Day After Thanksgiving Ettiquete

Hi.

Sadly, due to my college education tuition requirements, this will be my third retail Christmas season at a certain well known corporation (hint: It begins with an S and ends in "ears"

Most likely, either you or someone you know will be braving the cold, the rain, the snow, the 5 AM alarms, and the mobs, waiting for the Doors of Consumerism to open at your favorite megamall, department store, or Wal-mart.

As such, I have a few pointers to make MY life, and yours, a lot easier and less stressful.

1) First and foremost, the clerks ringing up your bargain-bin item are human beings too. I know, it's hard to believe that they're not smiling happy, vapid smiles 24/7, but realize that it IS five in the morning, and most folks haven't had enough sleep. The thought of working long hours over a holiday weekend isn't helping their spirits either.

2) Do not push. Do not shove. Do not start a stampede running through the door. Do not punch fellow customers. Do not charge headlong into bulk stacks of products. I've seen it all, especially last year (someone was hospitalized at a Walmart here after being stampeded over for a $30 DVD player). Punching people will get you arrested, and all for a DVD player or a TV. Don't do it. Shoving people will incite riots in seconds. Being a greedy bastard at the bulk stacks will increase violence in your direction as well.

3) Do not threaten the clerks. EVER. If you want to keep your jaw in one piece, I suggest not threatening your salesman or his family or friends, ESPECIALLY during this Christmas season. Demanding my death because the cheap, mass-produced TV you want on Christmas Eve is on back-order is a surefire way to get you not served ever again, if not going home on a stretcher yourself. How would you like it if I called your office and threatened to kill you for missing an artificial deadline? That's how I and my co-workers will feel. Deal with it.

4) Not getting your cheap, mass-produced products the day after Thanksgiving will not be the end of the world. Therefore, keep your cool. There are worse things that could be happening to you, rather than your Item of the Minute being out of stock. Being trampled to death or being floored by your surly clerk are grimmer possibilities.

5) Be calm, patient, courteous, and generally act like a human being. The people working at the stores the Day After Thanksgiving most likely do not like you and your friends barging through their place of business and messing up the place. Acting nice towards them might actually help them through an otherwise insanely depressing weekend.


6) You should have finished your Christmas shopping 3 weeks ago. Doing it now is just asking for trouble anyway.


Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

LF

Having worked in retail and in restaurants, I wholly endorse all of the above.

As a matter of fact I avoid retailers at this time of year because it makes me sick the way people will conduct themselves. Just a few days ago I watched an asshole reduce a teenage girl to tears over a really stupid thing, not to mention the prick made me wait 20 minutes to get a watch battery, something that could've taken 5 minutes...

Breathe, think before speaking, treat people the way you expect to be treated, don't make people 's holidays worse than they already are.

Observe Buy Nothing Day.

http://www.adbusters.org/metas/eco/bnd/

Buy Nothing Day Ad:

http://adbusters.org/metas/psycho/mediacarta/rejected/index.php?dest=bnd.html

I will support the BND this Friday. I went shopping one time on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Never again! I could not believe how rude people are.

Lordfly, these are great suggestions, I just don't think most people will adhere to them. I have never worked in retail, however, I did work at a gas station. I understand your pain. Good Luck to you.

LF - as a former retail employee, please take my advice: GET OUT OF RETAIL. When you can, of course... but get out.

Most of the customers are rude, cheap, and think that the 2.99 item they are buying deserves the Trump treatment.

Run for the hills man!


Best of luck!

Indeed best of luck LF and anyone who is in retail this time of year!

I'm not even gonna get outta bed before 11am.. BUY SOMETHING?

Bwahahhahahhahahahahahahaha I'll be so lazy I won't even fart!

Siggy.

I guess the first fart on Saturday will be a real DOOZIE!

Ah yes, I remember my retail days with the same fondness of getting my wisdom teeth pulled.
I worked retail a year between high school and college, on and off through college, and for some time after college until my then career as a substitute teacher got up to speed.

Too bad the ding-beam in the doorways doesn't vaporize mean, dumb and insane people who enter stores.
Some fond memories from my petshop days (which I'm sure fellow retailers can identify with...)



A few co-workers stood out over the years. This included:


Thank heavens for all the sane, normal and nice co-workers (and customers) who kept me from ripping my hair out.

*Makes a mental note to steer clear of pet stores*

I'll celebrate BND but mostly because I do the gift card thang. Always the right shape and size. I cook as well so that lets me off the hook a bit.

There are three things in life that cause people to act like rabid devils: holidays, renovations and pregnancy. Not sure which is worse but I would rather not end up in the express line with any of them.

Bleh... I worked in retail for years. Idiots from memory:

The standard (yes, this is a common practice): I want my money back for this thing, even though I just picked it up off the shelf back there. Look at my receipt...(I found it on the ground/in trash outside!)

Or even better, the look-I-have-a-receipt which was actually for a purchase of some cigarettes, but had that line scratched off and replaced with a $100+ item put on by a typewriter or something. (We knew for a fact it was a faked receipt, the number was looked up in the computer and it was different.) That guy was probably a crack-head.

And then there's the "Do you have a problem?" customer, who thinks you are "watching them" because you just happened to switch between isles a few times at the same time as them while putting up sale signs. (Claiming that you were watching them because they were black, even though he looked nothing like a shoplifter. Truth was I hardly even noticed him.) I call this basically the: "being called a racist". Thanks dood... (whatever) Ironic that he was apparently the one with "the problem".

Then you have the morons who talktalktalk to you and bug you alot, who are also ripping the store off when you're not around. It's bull that shoplifters "avoid contact" with workers--bull bull bull. Not always, sometimes just the opposite. The majority I've seen interact with employees at least a little. Sometimes if there's two of them they'll try to distract a lone employee. "how clever"

But it was funny when that one guy was caught stuffing hundreds of dollars worth of Nicorette and such into a metal-lined bag (to fool the store's tag detectors).... when the manager walked down the isle and saw him he just bolted right for the door as the manager chased him.

Rather humorous considering the manager isn't all that tough. What an idiot that thief was. He even forgot to take his "map" of where another thief had hidden a bunch of stuff, and his metal-lined bag, what a shame. He actually had the nerve (before the day he was caught, obviously) to act all pissed off and disappointed when *another* shoplifter stole crap from the store.

So maybe avoid the drug stores too...

Lordfly, you have my deepest sympathies, and I heartily endorse Juro's advice: Get out of retail ASAP.

I'm not a big union fan, but if there's a single industry in the USA which justifies the existence and attitudes of labor unions, it's retail. Not that most, if any, retail workers have been permitted to organize, AFAIK...

Once I discovered places on the Net where I could confidently buy sized items (like shoes), I was effectively done with malls.

- yoshi