To all my fellow Black Friday retail workers.....

[wdwgirl03]

I survived my shift too. When I first got there the store was pretty nuts but then things started to slow down but we were still really steady until I left. I cannot believe how much we did today (we were well over our plan for the day) and I'm also surprised we still had a lot of our free gifts left over.

Here's to hoping tomorrow isn't that bad either...

 

[Sorsha]

I work at JoAnn Fabrics, and my day actually went pretty smoothly.

My shift was 7-3:30. By the time I started, the store had already been open for an hour, and there were SO many people shopping that I couldn't even park in our parking lot... had to park in the lot next door. I work registers, and we were very busy all day. Someone checked how much money we were making before I left, and at 3 PM (with 6 hours still to go in the business day) we had already made more than 3 times the money of a normal Saturday (usually our busiest day of the week).

People were, in general, very polite and patient. We had a LOT of extra staff on (it was an all-hands-on-deck day, every available employee was working) so we kept things running pretty smoothly.

The company bought us all lunch today; we had yummy deli sandwich trays from Costco, potato salad, chips and dip, pickles, and Costco cream puffs.

Still, I am exhausted tonight. I am going to take a hot bath and go to bed. I have to do it all over again tomorrow; JoAnn's does "Black Friday Weekend" sales, and tomorrow will probably be just as huge as today.

Hugs, retail buddies! I am sure we all did a great job today!

 

[Kteacher]

I have to be back at work at 6 today for another 9 hour shift The mgr. decided that all shifts on weekends were going to be 9 hours or longerDecember is going to be a long month!

 

[stacy347]

I have to be back at work at 6 today for another 9 hour shift The mgr. decided that all shifts on weekends were going to be 9 hours or longerDecember is going to be a long month!

Oh boy, good luck to you!

I survived yesterday with only one rotten lady at the very end of my shift ~ everyone else was really nice all day. I'm about to head in again here shortly and I hope today goes just as smoothly.

 

[skater]

I shopped in the a.m. and worked last night. I work in a small store with mostly very nice customers. It was actually fun. Since I know how it feels to face customers, I was very careful to be kind and patient when I was shopping. Hopefully I made a stressed employee feel a little better at some point yesterday .

 

[DISNEY1975]

I stood in line at Walmart. This is my 4th time doing so, arriving each year at approx 10:00pm.

I have to say that it was the most organized black friday thus far. I loved the barricades so no line cutting. There were employees outside all night answering any questions someone might have had. They had a 2:00am bathroom break for anyone who needed to go in..it was perfect.

I was not thrilled with the ticket idea..1 per customer, but I didnt say a word, I guess, in a way, it was fair. I had been outside Best Buy in years past where the give all the tickets to the first 20 people in line. If you number 11, you end up with nothing in the flyer. So I thought it was ok for one doorbuster item per person.

The 20 person at a time ws also a good idea. I truly had a good experience outside of Walmart this year.

When the doors opened at 4:00am....actually, I dont even want to remember any event that took place inside of Walmart, but to every person that works there, thank you for staying calm, ignoring the tired, cold, pissy people and trying to answer 600 questions in less than a minute.

I am not a rich person, but there is no amount of money that could ever be offered to me that would make me work at Walmart on Black Friday. I wish all Walmart store employees the happiest of holidays, and may everyone in the world love their gifts and not be back there on 12/26 for returns!

 

[wdwgirl03]

I have to be back at work at 6 today for another 9 hour shift The mgr. decided that all shifts on weekends were going to be 9 hours or longerDecember is going to be a long month!

OMG, that is insane! Luckily our manager schedules shorter shifts (4-5 hours) so we don't go crazy.

 

[monarchsfan16]

I'm jealous of anyone that had short shifts this weekend. I was 6-3 yesterday, and today was 9-6. They tried to get me to extend today's shift while I was in the store because of callouts, but I put my foot down on that one. I'm exhausted and have been dealing with a sinus infection, my sister goes back to school in the morning (8 hours away), and I go back to school later tomorrow to write a few papers that are due this week. Plus I've done 10 and 11 hours on the floor before. NOT fun. Given that we don't close until 10 tonight I can't imagine what time I finally would have gotten out of there

And I was correct; today's customer's were far worse. Granted, it doesn't help that the store I work at has coupons that are miserable to deal with (half a million exclusions), but still, reading is key and patience is critical, and both were lacking. We were quite a bit less busy than yesterday though, so for the sake of my sanity, that was a plus.

 

[wdwgirl03]

Well I guess everyone was shopped out from yesterday because our store was DEAD today.