Black Friday Experiences

Wal­mart work­ers forced to work early Black Friday

Wal-Mart work­ers would not have had to work ear­lier for Black Fri­day if the cor­po­ra­tion wasn’t so con­cerned with match­ing com­pet­ing stores like Toys R Us and Tar­get. Some Her­man­town Wal-Mart work­ers were O.K. with spend­ing Thanks­giv­ing at work, but there were mixed feel­ings among some of them.

One Wal-Mart employee in Her­man­town said, “I got paid for it, so I really can’t com­plain.” This was her first year work­ing Black Fri­day. She said, “They had me work­ing around the store, answer­ing ques­tions. I just wan­dered around the store. It was the most bor­ing day I’ve ever worked.”

Tech­ni­cally, Black Fri­day started on Thurs­day, with work­ers show­ing up sev­eral hours before mid­night. Black Fri­day has grown, not dimin­ished, as it has expanded past 24 hours into three sales events, not just one, for Wal-Mart.

The spe­cial deals for video and elec­tron­ics started ear­lier this year, with sales start­ing at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. Thurs­day, two hours ear­lier than sales last year. Then cus­tomers had a chance to scram­ble for items.

Another employee voiced his opin­ion that he did not mind the Black Fri­day sales start­ing ear­lier this year, “But just that they had to put it on Thanks­giv­ing,” he said. He said he worked last year for Black Fri­day as well.

All Wal-Mart employ­ees were sched­uled to work Black Fri­day unless they asked for the day off and received per­mis­sion from a manager.

This event has been too over-the top and there is no rea­son why Wal-Mart had to start early with its event sales, other than to keep up with the com­peti­tors and meet cus­tomers’ grow­ing demands.

All of them really should have been stay­ing at home and being thank­ful for what they have instead of shop­ping for more things. It is really sad that some fam­i­lies had noth­ing bet­ter to do than shop all weekend.

Black Fri­day stays Black Fri­day at JCPenney’s

JcPenney’s all over the nation opened their doors at 6 A.M. on Black Fri­day.  The new CEO of the com­pany, Ron John­son, really sup­ported the idea of hav­ing asso­ciates spend Thanks­giv­ing with their fam­i­lies and not have to worry about going into work that night.  I would say we were pretty for­tu­nate to not have to cut our Thanks­giv­ing short and head into a work for a bru­tal over night shift.

This was my fifth year of work­ing retail, and ulti­mately my sixth time work­ing Black Fri­day.  I was lucky enough to not open the store at 6 A.M., but when I came in a few hours later it was still ridicu­lously busy.  Black Fri­day shop­pers were out in full force and quite hon­estly, the amount of shop­pers was prob­a­bly more than the amount that have shopped in JcPenney’s all year.  It has been a year of strug­gles and tribu­la­tions for the com­pany, and Black Fri­day helped give us a huge boost.

The crowds were never-ending.  Every­where we walked we were run­ning into peo­ple.  Lines were long, but cus­tomers didn’t wait long.  As with any hol­i­day shop­ping week­end, the store was a dis­as­ter.  Clothes were thrown every­where, fit­ting rooms were over­loaded, and asso­ciates were exhausted.

Black Fri­day is a a required day for all employ­ees to work, and sur­pris­ingly I didn’t hear many com­plaints from employ­ees.  The only com­plaint, I would have to say, is a “manda­tory” 12 hour shift that day.  Work­ing retail is one thing, work­ing a twelve hour day in a store is another… Employ­ees were beat.  There was lines upon lines of peo­ple to check out, messes to clean up, and a lot of run­ning around.   I think by the halfway point we all just wanted to sit down.

I am one of the work­ers who actu­ally enjoys work­ing Black Fri­day.  It is always busy, and it is fas­ci­nat­ing to me to see all the peo­ple that come out shop­ping like it is the end of the world.  It was another enjoy­able, but very long day, in retail.  Every­one had a great atti­tude and even though it was busy, we all con­tin­ued to make the day the best we could.