Black Friday Blues

I’ve worked in retail for 15 years of my adult life and have dealt with the créme de la créme of “Karen’s". My primary position was visual merchandising, aka we make things look pretty. My time in retail also included the “super bowl” day in retail, Black Friday. Big sales and big money spent!

I worked at a high end brick and mortar store and the “Black Friday” sales were basically an early morning opening like at 7am. Women waltz in wearing their Ugg boots, cute hoodies, with family and coffee in hand. Pretty chill but I wanted something easier less fashionable, less… okay, I wanted something less stress and more of a discount that I could use to buy stuff.

So from a high end department store to more modest, I-have-to-wear-an-uniform, mid-level type of store with a good discount. The kind of stores that carry both fresh eggs, graphic tees and car accessories, all things I can use by the way. The only bummer is this kind of store is open on Thanksgiving night at midnight for Black Friday. I’ve handled overnight remodeling and setting up for big sales. What can one Black Friday like this would do? Right? Also, I've never been a big Black Friday shopper so I really didn't know what to expect.

Come that Thanksgiving, I slept in, ate some turkey, watched some television, and took the dogs out for a walk. Around 10:30 pm, I put on my solid color top and khaki’s, through my hair into a top bun, grabbed my late night coffee and hit the road. I even created a “midnight mix” to listen to on my way into work. You know the kind of music to pump me up like when I was in high school, right before a basketball game.

I arrived around 11:30pm, and looking for a park spot. Wait, looking for a parking spot? Why are there so many cars? My palms are starting to sweat. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I found a spot at the end of the parking lot and I had to run into the employee entrance so I wouldn't be late. On the opposite side of the store, there's a line of customers that seemed a mile long. I clocked in at 11:45 pm, got my walkie talkie and name tag, and made it on time for the team meeting. Everyone is quiet, too quiet, I’m looking around and no one is making eye contact. At the meeting, I was given a schematic of the store and where the “door busters” were located. My instructions were brief like offer customer service, check for back stock and stay in your area. Pretty straight forward so why am I so nervous? What exactly going happen?

I walked to my area and I could the smell of fear and anxiety loomed over the semi-quiet store. The florescent lights had this cold undertone like a morgue. Side note: never been in a morgue but I can only imagine.

I get to my “spot" and directly in front of me are stacked large Flat screen TVs for like $200 bucks each. Which, I admit, is a good deal. Then I hear, “Good Evening.” Yeah, that's not God. “We are opening the store in 5 minutes, I repeat 5 minutes.”

I swear I felt my deodorant kick in. Why am I weirded out? I’ve dealt with customers before, why is this any different? Suddenly, I hear the jingle of keys. The store manager along with the lead security manager are heading to the front doors. If you’ve ever been in a car accident, particularly one where you’re anticipating the impact of the other car, “the clench”, that’s exactly how I felt. I look around, still, no one is making eye contact. They are all watching the doors being opened. Okay, so here we go.

People are speed walking into the store. They have the maps in their hands and then grab a cart. I hear a mom yelling at her teenage sons, “You go to the toys and you go to the electronics with me. Grab two of everything and we’ll sort out at check out. GO! GO! GO! ” I turn around and noticed a petite woman putting 2 of the large flat screen t.v.s into her cart. She can’t even see over it but looks from side to side yelling at people to get out of her way. I feel a tap on my shoulder, “Excuse me, but where are the 2 for 1 hobble wobbles?” And another tap, “Do you know where the toaster oven and air fryer combos are?” Um what? I look at the map. The woman looks over at my map, “She has the same map as we do” and rolls her eyes while she’s walking away. “Do know where the virtual goggles are?,” a different woman asks. So here I am trying to find and answer to questions coming at me like dodge balls, on my walkie talkie hoping anyone listening can hear the undertones of my voice of internally screaming “HELP ME!”

Meanwhile, it’s literally a matter of minutes before there are no TV’s in front of me and before I can blink in disbelief, a team leader grabs my arm and says, “Can you help with go backs in the front?” I kid you not, there are mounds of stuff to put back. Then I hear a voice, “Grab all the kitchen stuff, will ya?” To this day, I have no idea who was talking to me or if they were on the other side of the mound or inside of it. I grabbed a handful of kitchen items to put back on the shelf. On my way to the aisles, I pass families while standing in line to pay, deciding on what they want and don’t want and whatever they don’t want, they leave in the piles on the ground. Oh look, one of the flat screen TV’s didn’t make the cut, just sitting in the middle of the line. Oh, wait, never mind, a man jumped all the stanchions, slid on the floor with the TV to get out and put it in his cart.

I was there until 6am in the morning just putting stuff back on the shelves. I checked my phone for how many steps I took for that day, it was 10 miles. I’ve never witness so much consumption and execution of shopping in one night. Watching people decide on just how many electronics they actually want and not need in their home or buying a five foot teddy bear for a new born infant that probably will not play with it, ever, was exhausting. I am glad I didn’t witness fights break out or shoppers being trampled by other shoppers but it didn’t sit well with me how much “stuff” was being bought in massive amounts. I know why all the employees were in some zombie like state. They all went into automatic mode to deal with it. I can’t do that, I need some type of interaction, and conversations. Like I said, I’ve worked in retail but now that’s subjective. A year after this one and only type of “Black Friday” I’ve experienced, I did retire from retail. After spending 15 years of my adult life being paid to sell stuff was over and yes, I’m kind of a hypocrite because it took me that long to figure that out. But at least it was finally enough for me to prioritize what I truly valued and what I want in my life which was not a lot of “stuff.”