Posted on 11/18/2011 9:45:27 AM PST by Libloather
I worked the night shift at W-M for three years. When some of the younger guys talked of making it a career path, I tried to talk them out of it. Retail is a crap trade even in good times. I told them the only ones working at W-M or any other such type of store should be us old retired beer-money fuds or young guys working to pay for a trade school or a college degree. The lifers didn't like to hear that. Went back last week and didn't recognize a soul - day or night shift. Either the kids took heed or got fed up with the B/S.
They aren’t complaining about Black Friday, they are complaining about Thanksgiving Day. They have a point.
I went once, a few years ago, at the urging of a friend.
The experience reinforced why I don't shop on that day.
My daughter and her friends made plans to go shopping next Friday, before they knew what they were getting into.
I explained the whole “while supplies last” game, and how people act absolutely insane, buying “stuff” they plan on reselling on ebay, how rude people will treat each other, and just the general over hyped madness of the whole “sales event”.
They still plan to go, just to observe the freak show.
As to this years Internet griping complaint campaign from a few disgruntled retail workers about weird retail sales work hours...am I the only one who finds it odd?
Do these people care about the hours or conditions of the factory workers in China who produced the crap that they make a living from, by stocking shelves and tallying up sales?
It seems like if these retailers ran Black Friday prices all year they might not have to depend on the holiday season to save them.
How does someone get a post on a Christmas shopping thread deleted by the moderator? What did he say?
So on the Friday, while the wife and kids have hit the malls or movie houses, I'm hanging out at home with unlimited supply of beer and plenty of football to choose from. If nothing interests me regarding football, I queue up some Christmas music and start hanging some Christmas lights. Around 3:30PM it starts getting dark and I like to see the window candles, which are on light sensors, start lighting up.
As darkness envelopes the house on that Friday afternoon, the wife is still hours away from returning home from buying $40 toasters and $19.98 DVD players, so I peel some turkey off what's left of the carcass from the day before and slather thick gravy over it along with some stuffing, corn and squash and then I light a fire in the fireplace and listen to some Mannheim Steamroller or something while sipping some of that coffee liqueur, knowing that the "real" weekend is only just beginning as it is still Friday night!
Now I know that many who have to work on the Black Friday like to fret and complain about it and all. But I have some very good memories of my younger days when I had to work on holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas because I worked retail or in the restaurant business.
The restaurant job I had when I was a youngster was one of the best jobs of all. This was back in the late 1970s, just before I joined the Marines, and I worked this restaurant pretty much five days a week from the time it opened to the time it closed and did I ever rake in a lot of money in tips and such. It was actually fun working in restaurants over the holidays. THe owner of the restaurant was rolling in so much dough that he had us eat pretty much anything we wanted that was on the menu for our meals. We'd just tell the kitchen we wanted and they would cook us up a double portion of what they normally give the customers. So I got more than my fill of jumbo shrimp and lobster tails and prime rib. We could also get the bartenders to pour us beers off the tap, even though we were underage, and they'd give it to us in those red plastic cups.
Not sure if that happens in restaurants nowadays but the 1970s was a whole different time. When I worked Saturday nights, the bar would stay open until 2AM even though the dining room closed at 11PM. So I'd hang out at the bar watching Saturday Night Live on the TV with the bartenders giving me a "bottomless" glass of whatever I wanted even though I was just 17 or 18 years old.
I also worked holidays when I worked at the airport. Now during Thanksgiving and Christmas, it is busiest time of the year at the airports. But we had our fun too.
that sounds like a sane life
It was on the wrong thread. Was not related to the Christmas shopping thread. Nothing bad....
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