Black Friday can be described as “the day people trample others for sales exactly one day after being thankful for everything they already have.” This day can be fun for shoppers, but a nightmare for workers.
Black Friday is one of the busiest days out of the entire year. According to Fortune.com, over 174 million people went Black Friday shopping last year, so I only could’ve imagined what it was going to be like this year.
I never really understood why people were so obsessed with Black Friday to begin with, mostly because I didn’t grow up with a lot of money, so my family didn’t really spend our Black Fridays fighting someone over the last pair of socks that were 50 percent off. We usually spent our Black Friday still trying to recover from our Thanksgiving dinner the night before and watched the news to see what kind of chaos actually went down that year.
Little did I know that this year, I would actually be a part of the Black Friday chaos.
I was already in a bad mood from waking up at 4:30 a.m., but customers don’t really care if you don’t sleep, because they don’t sleep either.
As I walked towards the American Eagle that I work at in the King of Prussia mall, trying to get past the huge groups of people moving from store to store at 6 o’clock in the morning, I thought to myself, “this is going to be one long day.”
Unfortunately, I did not witness any fights go down this year, but I did have to deal with crazy shoppers that everyone warns you about.
As a sales associate, your job is to constantly assist people as they enter the store and help them find whatever they want in hopes that they will buy it.
My 12-hour work day consisted of me walking around the store helping as many people as I could find their size in the clothes that they wanted, refolding the same sweater and jean piles I folded for the millionth time after people grab their size, which causes the pile to collapse, stare at it, decide they don’t want it, and throw it back on top, leaving me with the same messy pile I started with.
The job also has its moments. Sometimes there are people you have no problem helping them find whatever they need and there are some people who just make you wanna quit your job right then and there.
People can be either very nice and understanding, or just flat out rude. I’ve had people yell at me for taking too long in the back trying to find their size and all I could really do was grin and bear it. This made the day drag on longer than it already was.
Honestly, it felt pretty good after I got home and ranted to my family about my entire Black Friday experience. Knowing that it was safe to rant in the comfort of my home made it easy to keep my cool.
After that experience, I don’t know if I would want to participate in Black Friday ever again, but I definitely have a deep respect for people who work in sales because it’s definitely a job for someone with patience.
