Seeing Red on Black Friday
Mary Iannone on Dec 3rd 2009
As someone who has worked in three different retail stores over the past four Black Fridays, I think it’s safe to say that I’ve seen all sides of human nature. More specifically, all sides of human nature when confronted with heavily discounted merchandise.
I have woken up at 3 am in order to open the store to a herd of (mostly) middle-aged women. After hearing about the deaths following last year’s Black Friday, I am counting my blessings that I have never been the worker to physically open the doors to welcome the stampede.
I have stayed awake until 3 am in order to close the store after the group has dispersed. I remember this shift, when we all stood at the front of the store for about five minutes and just looked at the pure destruction that had been left in front of us. I’m sure you can all come up with some ideas for what we were thinking at that time.
I have been dubbed a bitch by a man after informing him the digital camera he was seeking had just been sold out.
But this year, I started my new part-time scut work at a clothing store in my neighborhood ON Black Friday. Don’t even ask me how it worked out that way. After suffering through two back-to-back 11-hour shifts, I have come to the conclusion that true human nature…is to be as absolutely disgusting as possible when you know you don’t have to account for it.
What is it about a neatly folded table of sweaters that turns normally docile females into the human embodiment of a tornado? I would be working double-time, trying to keep up the order of this one – ONE – table I was assigned to, and the second I would turn my back, they would attack. As much as I looked forward to breaktime, I almost dreaded it just as much, knowing the work that would be awaiting me after leaving the table unmanned for however long my break was. It looked like the women picked up a sweater, thought, “Oh, this isn’t my size,” and literally slingshotted it across the store.
After four years of picking up after people who seem to lose all sort of hygenic decency after walking into a retail store, I am confident that I will NEVER become one of those women. If anything good has come out of this unintentionally degrading work, it’s that.
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5 Responses to “Seeing Red on Black Friday”
Wow, Mary. That sounds both horrifying and thrilling at the same time. People are crazy, but you get to see the ugly but true side of human nature. I bet there are pyschology studies of Black Friday out there, like if people really do become all “Lord of the Flies” just to get what they want. If I were you, I would create a blog just for retail workers to use on big shopping days like Black Friday. I would be anxious to read their stories!
Good idea! It is an ugly phenomenon. I wonder if it happens in other cultures.
I had to work the night before Black Friday ( I have Fridays off). It was sad seeing the employees running around like chickens without a head. The managers had meltdowns and one manager actually sliced his arm open with a blade. It was a minor cut but he demanded he be taken to the emergency room. I think it was just to get out of the store. Well all the hard work they put into the displays at 3am were knocked down at 6am. 600 99 cents flower pots gone in 2 hours. 30 25 dollar microwaves gone in one hour. Keeping one’s sanity on Black Friday is priceless.
My family immigrated from Europe, and I don’t think we’ve ever participated in Black Friday. Not for as long as I can remember, because I don’t think I’ve ever even been to a store during Black Friday. I’ve only heard the stories, and given the manifestations of consumer culture I see elsewhere, I don’t doubt any of them. Fortunately, there’s Cyber Monday for those of us unwilling to take to the Black Friday battlefield.
It is scary how people react to sales in this country. My first and only experience facing this manic behavior was a few years ago at Macy’s.
I read in the newspapers that Macy’s was having a down comforter day sales. So, I decided to go there before work. It was a cold Monday morning.
I got there before 8am and already a crowd was waiting outside the store. When the store opened its door these people became frenetically agitated and forced themselves inside the store. I was pushed to inside of the store in a few seconds. Thank God I didn’t get hurt but I was very scared.