BLACK FRIDAY

Well, it's already over. I was exhausted before it began. I worked nine day straight prior to having Thanksgiving Day off so I was tired. Getting up at 2:30 Friday morning wasn't an appealing thought.


But, the alarm clock went off, and I got up. I put on my make-up, my required black shirt, gray slacks, and tennis shoes (we were allowed to wear tennis shoes for the long day). I put on my name badge, my coat, shouldered my purse, and left home a 3 am.

When I got there, the parking lot wasn't too bad. I found a parking space easily and noticed that there were only about thirty people lined up outside the door. At least I knew I wouldn't have to fight to get in. Someone let me in and I went to the break room. A lot of people were already there. We stayed there, talking for a few minutes, then headed up front for a meeting with the manager. Within that few minutes, the crowd had tripled. I could see them pressing against the glass doors while we listened to the managers. The employees that tried to come in now had to fight there way through the crowd. The manager said that before he opened the doors he would make an announcement over the intercom for everyone to clear the aisles. He said we better do it or we would get trampled. Everyone dispersed to where they were supposed to be and I got in my register. The manager waited until 3:59 and made the announcement to clear the aisle over the intercom. Then he had people hold the doors open.

The crowd ran in. And I mean, they ran. One woman was so crazy to get a cart and run that she turned the cart over and almost trampled an old lady. For five solid minutes, the crowd kept coming through the door. It was pretty amazing to see. I never knew that many people would line up outside of a store. Within ten minutes, the line started forming. We had a great line system worked out, though. One huge line was mapped out for the misses' registers and one for the men's registers. Then a manager stood at the end of the line and directed traffic, sending customers to registers 1,2,3, etc, as they finished a customer. That relieved so much stress from the cashiers. I never had a line full of cranky people right in my face, we never had to worry about line-jumpers, and there was always a manager on hand for price adjustments or anything I needed. I did not have a full minute without a customer for the rest of my shift. There would be slight lulls in the crowd, I think because they went to the other stores as they opened, then it was just as big as before. I got several breaks, so that was great, and I had someone to bag for me which helped a lot with the big orders.


I was supposed to get off at two. About thirty minutes before, the manager came around asking everyone if they could stay late. He said it was a lot busier than he anticipated for the afternoon. A lot of people wouldn't stay, but I decided to try to stay an extra hour. The crowd was still really busy and it would have been hard to leave knowing there weren't a lot of people coming in. So, I ended up clocking out at 3:15, almost twelve hours after I clocked in. I shopped for just a few minutes, found two presents and a sweater, and LEFT. I managed to stay awake for about an hour after I got home, then I collapsed on the couch for two hours.



All in all, it wasn't too bad. Most of the customers were really nice to me. I only had one hateful customer and one rude customer in the whole twelve hours and hundreds of transactions, so that's a lot better than I expected. It was actually kind of fun. Exhausting, but fun. I wouldn't mind doing it again -- if I have to. :)