| Nov. 29th, 2008 @ 11:28 pm People, or How I hate the public. |
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I read this headline from Newsday on my google news feed: "Stores need to better plan for crowds, police say." I got ridiculously annoyed at this for two reasons.
1) Yes, stores know there are always going to be crowds on Black Friday, but most places have had to cut back on staffing due to less shoppers. So there's fewer workers available to help them.
2) People need to not act like assholes and CALLOUSLY TRAMPLE A MAN TO DEATH.
Jesus Christ, it shouldn't NEED to be said. You (generic) should not desperately need a *insert mega awesome deal here* at the expense and dignity of the minimum wage worker who is just trying to let you into the store. There is ABSOLUTELY no reason for that shit. And everyone will shake their heads, complain about the Black Friday shoppers, and guess what? Next year someone ELSE gets injured or killed when these morons slam the stores.
I've never worked a Black Friday opening, and I'm quite glad I have not. How is it even worth getting up at so ungodly an hour to save a little bit of money but lose a piece of your dignity at the same time?
A small example from my store: Last night we had some leftover watches from our morning giveaway at like 6pm. We had two watches left and the lady demands them both. Since I didn't work the morning I checked over the watch giveaway coupon, and it didn't have any restrictions on it. But she wanted both, so I told her it would have to be two seperate purchases. She split her order in two to make sure she got them, without seeing what they LOOKED LIKE.
Tonight at 9:50 our favourite customer came in. And by favourite I mean loathed. In fact, I'm pretty sure she is the one who forced the company to change the coupon disclaimers. Tonight I walked to the end of my registers and spying a giant pile of folded sweaters, figured one of my coworkers had put it there. SO I asked the manager if she knew and E, the customer, turned around and told me they were hers. Oh god.
So we have an email coupon coming out tomorrow that gets you 30/60 in the morning, and 20/60 in the afternoon. She basically had me calculate the sweaters into $60 batches so she could come back and buy them all. There were 10 piles when she was done. $600 worth of stuff that she was coming back for the next day, and she didn't leave the store til 2220, when we closed at 2200. SO glad i do not have to work tomorrow. We left the opening manager a long note. |
Wait. She didn't leave the store until 2 hours after closing? Why couldn't you have security escort her out at this point?
And WTF is she going to do with $600 worth of sweaters? Now if they were $60 cashmere sweaters, I could understand, but then they wouldn't need to be in piles now, would they?
And yes, people need to stop being stupid. Black Friday is supposedly for Christmas shopping, the season of giving and good will and all of that shit. How generous are you when you trample over a man to get at the latest bargain? Or to just step over his body to do so?
Man, I'm glad my retail experience lasted all of 2 weeks that took place in the summer.
I will admit to Black Friday shopping on Amazon, though. I hope workers in the fulfillment centers don't trample each other trying to get the orders out on time.
No, she left 20 minutes after we closed.
They're not cashmere sweaters by any means, but she got one for her sister and one for her in like 75 colours.
I thought you meant you closed at 20:10 (8:10pm), but she didn't leave until 22:20 (10:20pm).
I'm all for buying something in multiple colors if it fits and it's a reasonable price, but she's pushing it. Where is she going to wear all of this junk? How much you wanna bet she's offering up last year's sweaters on Laurie's Freecycle list?
I fail at military time :( I did type that originally.
Haha, no she buys like 500 things at once and ends up returning, price adjusting, all that jazz every month or so. I think her husband just lets her shop so she's not home badgering him.
I think Filene's (or Filene's Basement) banned two sisters from shopping at their stores because they returned so much shit.
And it's better that you failed at military time than actually having her stay 2 hours after closing!!
Edited at 2008-11-30 05:18 am (UTC)
Well, we're not able to ban anyone w/o corporate say-so, unless we bust them for shoplifting. But everyone knows to look out for her, because she DOES spend a lot, she just likes to spend as little as possible while she does it.
The people responsible need to be hunted down and punished severely.
That being said, Walmart ABSOLUTELY needs to be on the hook for this to the man's family. It wouldn't take a genius to look out the windows and say, "Oh, this isn't safe." Further, Walmart SHOULD have paid for an actual police presence and not gone cheap using their dip shit, drive around the parking lot, security guards.
This. Precisely. It's the store's responsibility to make sure they have guards and gates/fences/whatever that can control whatever size crowd they're expecting. Otherwise, it's neglect.
I agree. Toys R Us on Wolf Rd had Police standing in the parking lot monitoring the situation, why couldn' WalMart have done that?
How is it even worth getting up at so ungodly an hour to save a little bit of money but lose a piece of your dignity at the same time?
I entirely agree. I waited overnight once with some family members because they wanted to try for a $200 laptop. Some of the people in line were nice and relaxed, but most of them were annoying and pushy, and there was one woman who kept going around telling people, 'I'm number 9. I was the ninth person here. That guy over there is number 5. We should all know our numbers so they know who gets a laptop first.' When they finally opened the doors, it was worse than being at a concert - all the shoving, and yelling at store employees. Since then I've stayed the hell away from that. Online shopping is infinitely preferable.
My sister and I had this exact same conversation last night.
No, it shouldn't be Wal-Mart's fucking fault. That could have happened at a Best Buy or any other store, it just happened to happen at Wal-Mart. People shouldn't act like animals. They should have some common sense and decency and show more restraint than the average 2-year old. This is a social problem, and blaming Wal-Mart for not having enough security is the easy way out and completely misses the point.
My sister used the example that buildings can be designed and built to withstand an airplane flying into them. Should we do that? Should we design buildings like that and have them be twice as expensive just in case some people fly airplanes into them? No. We should make sure no one has any reason to or thinks it's a good idea to fly an airplane into a building.
I read about the walmart thing also some guy was shot while in a Toys-R-Us. He was trying to break up a fight between teenagers or something. I don't remember the exact details.
Anyways, I think that anyone who is waiting outside a store on the day after Thanksgiving needs to be given some Valium or something to calm them down. There is no reason, I mean NO REASON, that people can't act civilized and decent.
As for your store...I am so sorry about the lady, but glad that you didn't have to work the next day.
Yeah, this kind of stuff makes me SICK. Just ill. And I think... well, that guy who died? Do you think any of the customers who trampled him are even thinking about it? Or are they just saying "Well, it wasn't me, it was one of those other idiots who was shopping with us that did it"
*gag*
At this point I'm just adamantly REFUSING to go shopping on Black Friday; There's a big problem and it isn't that stores sell a lot.
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