Day After Thanksgiving: Shopping Etiquette from the other side of the counter.

Hi.

Sadly, due to my college education tuition requirements, this will be my fourth 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

I have to say a gigantic thank you for posting this. It's just too bad we can't get the message out to the rest of the world. This is my first year in 4 years that I'm NOT working the retail scene, and I've been thinking for the past week how much of a relief it will be! I was customer service management at a largely-known computer store, and it was pure HELL trying to appease everyone.

But I have had things thrown at me, I've been threatened, I even had a guy wait out in the parking lot for me to come out because I didn't have what he wanted in stock. People can get crazy when they see something on sale.

This makes me think that everyone should be required to work retail this time of year, at least ONCE in their lives. Maybe that would change their attitude toward the unfortunate person behind the counter just trying to make a living

Hear hear!

I'm so glad I'm out of retail. Good luck on Black Friday!

I feel for ya, LF. I really, really do. I worked far too many years for companies that had their busiest and most chaotic days on the day after Thanksgiving.

Some of my favorite moments...

Being called "girl" repeatedly by a man trying to get my attention out of turn, and then being called a racist when I testily called him "boy" in return. (He was black.)

Having someone load up a cart of over $1,000 worth of merchandise, and then threaten to leave it all if she wasn't given a discount because it was "probably all made by foreigners anyway." (This was a major imports company.)

Having a woman in full length fur coat expect me to drop every customer I had in line and wait on her personally so she wouldn't have to leave the circle of friends she was chatting with. (She ended up telling my manager that I called her a bitch -which I did- but it didn't do her any good because other people in line agreed with me, and one woman said she'd have 'slapped the bitch' if she were me.)

Thank god I no longer work retail, and those who do have my sympathy. It's amazing and sad how some people will act toward another human being just because they're behind a counter, wearing a uniform/apron/nametag or because they feel so very small in their day to day lives.

If I had any faith in humanity left, which I don't, the holiday season in retail would have wiped that clean.

In my experience they're usually braincell free zombies. Maybe they should give a shit about the job enough to get enough sleep and not look like a miserable fucker at the thought of the hours ahead of them? There's plenty of people out there that'd gladly have their job. Why not piss off and let someone have yours who'd appreciate it? And maybe you should get a job that's not customer facing? Maybe you could sort mail?



I'll start acting like a human being when I find a retail assistant that is attempting the same. And yes, you're right! They all act like they resent the very existence of customers. And when they set up that kind of environment from the off, why the hell should you expect the customer to be pleasant back when you're making them feel like an inconvenience to be tolerated because it's their job - when they finally stop having a conversation between themselves long enough to bother serving a customer, that is.



What are you? The Christmas shopping police? I don't remember this rule being written anywhere.



I don't do Thanksgiving. Or Christmas, really. But I *do* have to put up with crowds full of assholes and grumpy, rude shop assistants for two months like the rest.

You did this exact same thread last year, look it up, lol. I thought this one was a bump from last year

I feel for anyone in retail but can I add a couple of things from the customer side?:

when the person supposed to be serving me is instead having a cosy chat with her colleague or another customer they happen to know and won't be interrupted.

when I get my change as a note screwed up with the coins in the middle

when the person never looks me in the face and does not respond to my pleasant words of please and thank you.

when I ask for Marlboro lights and they have no idea what or where they are and I have to give directions - 3rd shelf from the top, no, 3rd shelf, left a bit etc and when i bought 100 Marlboro this one girl said they will last you for months won't they.

Alexa

Just for the sake of sharing... my best retail story (as far as I can remember)...

We had a woman come in and buy Norton Anti-Virus. She requested that we have someone install it for her, so we sent someone out to her home to install it. She made him install it 8 times because she thought that he had memorized her passwords. (Don't ask why she thought that, I have yet to figure it out...)

She came in about 2 weeks later to buy a cameraphone. The return policy at the time was only 14 days. About 18 days later she sent a fax in to the operations manager of the store, stating that she would have been within the 14 days to return the phone, except the government had destroyed her car and she couldn't drive because of a paint job.

The fax went on to say that she had discovered oil scams in the Middle East and that government goons (her word, not mine) in New York had raped her and abused her and then came to her house and destroyed her years of work and data. Also, the reason she was returning the phone was because the government was spying on her with the camera on it.

It's funny, you wouldn't expect someone with stories like that to look like Martha Stewart! But she did. The faxes continued on until the manager said that she could return the phone if she came in on a certain day. The manager and I hid in the office until she left. It was a story to remember, that's for sure!

*sneaks quietly out to buy War of the Worlds on DvD*

You don't have to worry about me being rude to you on the job.
I have a firm rule that has served me well for the past 20 years.

Stay away from the mall between Nov 26 and the first week of Jan.
I urge others to follow the same rule. Really freak out the world and buy nothing

We don't do xmas so this makes it easy.

Rox

People still go to stores?

Luddites.

I fully intend to do 99% of my holiday shopping the day after Thanksgiving. At Home. In My PJ's. On My Laptop. (No Crowds, No Crazy People....Ain't life on the Internet grand!!!!)

I'm not as day specific as you are but I am with you as far as online purchasing rather than local retailers. Consideration of the effect of this behavior on the local economy is diminishing.

My thoughts exactly.

And Kris, I'm glad you posted it so I didn't have to.

I used to work in retail, a) when I was at school/college and b) part time when my lil girl was younger, and I have to say, Christmas was the BEST time EVER!!!

Fair enough, I only worked in a reasonably medium sized shop, but I had a blast, we had a quite high staff turnover as well, lets face it noone wants to work over christmas, specially not for pants wages, so most of the time we were always left short staffed, up to our eyes in it, and with tons of customers wanting a turkey, or some frickin gravy, or "those lights that twinkle for your doo da". Our main customers were old people as we were right near an old peoples home, and they always took hours to decide things, forgot half the stuff by the time they got to the till and wanted to tell you about their other half that died in the war, and we always greeted them with a smile and a kind word, because if you respect the customers, nine times out of then they respect you.

Sure we got the odd asshat, but ultimately, I loved it, I loved the atmosphere, I loved the customers thanks for helping them (and the odd bottle of wine we got >.>.

Christmas is just one of those times you gotta let it ride... take the rough with the smooth and keep a smile on your face, noone wants to be working, but then again, noone wants to be shopping, with all those elbows in your face and people trampling on your feet.

I have only JUST started my xmas shopping and I will prolly get the last thing in a panic on Xmas eve, and I just wouldn't have xmas any other way!

Willow, count me among your many fans.

Lordfly, I am sorry to hear you are a retailer durring the insane season.

People seem to think retail workers get scroogey durring the holiday season. The truth is, they end up being force fed cmas crap for 2 months straight, and cannot avoid it. they are done with xmas by Nov 7th to 14th tops depending on constitution. By thanksgiving time they hate all of humanity.

From thanksgiving until New Years they tend to have homicidal thoughts involving people with bells, bing crosby, reindeer and probably you.

My advice to retailers :
Try to tune out the canned xmas music. Knitting needles in the eardrums are good in case you have already been yelled at for disabling / destroying the speakers in your store...

Try not to double people over with shotgun blasts. This is important, especially if your store has easy access to a sporting goods section. You are NOT Ash from housewares.

Good luck Lordfly, and all the rest of the Retail workers this season.

And my advice to everyone who is NOT a retail worker....
Shop on the web, spare these brave retail troopers, think of the babies.

So who benefits in terms of employment by my online purchases, increased staffing at the home site of the company? Or is this type of data processing jobbed out?

Cyborgs.....

Even santa's workshop switched over to an automated manufacturing system and is now employing the elves primarily in Taiwan and Mexico.

And just because an online shop lacks that personal interaction level, it doesn't always mean that's a bad thing. most often while retailers are smiling at you and being helpful they are almost always thinking "Oh god, do not let this customer be a smacktard"

So yes... support the cyborgs this holiday season, shop online. Hehehehe

I've never had any expectations of meeting my new best friend by way of a clerk at a retail store, heh. I make most of my purchases online and not only during the holidays. I do make a trip down to spend some cash in support of the local economy to the Pure Detroit Store, the shops in Hamtramck, and the midtown district's Noel Night.

I love Christmas shopping, even if I'm way behind in it and not having any luck with what I'm looking for and never gonna finish and all that, lol. Which is my usual condition.

The reason I love it is because I know there are Christmas Customer Jerks, and I get to not be one of them!

I go fully aware that it is going to be crowded and take forever to check out and all that, so I just enjoy it. The bustle factor, and all that.

Then, when I finally get to a check-out counter, I may be the only person that clerk has dealt with that day who hasn't been cranky or hassled or unhappy, or at the very least, tired of waiting and in a hurry. And one of not enough who have smiled at them.

My calm somehow translates to the clerk, instantly. It's a great feeling, and sometimes the clerk is clearly grateful for that moment of calm sanity. And in those brief moments, we share - the clerk and I - peace on earth and good will towards men.

coco

While I respect the reality of this post, it really isn't in keeping with the corporate goals and missions of most retailers. Instead, employees should be trying to help stores sell as much product as possible and make companies the most money possible.

Black Friday is all about the money for retailers.

Your support of captitalism at the expense of humans is mind boggling

however, it is within the goals and nature of captitalism, so it is hardly surprising

Capitalism is the invisible hand that will save the human race. Problems arise when people try to meddle with pure capitalism - if they would just let temporary perturbations work themselves out and refrain from enacting legislation a well self-regulated capitalistic environment would ensue.