I am still so freaking tired
Black Friday gets earlier and earlier. Truly, for many big box stores it's now Black Thanksgiving. Someone told me that KMart started opening on Thurs instead of Friday at midnight and that Walmart and others followed suit to stay competitive. I don't know if that's true or not but it's definitely a plus in the column of consumerism.
Last year our first sale began at 10 pm for general items with a midnight sale for the big ticket items that people had to stand in line for. This year the first sale was at 8 pm with the big ticket items at 10 pm and then just for shits and giggles they threw in a 5 am sale for a few specific items of jewelry, etc.
In some respects it wasn't as bad as last year. The crowds seemed a little less but whether that was because attendance was down or it was just spread out, I don't know. I guess sales figures on Monday will tell us.
So not only was it less crowded, but people generally seemed more civil. I personally didn't have one nasty person - although a couple were a little ticked off for one reason or another - and I actually had no less than 4 people bless me for working on Thanksgiving so they could shop and/or simply thank me. One lady called me an 'angel'.
Unfortunately the system of the lines for big ticket items lost something in the translation. That's where most of the pissy people came from.
As a refresher, beginning on Thursday early, the daytime team begins pulling in wrapped pallets of 'blitz' freight and dropping it in the action alleys (big wide alleys that were cleared the day before) in specific areas, usually close to the departments they belong to. A couple of exceptions are that all of the special buy toys are dropped down the grocery action alley (on the opposite side of the store from the toy section) because it's much wider, and the multiple displays of dvds, cds and games get set up in the produce area of all places, because a large block of real estate can be cleared relatively easily.
After the first rush of the 8 pm sale (which began at 7:30), we straighten and begin cruising the area, picking up all of the crap that people have discarded, sometimes just dropping it on the floor) and pulling it together. Usually it goes up to Customer Service where it's sorted and pushed back to the departments, but that area was reserved for one of the big ticket items so it all got pushed over to the fitting room area and it became my responsibility (and later help from a couple of other department mgrs) to do the sorting and then the softlines ladies pushed it over to the departments. Man, the carts kept coming up until be finally broke for 'lunch' at 1 am. We must have sorted more than 50 grocery carts of crap.
After the rush of the first had died down, while I was sorting, the other softlines mgrs began consolidating the pallets of freight, straightening them and moving them together. All in all I preferred to be sorting.
After lunch the next 5 hours consisted of just straightening and putting our departments back in order. Mine was a little more complex because I had 4 huge pallets of bulky toys in the temporary toy alley to find homes for. Luckily other people took care of 2 of those pallets for me, simply converting them slightly and making room in the back action alley by infants. The other 2 pallets took me nearly as long to get rid of.
For one I had to go to the garden center and get one of the small metal signs they used out on the patio for pricing. Since the outside area of the garden center where they were stored wasn't open at 4:30 am, I had to pry and manually slide the door open to get out there. Luckily there was a basket of the damn things right on the other side and I didn't have to journey all the way to the end and around the corner. It took me less than a minute to retrieve what I needed, which is good because the temperature had fallen from the mid 60s when I came in at 7 pm, to the mid 30s with a howling wind. Unfortunately it took me considerably longer to get the attention of Bruno and Paul (who were having a nice chatty conversation) and let them know that I couldn't get the damn door open again to get back inside. Then it took them awhile to get the door open. FYI, when you're freaking exhausted, standing in a near freezing wind tunnel for 5 min does not perk you up. It just sucks nearly all the remaining energy out of you.
Luckily when I got back inside and got the display set up, I was informed we all got early parole and were being released an hour early.
I did some very quick shopping when I got off work, (mostly just paying for the few things I'd squirreled away during the course of the evening, got home, had some toast and went to bed.
I hurt all over. I felt - still feel - as though I've been worked over with a big stick. I slept off and on until 2 pm when I finally got up. I have to do some very limited house cleaning tonight so my brother won't be sitting in grunge when I bring him over tomorrow. But I'm not doing too much. He is, after all, simply my brother and he lives in grunge!
It was lovely to wake up to birthday emails from some lovely ladies and now, after being awake for almost 3 hours I'm beginning to feel halfway human.
I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving.
Last year our first sale began at 10 pm for general items with a midnight sale for the big ticket items that people had to stand in line for. This year the first sale was at 8 pm with the big ticket items at 10 pm and then just for shits and giggles they threw in a 5 am sale for a few specific items of jewelry, etc.
In some respects it wasn't as bad as last year. The crowds seemed a little less but whether that was because attendance was down or it was just spread out, I don't know. I guess sales figures on Monday will tell us.
So not only was it less crowded, but people generally seemed more civil. I personally didn't have one nasty person - although a couple were a little ticked off for one reason or another - and I actually had no less than 4 people bless me for working on Thanksgiving so they could shop and/or simply thank me. One lady called me an 'angel'.
Unfortunately the system of the lines for big ticket items lost something in the translation. That's where most of the pissy people came from.
As a refresher, beginning on Thursday early, the daytime team begins pulling in wrapped pallets of 'blitz' freight and dropping it in the action alleys (big wide alleys that were cleared the day before) in specific areas, usually close to the departments they belong to. A couple of exceptions are that all of the special buy toys are dropped down the grocery action alley (on the opposite side of the store from the toy section) because it's much wider, and the multiple displays of dvds, cds and games get set up in the produce area of all places, because a large block of real estate can be cleared relatively easily.
After the first rush of the 8 pm sale (which began at 7:30), we straighten and begin cruising the area, picking up all of the crap that people have discarded, sometimes just dropping it on the floor) and pulling it together. Usually it goes up to Customer Service where it's sorted and pushed back to the departments, but that area was reserved for one of the big ticket items so it all got pushed over to the fitting room area and it became my responsibility (and later help from a couple of other department mgrs) to do the sorting and then the softlines ladies pushed it over to the departments. Man, the carts kept coming up until be finally broke for 'lunch' at 1 am. We must have sorted more than 50 grocery carts of crap.
After the rush of the first had died down, while I was sorting, the other softlines mgrs began consolidating the pallets of freight, straightening them and moving them together. All in all I preferred to be sorting.
After lunch the next 5 hours consisted of just straightening and putting our departments back in order. Mine was a little more complex because I had 4 huge pallets of bulky toys in the temporary toy alley to find homes for. Luckily other people took care of 2 of those pallets for me, simply converting them slightly and making room in the back action alley by infants. The other 2 pallets took me nearly as long to get rid of.
For one I had to go to the garden center and get one of the small metal signs they used out on the patio for pricing. Since the outside area of the garden center where they were stored wasn't open at 4:30 am, I had to pry and manually slide the door open to get out there. Luckily there was a basket of the damn things right on the other side and I didn't have to journey all the way to the end and around the corner. It took me less than a minute to retrieve what I needed, which is good because the temperature had fallen from the mid 60s when I came in at 7 pm, to the mid 30s with a howling wind. Unfortunately it took me considerably longer to get the attention of Bruno and Paul (who were having a nice chatty conversation) and let them know that I couldn't get the damn door open again to get back inside. Then it took them awhile to get the door open. FYI, when you're freaking exhausted, standing in a near freezing wind tunnel for 5 min does not perk you up. It just sucks nearly all the remaining energy out of you.
Luckily when I got back inside and got the display set up, I was informed we all got early parole and were being released an hour early.
I did some very quick shopping when I got off work, (mostly just paying for the few things I'd squirreled away during the course of the evening, got home, had some toast and went to bed.
I hurt all over. I felt - still feel - as though I've been worked over with a big stick. I slept off and on until 2 pm when I finally got up. I have to do some very limited house cleaning tonight so my brother won't be sitting in grunge when I bring him over tomorrow. But I'm not doing too much. He is, after all, simply my brother and he lives in grunge!
It was lovely to wake up to birthday emails from some lovely ladies and now, after being awake for almost 3 hours I'm beginning to feel halfway human.
I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving.