Black Friday

[Mevara]

I don't normally go anywhere near stores on this day. I was reading this article on Yahoo Thanksgiving as Day to Shop Meets Rejection and it got me thinking. I was wondering for those who shop on Black Friday is anyone starting their shopping on Thanksgiving?

[IrishLake]

I now do all of my BF shopping online.

[knight_shadow]

I never go to stores, but I do frequently shop online for Black Friday. I have no issues with starting 2 hours early.

I had to roll my eyes at the person who "drew the line" at Thanksgiving shopping

[Mevara]

I used to work retail and can totally sympathize with the employees who have to skip out on Thanksgiving Dinner.

[TPA85]

I am a Black Friday shopper but I highly doubt I would ever go on Thanksgiving Day. All the stores opening at midnight works well with my Eat Turkey > Nap > Shop timeline. If I have to cut down on Family dinner or nap time, it's a no-go.
That being said, if someone had a super ridiculously awesome sale at 11:00pm, I'd lose the hour of nap and go. But it would have to be a total steal for me to do that.

[AznSAE]

i did the black friday shopping once about 5 years ago and waited in line with all the other crazies. never again will i do that and especially in 30-40 degree temperatures.

[33girl]

Not everyone spends Thanksgiving Day stuffing themselves like a pig, with an obligatory family dinner that they really wish they could get out of. It doesn't mean anything to many of the non-native born American residents.

Personally, I would much rather work or shop at 9 or 10 on Thanksgiving evening than be dragged out of bed at 4 or 5 AM the next morning.

[AGDee]

My daughter and I have decided to go to an outlet mall on Thanksgiving .. it is opening at 10 pm. We're going to hit that, then Kohl's (who I heard is opening at midnight) and then the traditional mall by 4 am or so. Should be home by 10 am and ready to sleep. Yes, we're pulling an all nighter. Since it's 10 pm, I don't feel bad for the people working so much. They can have their dinner.

Lots of people have to work on Thanksgiving.. hospitals, first responders, etc. Nurses often fought to work that day because of the holiday pay. Hopefully these folks are getting holiday pay too.

[PhoenixAzul]

^^ Not likely. A good portion of these employees will be seasonal/temp hires, who have no rights to benefits or holiday pay, and even then, things happen like only being paid for the two hours of the "holiday" until midnight, and then switching back to whatever wage they make for a normal day.

I will not be shopping or buying a damn thing on Black Friday, nor on Thanksgiving day, and I'm so ridiculously relieved that the place where I work would never open on thanskgiving, and will be holding their normal hours on Friday.

Retail workers get abused and yelled at all day long on Black Friday, and I have to tell you that it is a day that I dread with every fiber of my being. Normally sane people become crabby, irrational, and demanding on Black Friday, and somehow thing that retail associates have this magic power to make other colors of a product appear, or we have some secret stash of product somewhere, or that we set the prices of things, or that we are uneducated.

Black Friday is seriously my version of Hell.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by PhoenixAzul

Black Friday is seriously my version of Hell.

This. In fact, I will not set foot in a mall between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day unless there is absolutely, positively no way to avoid it.

[excelblue]

It's almost never worth it. Even if I value my time at minimum wage, which is $8.25/hr here, if I have to wait even 5hr in line, it'll need to justify a $41.25 savings before I'd bother. That's not considering in all the risks associated.

Considering the fact that I'm usually making several times more than minimum wage when I do freelance projects, I actually value my time much more than that. After calculating it out, if it's gonna take me 5hr in line (both getting in/out), I'll need to realistically save at least $300 over regular deals before I bother. Verdict: not happening, makes no economic sense.

Yes, there are deals in which you save >$300, but those usually involve ~15hr of waiting, which means I'll need to save almost ~$1000 to bother. So yeah, I'll even pass up $200 MacBook Pro if that was a Black Friday deal.

It's all economics.

[nittanygirl]

Originally Posted by excelblue

I'll even pass up $200 MacBook Pro if that was a Black Friday deal.

If that was a Black Friday deal, I'm going to be seriously grouchy I missed out. My Macbook is ancient but I just can't afford a new one.

I got home from Thanksgiving with BFs family and my dad asked me if I wanted to do him a favor. I said sure, because really, what could it be?

Welllll it could be to go to WALMART at midnight to get this thing my brother wanted while my dad slept.

But I got it! Woop!

[DaffyKD]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

This. In fact, I will not set foot in a mall between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day unless there is absolutely, positively no way to avoid it.

MC, if I didn't know better, I would have thought I wrote your message. If I absolutely MUST go to the mall before New Years, I go 15 minutes before they open so I don't deal with the idiots trying to find that perfect parking space, go to the one store I MUST go to and race out the door as fast as I can.

I have never braved Black Friday and I don't intend to break my record at this age.

DaffyKD

[crosscaravan]

Just throwing in my two cents re:what Phoenix Azul said about seasonal/temps not getting holiday pay.

Regular, year-round workers in retail - or at least in the place I work - don't get holiday pay either, or at least I never have when I've been called in to work during holidays like Easter or Thanksgiving (I imagine we might get it on Christmas, but they just don't open the doors then. Cheap, corporate jerks!). GameStop employees who are told to work for "mandatory" midnight release events (cough, Call of Duty, cough that was my version of Hell) only get their regular wages for those shifts, even if they end up staying until 3 in the morning and even if they've worked 8-hour shifts earlier in that day.

That said, UGH, Black Friday is the bane of my existence as a retail worker. Definitely seconding Phoenix's paragraph on abuse/customer behaviors that day. It's like every stupid, judgmental creep crawls out of the woodwork just to come badger us on that one specific day of the year and there's no way out of it.

I think I would cry if stores around here started their Black Friday deals on Thanksgiving. At my store, it's mandatory to work on Black Friday and it's grounds for termination if you miss it or if you manage to heinously offend someone during it. Most of my coworkers and I need the sleep we get Thanksgiving night to keep our patience intact when dealing with our Black Friday customers. Retail managers are notorious for scheduling long shifts that day and for not switching out coverage, so sometimes even when we do eat and sleep well we still get people who end up collapsing of exhaustion during a 12-hour shift of dealing with self-entitled little brats of various ages. Oh, yeah, we get breaks, if there's enough of a lull in the swarm of customers to allow us to leave... which there usually isn't.

Last Black Friday, I ended up working 10 am to 10 pm without a break, even though I was supposed to take one at about 4. "Just five more minutes Crosscaravan, you can go after you help this last customer and clear out the line!" ...and then five more pop up to take their place and I despaiiiiiiiired.

... tl;dr - no no no please do not start the Black Friday festivities on Thanksgiving night. Pleeeeeease. I will cry if that EVER happens, because if it's been suggested once it will probably be suggested again. And again. And again...

[KSUViolet06]

I went last year for the first time ever. I almost lost my life over a Barbie Powerwheels (for my god-daughter.) lol.

Won't be doing it again. Ever.