By Taylor Johansen, Staff Writer
Black Friday is, by now, a cherished (or dreaded, depending on who you ask) American institution that’s been around for decades. After all, it’s the annual trample-fest of chaos, all dedicated to something more American than apple pie, football, and guns: consumerism!
At Walmart, Black Friday sales began at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day. My workday started at 5 p.m., and as soon as I clocked in, the tension was palpable. Crowds were already assembling, people lining several aisles to grab the latest game console or power drill for a steal of a price. At Walmart, the store had been rearranged as a series of queues and lines; aisles were blocked off, signs and balloons pointed to where people were supposed to find games, movies, et cetera. I ended up stuck in the electronics department for about 45 minutes, helping stack and organize merchandise.
None of this would matter in about 15 minutes.
I then had to book it as fast as I could over to pharmacy, where I was stationed behind a counter, selling year-and-a-half old smartphones. I barely had time to put on my stupid purple vest denoting my position as an electronics guy before people jumped the gun and started to tear at the plastic on palettes, grab things and running around. Luckily my line was pretty calm, so I was able to keep them moving without anyone getting too crazy. For the next 45 minutes, I was in the eye of the storm, the only relatively calm spot as a swirling swarm of humanity encircled the area, running up and down the queue lines in huddled groups. Eventually we sold out of our phones.
The peace wouldn’t last long though. My next assignment was the toy department, which was predictably as chaotic as a raging inferno, fueled by the energy of hundreds of soccer moms trying to get the toys they needed, and almost nearly as destructive. I was simply told to stand at the end of an aisle and direct people where they needed to go. I felt like an ant trying to move through a valley that a herd of wildebeest was stampeding through.
It was just beginning to calm down a tad when I was moved yet again, this time for a specific job: removing bases from underneath Christmas trees. Despite the fact that both the trees and the 20 or so stack bases were absurdly heavy, I’d take this job over dealing with customers any day.
After a short break, I found the store had calmed down a bit. With the crowds dispersed slightly, the extent of the clutter became obvious. Discarded merchandise was scattered everywhere: stuffed into shelves, lying on the floor, abandoned left and right and up and down and everything in between! I had to set to work cleaning this stuff up, but about as fast as you could manage to fill a cart with merchandise to be restocked, more sprung up in its place, and the mess kept reconstituting itself every 15 or so minutes. I was running myself ragged trying to clean it up, and that was just in toys. I could only imagine how horrendous it was back in electronics, or over by the game cases.
The end of my shift finally came, although relief was short lived for I was scheduled to return the next day, on Black Friday itself. Once again, I was in electronics. People were rushing our counter like they were charging the Alamo, and if we hadn’t managed to keep up, it probably would’ve ended the same way.
I was throwing phones and tablets and laptops around like they were candy on Halloween, while still having to manage to put back five carts worth of merchandise. We never would have gotten it done, if it weren’t for the fact that every single electronics associate was in electronics that night, so we had all hands on deck to deal with the flood.
Black Friday is an absolute scourge of an event, the bane of the holiday season for me. I’d like to imagine you’d hate it just as much if you had to work on Black Friday. If you do well in a high-pressure environment, then go for it! Otherwise, just… run. Run and hide.