first time in 4 years i won't be working on black friday

Y

y2jasper

CAGiversary!
so the last 4 years i worked at circuit city, and this is the first time i will be home on that day (in case you didn't hear, the company went bankrupt ;)). the first year i worked 12pm to 12am, which was long...but the next 3 years i worked 3am to 12am, and i always decided to not sleep the night before because it would only be 2-3 hours anyway. even though i'd usually get annoyed and tired and wish the day would just end....this year i'm kind of sad that i won't be working. i have to ask is this normal? am i having some sort of retail bf withdrawal symptom?
 
Congratulations. I hope Amazon and other online retailers have good deals so I dont have to go out.
 
[quote name='y2jasper']so the last 4 years i worked at circuit city, and this is the first time i will be home on that day (in case you didn't hear, the company went bankrupt ;)). the first year i worked 12pm to 12am, which was long...but the next 3 years i worked 3am to 12am, and i always decided to not sleep the night before because it would only be 2-3 hours anyway. even though i'd usually get annoyed and tired and wish the day would just end....this year i'm kind of sad that i won't be working. i have to ask is this normal? am i having some sort of retail bf withdrawal symptom?[/QUOTE]

You're about the only one, I'd imagine. I worked at a calendar place at the nearby mall maybe 4 years ago on Black Friday and I'd never seen so many idiots in my lifetime.

Well, that is unless you count the times I went with friends/family to stand in intolerably long lines on the morning of Black Friday to wait for the 'bargains'.:roll: Most of said bargains had already walked out the door with the first 5-10 customers in the line(since these stores didn't institute a 1 per customer limit on doorbusters), so by that point I should've just gone home and got warm and watched the frenzy on tv later that day.

But I was stupid and stuck around hoping to get some leftover scraps of crap.:roll:

So no, I don't miss working on BF or being one of the drones out there bright and early in the cold on BF waiting for stores to open.
 
You are not the only one. As I finally got out of retail and am just a substitute teacher until I finish my degree in a year or two. I am quite excited, especially since just two years ago I was working at frys where everyone was required to work open to close. (like 4AM until 10) If you didn't you were fired, and on top of that you got no real lunch or breaks, just 4 fifteen minute "breaks" throughout the entire time. That was about the worst day of my life when it came to work.

I am hoping amazon has some good deals, as I wont feel like going out to fight the crowds, as I don't find it worth it.
 
The only things that made my day out on BF the last time I went out on that day were:

*Using a $20 gift card I got from Circuit City from their release date guarantee to buy a movie and some other stuff and only owe like .50 out of pocket
*Going to FYE to get a copy of the original Transformers animated film from 1986 to finally complete the offer they had of a free copy when you purchased the TF movie game for any system

Otherwise, I steer clear of the stores on BF.

Mind you, last year I got in on a two pack of the Venture Brothers DVD sets for $17 and change during the last BF that Circuit City was around for. Not a bad deal, since they're $20 each set normally.
 
[quote name='y2jasper']so the last 4 years i worked at circuit city, and this is the first time i will be home on that day (in case you didn't hear, the company went bankrupt ;)). the first year i worked 12pm to 12am, which was long...but the next 3 years i worked 3am to 12am, and i always decided to not sleep the night before because it would only be 2-3 hours anyway. even though i'd usually get annoyed and tired and wish the day would just end....this year i'm kind of sad that i won't be working. i have to ask is this normal? am i having some sort of retail bf withdrawal symptom?[/QUOTE]

In your 4 years of Black Friday experience have you ever seen anyone get trampled? Any other good BF stories?
 
[quote name='y2jasper']so the last 4 years i worked at circuit city, and this is the first time i will be home on that day (in case you didn't hear, the company went bankrupt ;)). the first year i worked 12pm to 12am, which was long...but the next 3 years i worked 3am to 12am, and i always decided to not sleep the night before because it would only be 2-3 hours anyway. even though i'd usually get annoyed and tired and wish the day would just end....this year i'm kind of sad that i won't be working. i have to ask is this normal? am i having some sort of retail bf withdrawal symptom?[/QUOTE]

LOL! Same here. Worked at Circuit City for 3 years, and this year I'm finally going to have it off. I am going to miss it though, It was always fun turning around the people that got to the store at 10:00 am looking for doorbusters.
 
If you follow the deal sites (like this one) you can get black friday type deals all year long, and some are even better than the prices offered on black friday. A lot of the laptops and other doorbuster items are often poor quality and are items that retailers are looking to unload for a reason, which is why they are a doorbuster. You can usually pay a few dollars more online and get a better model of TV or laptop that will actually last. Most of the sale video games at least the ones I have seen in retail ads in the past 1-2 years have been shovelware that is rated with very low scores so the joke is on those who purchase those games. Referring to Wii and DS here since those are the only systems I own. Would you rather buy a couple games that are so bad your kids won't even want to play them or a decent game that they will want to play? Not to say that there aren't good deals on games out there because there are.

I find it amazing that retailers can push any kind of turd on customers on black friday and people will swoop it up as long as the ad makes the item look like a good deal. It just shows how low the general public of american shoppers is willing to go to get what is perceived to be a deal.

I personally wouldn't go out during door buster hours, I am in NY and its usually very cold here, IMO its just not worth it. If you go shopping (or need regular stuff, hopefully you have planned around that) go after like 1-2pm, stores are usually dead because everyone is tired out from the morning. If you go at night its the deadest shopping night of the whole year.
 
I've always enjoyed working Black Friday... but, that has more to do with were I work and what I do. I'm a supervisor, but most of the year that means 'glorified cashier'. BF is pretty much the only day I get to be off the till and actually supervise... plus, the company buys us lunch that day. It's a fun diversion from the normal work routine. Saturday is the one I dread- just as busy, none of the perks. It sucks.

Of course, I have a greater concern this year- since the 'open on Thanksgiving' experiment was such a success for the company least year, I fully expect to end up working it this year. :cry: I want my turkey dinner...
 
[quote name='Josef']In your 4 years of Black Friday experience have you ever seen anyone get trampled? Any other good BF stories?[/QUOTE]

actually i remember during year 2, the people in the imaging department recorded the doors opening (since that was right at the front of the store). and as soon as the doors opened a lot of people started pushing through and this one old lady got knocked to the ground, but what made it hilarious was that our store manager walks by, looks down at the lady, and then keeps walking by!

last year i remember a costumer came in and bought a ps3 and a few games and basically spent a couple hundred dollars on stuff...but then decided to steal a pack of batteries and another associates saw it and reported it to the 2 police officers who were at the store. i don't really remember if they actually arrested him or not.

i could probably think up a few other stories too, although i'm drawing a blank at the moment.

Of course, I have a greater concern this year- since the 'open on Thanksgiving' experiment was such a success for the company least year, I fully expect to end up working it this year. :cry: I want my turkey dinner...
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wow can they do that? it should be illegal to work on thanksgiving.
 
More and more stores are opening on Thanksgiving, same with Easter. I think it will get to the point most stores are open on those days and only closed on Christmas.

[quote name='SaraAB']If you follow the deal sites (like this one) you can get black friday type deals all year long, and some are even better than the prices offered on black friday. [/QUOTE]

Agreed 100%, it seems like Black Friday is more for the average consumer that doesn't know about deals. For games, most of the clearance deals I have gotten at Sears, TRU and KMart are way better than anything that will ever be offered for sale on Black Friday. I doubt we will ever see PS3, Wii, DS, PSP, PS2 games for $0.97 each in any Black Friday ad like Sears had earlier this year on clearance. Or any store offering Guitar Hero Bundles for $5 - $8 on Black Friday also like Sears had in the summer.
 
Yeah it used to be that every store is closed on thanksgiving but now it seems every store is opened here. I guess they have to follow the trend, although I would imagine its regional to some extent. Since we have a Kmart here that was always opened on thanksgiving other stores started following suit one by one so they wouldn't miss out on the profits. They essentially stole Kmart's thunder. Perhaps if you are in an area where no other store is open the store you work at won't be opened either. The only time stores are closed here is on Xmas, and even then Walgreens is still opened.

Though if stores are open on thanksgiving they usually have limited hours, like until 5 or 6 pm which still gives the employees enough time to get home for dinner.

In these tough times you can't blame the stores, and from what I saw the stores get A LOT of business on thanksgiving at least here, so if they close they might be missing out on their second most profitable day of the year next to black friday.

Something I would consider a true black friday deal is when an item cannot be found at a lower price anywhere at all. Like if they had a brand new release video game for $10, that would be a true black friday deal. Items at .99 or a couple dollars like Sears had over the summer would be another true black friday deal. With stores like Kmart it seems its just an extension of their regular sales, and if you want clothes from Kmart you know its going on deep clearance after Xmas so why bother getting it before. Personally I just ask for money for Xmas and buy what I want all year round.

For example I just found a pair of JVC marshmallow headphones off a site called dealsclick for something like 7$ shipped. Its the same pair of headphones sitting in walmart for 19.00 right now making the price I got it for a $12 discount which I think is a very respectable deal. They were brand new, not refurbished or anything, plus I am happy with them. I seriously doubt a retailer on black friday is going to match or better that deal, and have them in stock when I finally get to the store.
 
[quote name='SaraAB']In these tough times you can't blame the stores, and from what I saw the stores get A LOT of business on thanksgiving at least here, so if they close they might be missing out on their second most profitable day of the year next to black friday.[/QUOTE]

K-Mart around here on Thanksgiving is just as dead as they are most of the year. Its just not worth being open when most people think the store is closed.
 
[quote name='Demolition Man']K-Mart around here on Thanksgiving is just as dead as they are most of the year. Its just not worth being open when most people think the store is closed.[/QUOTE]

I am near canada so that's why I say its regional, all the canadians come down and shop here on thanksgiving because they don't have a holiday that day, at least that's what I think drives a lot of traffic to Kmart here and what drives the traffic on Thanksgiving day to the stores. Kmart is dead on a weekday night, maybe 3 customers in the store at most but during the day they are hopping. I think they also have a niche with older people who like to go to a smaller store rather than another huge store and older people who have shopped there for years and years. I am still baffled at why people would shop at Kmart Canadian or not for anything other than clearance or sale items because their prices are at least 30-40% higher than every other store in my area. The grocery stores are cheaper than Kmart.
 
I'm out of it this year too.

In 2005, my very first day of work was Black Friday at EB Games.
The following 2 years, it was Gamecrazy
Then last year, it was Circuit City (don't have to tell you what happened there)

Now, I sell insurance. So I have quite a bit of money for Xmas shopping this year :p
 
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