn't working that day sold breakfast foods at STEEP mark-ups to the starving people in line. They split the profits.

I worked at Wal-Mart. That's all I've got. Two black Fridays I had to put up with the biatches who came through ... no patience, and they're all just ... skeazy as hell.

I do love the folks with the radios though. They'll be standing in line and someone will say "I FOUND IT! I FOUND THE TICKLE ME ELMO! IT WAS UNDER A PILE OF CLOTHES!" and I'll be checkint the last item and they're like "can you wait, he's fighting his way to the front?" to which I would reply, "Um, no, sorry, see that line behind you? You'll have to go through again."

Oh man, that always pissed people off.

No longer work at Wal-Mart though : )

Last year was my first experience with the general retail horror (before that was Bobcat parts, no rush there) working package pickup at Sears. System crashed atleast 5 times that day, lots of pushing and shoving and people not liking to hear that they had to wait until they could get their car in the semi-circle outside our door before we'd load their items.

I'm not looking forward to tomorrow, but maybe I'll get to punch someone. :)

its not about jesus -

ugh, i work for the borders chain myself, only seasonal temp tho. i work with the waldenbooks (owned by borders group) group, and ill be working the seasonal calendar store tomorrow. thats right, calendars >< i wonder how bad it will be. i mean, we are a downtown mall, so we get businessmen and crazies alike. i hope we wont be that busy, but i mean... its calendars!

crazy people

oh, and to the person who asked, black friday deals usually arent that great. ive never seen anything thats compelled me to get up and go shop at 7 am or whatever. usually you can find the same deals somewhere else at a different time of the year or later in the year, so this one day, its kind of stupid to go out and shove your way to a somewhat cheaper dvd player

No "working retail on Black Friday" horror stories. I do remember some years ago boarding a bus at the mall a couple of days before Christmas and an old lady took issue with the crowding and swung her elbow behind her and hit me in my ribs. I believe that was the last time I braved the holiday shopping hell.

I am mildly surprised that there have been no reported fatalities from the lack of availability of Microsoft's new XBox 360. Ah well, the "'Tis the season to be jolly" time is still young.

These stories are making me want to get up early and go out just to see people acting like idiots to save 20 bucks on some pos dvd player.

You too, huh? There's a Toys R Us about a block from work, I could probably leave early and take pictures.