The day after Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the Christmas Season, but it is a special day in which retailers swing open their doors at obscenely early hours with deals and bargains for shoppers to snap up as Christmas Gifts. The day is known as Black Friday, known as such because it is the day retailers hope to turn their balance sheets from a negative red to a positive black.
Some stores will even open on Thanksgiving Day, while others will open at Midnight but usually no later than 6am on Black Friday.
We go from a day to give thanks into a season in which we give. However if one ever has worked in the retail business on a Black Friday, the retail worker is the Gazelle and the customers are a pack of Hyenas in a feeding frenzy.
I work in retail and have done so for almost 30 years, I can remember when Black Friday was a very busy day, but nothing like it has become, over the course of my retail career. I am lucky this year, I get to sleep in and come in during the afternoon hours when most of the frenzy and frothing has subsided.
The problem with Black Friday is that customers do not comprehend the fact that quantities of whatever special are limited and that the entire planets inventory of whatever item was not shipped to their town to their intended store. Camping outside the store in a sleeping bag for untold hours prior to opening does not immediately guarantee one the item they sought, depending on ones place in line and how many other fellow customers want the same item versus how many of said item the store actually has in stock.
Unfortunately by the time this black Friday has passed, I expect to hear the same horror stories in the news that have been pervasive in past years. These will include:
- Customers trampling other customers or store associates.
- Customer on Customer/Sales Associate assaults.
- Customers snatching sale items out of the hands or buggies of other customers.
- Snatch and grab shoplifting.
- Check and Credit fraud.
I guess I paint customers, the life blood of the business I am in, in a bad light, but first hand experience on this day teaches one to be wary. On this day, each year, customers seem to leave their humanity and civility behind, after having given thanks the prior day as they prepare to give. It give a new meaning to the saying ”every man for himself”. The sad part of all of this is, these customers on this day in particular don’t realize they are behaving badly, everyone else is..