Black Friday

[Saigon]

What is everyone doing for Black Friday and Cyber Monday? Anyone hitting up stores or ordering items online? I'm working retail on Black Friday (and Thanksgiving), and I am actually looking forward to it.

Also, feel free to post any deals that you've snagged when the time comes.

 

[Colonel]

I hate all stores that are open on Thanksgiving. I HATE THEM! I more then likely won't go out for black friday, the hell if I will wait in lines. I might buy some video games on Monday tho, online.

 

[Antilogic]

I resolve to boycott stores that are opening on Thanksgiving day for the rest of the year. This abuse has gone on long enough.

My Black Friday activities will likely involve some board games with the family during the day, alcohol, and chilling out with some friends who are in town in the evening.

 

[FriendlyFire]

You Americans.
Why cant you just have the one holiday called Christmas which starts on the 24th of December.

 

[Antilogic]

In some places, it starts before Halloween.

 

[cybrxkhan]

I usually forget about buying presents and buy them a week before Christmas. Actually, sometimes I even buy them on Christmas Eve. Good thing no one in my family (myself included) cares about presents that much anyways.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I resolve to boycott stores that are opening on Thanksgiving day for the rest of the year. This abuse has gone on long enough.

I'm in.

Suggestion...go to those stores. Get big cartload of stuff. Ask at counter "Were you guys open on Thanksgiving day?" When they say yes, say "Oh. Well, I can't shop here then," and abandon the cart. They probably won't notice just boycotting, but they will notice if a lot of people do that.

 

[Kennigit]

I'm letting some vampires enjoy their thanksgiving meals, since I am giving blood that day

 

[Zack]

The real issue is, why isn't there a White Friday? This is reverse racism in action.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

We Canadians got our Thanksgiving over and done with in October. Our annual shopping madness occurs on Boxing Day, which is still over a month away.

But it's nice of some American companies to allow Canadians to partake of online Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals.

 

[JollyRoger]

I've got a lawsuit going against a retailer that is open on Thursday. For some reason, they will not agree to a deposition of their corporate representative on Thursday evening. Some nonsense about enjoying the holiday with their family

 

[Saigon]

I'm in.

Suggestion...go to those stores. Get big cartload of stuff. Ask at counter "Were you guys open on Thanksgiving day?" When they say yes, say "Oh. Well, I can't shop here then," and abandon the cart. They probably won't notice just boycotting, but they will notice if a lot of people do that.

Great idea, make the employees who worked on Black Friday put all of those items up for you.

 

[Traitorfish]

We're having Black Friday in the UK, now, too, apparently. Not Thanksgiving, which robs "Black Friday" of all context and meaning, but I guess we're going to do it anyway?

I think it was Amazon's idea.

 

[bhsup]

Well... it doesn't -necessarily- rob it of all context and meaning, though I do doubt the probability that y'alls businesses just happen to coincidentally go into profit for the year the day after an American holiday. Still, I guess it is possible.

@Tim: I love your idea! Huge carts of crap left everywhere. You need to start a movement!

 

[luiz]

They created a Black Friday in Brazil as well. But consonant with Brazilian ideals, this is how it works: prices are raised by X% the day before "Black Friday" and then cut by Y% on Black Friday, with great fanfare, so as to perfectly go back to the previous price. It was already nicknamed "Black Fraud".

This will be my second Black Friday in the US, and just like last year, I'll do anything except shopping. I'd much rather pay full price on everything than having to deal with barbarian hordes.

 

[warpus]

I will be observing this day by celebrating African American culture by watching Friday and Next Friday. If steam has a sale, I might buy a game.

 

[Mise]

Well... it doesn't -necessarily- rob it of all context and meaning, though I do doubt the probability that y'alls businesses just happen to coincidentally go into profit for the year the day after an American holiday. Still, I guess it is possible.

Well, the time between Thanksgiving and the end of the year is roughly 10% of the year, so if the average profit margin is about 10% in the UK then it would be the same. While I'm sure Thanksgiving holidays will provide a bump in sales in the US that doesn't exist in the UK, there's no reason to think that US companies and UK companies are vastly different in terms of overall profit margins. So yeah, it's not really a coincidence.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Great idea, make the employees who worked on Black Friday put all of those items up for you.

Oh. My bad. You have a great point. They were going to be getting bonus standing around doing nothing pay if I didn't leave a cart full of stuff, right?

Wait. No, they were just going to be doing something their employers would consider more 'productive' with the time they were selling for something close to minimum wage. Their time is sold to the same employer either way, and if it is used on something that doesn't make the employer profit it makes no difference to the employee, just to the employer.

Okay, I lied. You don't have a great point.

 

[Saigon]

Oh. My bad. You have a great point. They were going to be getting bonus standing around doing nothing pay if I didn't leave a cart full of stuff, right?

Wait. No, they were just going to be doing something their employers would consider more 'productive' with the time they were selling for something close to minimum wage. Their time is sold to the same employer either way, and if it is used on something that doesn't make the employer profit it makes no difference to the employee, just to the employer.

Okay, I lied. You don't have a great point.

At the store I work in, they always stick the new people with putting all of the returned/unsold items away, because nobody wants to do it. So you'll end up with some 16 year old kid who just got hired 2 days ago trying to put up 200 items from all over the store, then having to explain to his manager why he couldn't find where most of the items went.

It doesn't really affect me personally, since I've been with the company for two and a half years, but I remember how terrible it was when I couldn't find where half of the items don't go, because you were put on return duty before you even finished your training. Since then I've seen plenty of other new hires getting stuck with the same thing and they all (that I've seen) hated it to.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I know. Getting stuck with go backs is usually the kind of thing the new guy gets stuck with. It is actually good training, because the new guy does learn where stuff goes, and you find out really quickly whether the new guy is a loafer or not because go backs is pretty much an unsupervised task. You always are going to say 'you need to learn where stuff belongs' (because it is almost certainly true) but it's pretty easy to tell the difference between someone who hustles and someone who doesn't.

The key is; assigning go backs to whoever gets them is usually a management task. That manager, if he is worth even a pinch of his salt, will recognize that there are more go backs than usual and maybe wonder why.

If this form of protest catches on it will be readily detected by management, which is the key to having any effect. All those managers (who didn't want to work on Thanksgiving either) need is some tangible sign of customers being dissatisfied with the policy. When they can point to cartloads of stuff and say 'that would have been bought if we didn't have the lame open on Thanksgiving policy' they might be listened to. As it stands, open on Thanksgiving is just extra sales and extra profits, so mere employees not liking it doesn't matter at all.

By the way...to anyone who owns stock in a retailer that is open on Thanksgiving...you should spend your Thanksgiving down at your nearest outlet apologizing to every employee.