| Forum Home | | Log in | | Signup | | My Page  | |
Rules | | FAQ | | Boards | | Members | | Search |
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The above list shows replies to the following message: |
|
Msg. 36346 of 65535 |
|
Across most of the civilized world, today is known as November 25th! In the United States, however, where civilization and civilized behavior are sometimes questionable, this is known as the day after Thanksgiving. Or, as it is more popularly known--Black Friday. Since Thanksgiving day is always the fourth Thursday of November, the date switches around from year to year, so Black Friday does not commemorate any sort of historical event. It is, quite simply, the day that retailers go from red, or unprofitability, to black, when they begin to make money for the year. This is so because over forty percent of all the gross done by retailers in the United States is done between the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas day. We are not sure if the rest of the world participates in this practice or if it is uniquely American in nature. However, there are some things about Black Friday that must surely be strictly American. The fact that grown people will get up before dawn in the morning of a particular date to go forth unto the retail centers of America to fight over things such as computers or leather coats or the like must place Americans in a class by themselves. People have been trampled to death in the rush to get into stores on this date by the herd action that more resembles a stampede than it does anything else. This year, in an effort to beat the internet retailers, stores have been opening on Thanksgiving evening, thus creating consternation among the loyal and steadfast employees who only ask for one day in November that they might spend unimpeded with their families. At the Target Corporation, one erstwhile employee started an on line petition to stop Target from opening at midnight. It got over 79,000 signatories. Employees in the retail industry dread Black Friday like they do no other day of the year. The day after Christmas and the bargains that result as stores try to clear out their remaining inventories comes close to Black Friday, but, the date is still in a class by itself. We had our one and only encounter with Black Friday the day after Thanksgiving of 1982. We had gone to work for the Allstate Insurance Company in late November of 1981 in a Sears store in Carbondale, Illinois which was located in the only mall within driving distance of souls in three states. We should have realized that Allstate did not give out holiday pay on the day after Thanksgiving to induce its employees not to go to work that day for no reason at all. To be honest about the whole thing, we knew about Black Friday, but, we had a curiosity about what went on then so we went to work at the mall at Sears just to see what went on there. Sears opened at six O’clock that morning so we had missed the initial rush to get the insanely low priced loss leaders that brought the initial hardy out of their homes. Loss leaders, for the uninitiated, are items that supposedly every American wants priced at a price to bring every American into the stores, knowing full well that these items are kept in such limited numbers that the average American will never be able to buy one of them. The truly hardy have been known to stand in line for hours, or, in some cases, days, before Black Friday just to be sure that they will achieve this cherished American goal of owning something that they got at 70 to 80 percent off. Fights have been known to break out inside of stores as the combatants spar over the last of one of these items. Store employees are warned not to try to interfere, mainly for their own physical safety. On this particular Black Friday back in 1982, we were safely housed behind our booth at the Sears store. We had come to work during a lull between when the first had arrived and shopped, and fought, and cursed, and the time when the less motivated Americans came in to shop for things that were not so insanely low priced. It was quiet for a while and we asked an employee over in the vacuum cleaner department next to us what the big deal was about Black Friday. He, in his turn, asked us what we were doing there in the first place. Then it began. We would not say that it was even a trickle. It just began! There was a constant stream of people coming through the doors and they were literally swept past my location on into the store and further down into the mall. There was no physical way that anyone could have stopped by my location to do any business with me. As a matter of fact, not one of them even ever looked my way for the entire day. These were people on a mission and I was not included in it. We truly feel sorry for employees in the retail setting and what they have to go through on this particular Friday of the year. People have been known to plan their retirements around the idea of working their last day the Wednesday before Thanksgiving just so they do not have to go through this event. In our particular mall on this date, some stores brought in food for their employees simply because they could not afford for them to have to stand in line at the various restaurants for the time that it might take to get a meal, decent or indecent as it might be. And, the Lord only knows that they needed food to sustain themselves on this so horrendous day of days. The idea that an employee could ask off on Black Friday was akin to asking for the second coming to occur. Only the Lord knows when that might happen and it sure as Hell wasn’t going to happen on Black Friday. We have seen retail employees set down in coffee shops at the end of that day with their heads in their hands and a vacant look on their faces. Sometimes they would set in groups and not a single word would be spoken among any of them. Just perhaps, a few days after the event, stories might begin to emerge about some of the experiences that they had been through. We remember one particular story about two women fighting over the last bra at a special price. They pulled on it so hard that it snapped in two, sending both women backwards on the floor on their butts. Other stories abound, however, we will not bore you with them. We spent the day behind our protective booth there in the Sears store, astounded and amazed by the things that we saw transpire. We never worked again on Black Friday! And, as a matter of fact, we have never shopped on that day again in our lives either. We would like to tell you all that we never get involved in things like this, however, there is the day after Christmas and the forays that we have made in search of Hallmark ornaments at fifty percent off. We were once married to a woman who shared this passion with us, but, we both had the good sense to finally get a divorce, The fight over the Hallmark ornaments is a story for another day. IOVHO, Regards,
Joe To say that "God exists" is the greatest understatement ever made across space and time. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
© Webpage Design Copyright 2003-2011 http://www.atomicbobs.com/
|