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I remember working black friday years and years ago back when I was 18. I'm happy to say that it's once of many facets of life I hope to never have to repeat.

Ok, I have read a little about Black Friday, and it's not what I thought it was. Seems that it's just a day to get people out and shopping before christmas... But really, 4am starts! Jeez, I can see why some of you guys wouldn't want to work it!

sarpedons-right-hand wrote:Being a nurse, I don't have much of a choice but to work holidays. This Christmas for instance, will be the first I've had off work for 7 years!
I understand that black friday is an American thing and will openly admit that I don't know much about it, however, if stores are willing to pay thier staff well for working the holidays then I don't see the problem. Someone mentioned $40 per hour? Hell, do it! If you don't like it take your chances and say you won't do it. If you don't like it then either suck it up and earn good money or look for another job...

Black friday is not a holiday.

The issue I'm taking up with is not having the traditional "normal" hours of black friday (opening at 5:00 am)

But even way earlier than that where it does cut into the holiday and time with family.

Again, there are jobs of necessity that require you to do this, then there are jobs that don't.

That TV will still be there at the same time. Raging lunatics will still be lined up at the door, many spending money they don't have.

Not suggesting they stop black friday sales. Asking for a little consideration of their employees.

Piston Honda wrote:The issue I'm taking up with is not having the traditional "normal" hours of black friday (opening at 5:00 am)
...
Not suggesting they stop black friday sales. Asking for a little consideration of their employees.

Even if they start work at 5:00 AM, the employees generally don't have to work any more than normal (8 hour shifts or so). The only unusual condition here is that they have to show up earlier than normal, which I don't see as particularly burdensome.

I'd love to work an 8 hour day. Even a 10 hour day is a nice break sometimes (when I'm really swamped). If that means showing up at 5 AM and getting home at 3, I'd be happy to do it.

I'm pretty sure the hours aren't the reason black friday sucks for employees. It's what happens during those hours.

biccat wrote:

Piston Honda wrote:The issue I'm taking up with is not having the traditional "normal" hours of black friday (opening at 5:00 am)
...
Not suggesting they stop black friday sales. Asking for a little consideration of their employees.

Even if they start work at 5:00 AM, the employees generally don't have to work any more than normal (8 hour shifts or so). The only unusual condition here is that they have to show up earlier than normal, which I don't see as particularly burdensome.

I'd love to work an 8 hour day. Even a 10 hour day is a nice break sometimes (when I'm really swamped). If that means showing up at 5 AM and getting home at 3, I'd be happy to do it.

Read my post again.

Like I said, I see nothing wrong with a 5:00 am start. Working as a waiter, I start at 5:00 am many times.

It is making your employees show up at midnight right after thanksgiving. It is ridiculous.

No one needs to buy a TV at 2:00 AM

starhawks wrote:It doesn't bother me, if people want to stay up late to shop, as miserable as that sounds, it's no skin off my back. Also no one is forcing workers to work these hours. I understand that it would be a drag, but it's not slavery.

If you call "Be there or be fired!" not being forced to work.... especially in this economy; doubly so with the widespread 'if you don't have a job, we won't hire you' attitude becoming prevalent in America. I suppose if you would rather be unemployed, homeless, and starving rather than work, then you could say you're not FORCED to work Black Friday.

I find hunger a rather powerful force, myself.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

starhawks wrote:I also forgot emergency medicine. I shadowed an ER doctor because I'm a pre-med student and I can guarantee he has a higher stress job, and again, it's year round. I guess my point is that in the end, nothing is really at stake. If a customer gets pissed off, fine they yell at you. With a job as a police officer, soldier, or doctor, lives are at stake. A person could die because of a mistake made on your part. In the case of the doctor, if a mistake is made, he has to shake it off and continue working. I have to imagine that would cause a little stress as well.

Spoken like one who has never been fired because a pissed off customer went and whined at the boss that 'they were mean to me, they did't give me the sun, moon, and stars along with the item I want for free!'

I have.

Doctors make mondo bucks, and can take vacations. I can't. Soldiers and policemen do it for love of their country and their people (at first, anyway) and generally get more respect from people (aside from those shooting at them). Retail people are universallly picked on, even by people in this forum. The attitude is 'You must be an idiot, because you can't get a better job, therefore you are inferior to me.' Bull; you're just ignorant if this is your attitude. Many retail workers are college students; many other have degrees that have proved to be worthless (not that anyone at the college warned them before it was too late); still others have had their past good jobs killed by bad management/economic factors. Yet they are still treated as idiots.

Only people in food service have it worse; the pay isn't any better, the work environment is a lot messier, and the customers are just as pissy - which is stupid; do you really want the person working with your food angry with you?

Meh, I have a hard time feeling any sympathy in this case.

Yes, Black Friday sucks if you work retail. But, that's the way it goes. Every job has its perks and its annoyances. Retail employees have a fairly relaxing, low-stress job for 11 months of the year. Sure, the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas is a horrible experience, but that's what you have to put up with.

It's like being a teacher. To get those 3 months of relaxation, you have to put up with 9 months of long hours, angry parents, and annoying kids.

Although to be fair, there are some pressures in retail too. Targets to hit, customers to keep happy and idiots asking idiotic questions are all pretty stressful...

Horst wrote:....

NONE OF THOSE JOBS have anything to do with your original argument that I found irritating, that you shouldn't be angry about being forced to come in at midnight on thanksgiving, because you can just get a new job. You can't just drop your retail job and get an equal paying job, and its not what you signed up for when you first got the job.

They are effectively changing your requirements of employment without your consent. You know EXACTLY what your getting into when you choose any of those jobs you mentioned.

Sure you can. Retail are generally crap jobs with low pay. No where to go but up.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Horst wrote:....

NONE OF THOSE JOBS have anything to do with your original argument that I found irritating, that you shouldn't be angry about being forced to come in at midnight on thanksgiving, because you can just get a new job. You can't just drop your retail job and get an equal paying job, and its not what you signed up for when you first got the job.

They are effectively changing your requirements of employment without your consent. You know EXACTLY what your getting into when you choose any of those jobs you mentioned.

Crime me a ing river. Thats life. Salaries, benefits and workloads change all the time (unless you're a government worker). You don't like it quit and work for a better place or get organized.

Piston Honda wrote:It is making your employees show up at midnight right after thanksgiving. It is ridiculous.

No one needs to buy a TV at 2:00 AM

I'm not sure why it's so ridiculous. I'm also not sure why you believe that no one needs to buy a TV at 2:00 AM. No one needs to buy a TV anyway.

RE Cop/Soldier/EMT vs. Retail employee:

The other thing is, most people who are cops, EMTs, and Soldiers, do those jobs because they want to do those jobs. For many retail employees, it's more of a "This is the only thing I am qualified to do/the only job I could get" situation. I seriously doubt you'll find a lot of people who are passionate about retail work. I'd also point out that on average, I'm pretty sure the aforementioned jobs tend to make better money than the average retail worker. There may be exceptions, and I don't know what a cop makes, but I bet it's a fair sight more than 9 or 10 bucks an hour.

With all that said, midnight openings suck, and I, personally, have never had a powerful need to buy consumer goods at ungodly hours, but I guess it comes with the territory.

starhawks wrote:I also forgot emergency medicine. I shadowed an ER doctor because I'm a pre-med student and I can guarantee he has a higher stress job, and again, it's year round. I guess my point is that in the end, nothing is really at stake. If a customer gets pissed off, fine they yell at you. With a job as a police officer, soldier, or doctor, lives are at stake. A person could die because of a mistake made on your part. In the case of the doctor, if a mistake is made, he has to shake it off and continue working. I have to imagine that would cause a little stress as well.

Retail has it worse, get over it.

Grakmar wrote:Retail employees have a fairly relaxing, low-stress job for 11 months of the year.

This has to be the single most ignorant thing I've ever seen. Having your job threatened non-stop by every stupid little thing, politics kicking you in the ass if you are the first one to speak up about problems, people treating you like gak, getting paid like gak, hoping to the gods that the new manager they just transferred in won't frown at you and cut you down to 10 hours a week because someone pissed in his froot loops, meeting purposely insane goals, having to please EVERY. SINGLE. CUSTOMER. These jobs are not easy. Those in the "it's not that bad, there's no pressure" camp are more than challenged to try and please even one of my current bosses. I'm union so I can't get screwed in ways that I have in the past, but there's absolutely nothing stopping them from compiling a limitless list of demands for the same pay. As it is, my work has tripled since I started and I run myself ragged everyday so I can get some long-term employment on paper (employers tend to view self-employment as you being a lazy bum for some reason). I have to be Tzeentchian about what I do to make sure I can use my union powers to stay around and it gets old. There are some ups and there are good days, but there's a reason turnover is so high.

Americans are lucky to have "Black Friday". Australian only have Christmas and Half-year sales. Normally, we pay 175% more than anyone else for things.

fire4effekt wrote:

starhawks wrote:I also forgot emergency medicine. I shadowed an ER doctor because I'm a pre-med student and I can guarantee he has a higher stress job, and again, it's year round. I guess my point is that in the end, nothing is really at stake. If a customer gets pissed off, fine they yell at you. With a job as a police officer, soldier, or doctor, lives are at stake. A person could die because of a mistake made on your part. In the case of the doctor, if a mistake is made, he has to shake it off and continue working. I have to imagine that would cause a little stress as well.

Retail has it worse, get over it.

Retail jobs are higher pressure than a Soldier? Or an ER Doctor?! What the hell planet are you on? yeah, retail jobs come with thier own set of problems, but they are hardly life and death are they? If a Soldier makes a mistake he/she could die. If a Doctor makes a mistake the person they are treating could die.
Someone in retail makes a mistake and a customer gets pissed off.... Think about that for a minute before you start feeling sorry for yourself. You want stress? Try doing a 12 hour shift in an ER, where 'customers' don't just get pissed off, they will actually throw punches, kicks and spit on you...and that's after the constant barrage of verbal abuse. And if we don't treat them because they are abusive? They sue us and we could lose our jobs...yes, retail jobs are gakky work and I admire people that do them well, I wouldn't want to do it but please try and have a little perspective huh?

The worst thing about working in retail is the utter, utter lack of respect.

Lack of respect from management, lack of respect from customers, lack of respect from the people one knows, lack of respect from most of the people in this thread.

There is a prevalent attitude, mainly from people who have never worked retail or did so part time as a kid, that retail is 'easy' and that people who work it are lazy. That the reason they do it is because they're stupid and lazy and are therefore deserving of contempt. People wonder why they get bad service in shops, 90% of the time it's because the people working there are treated like the lowest value people in society.

The work is hard, the pay is well below any other form of work (with the exception of it's cousin, food service) and the disrespect you receive from all around is constant. No-one's saying you don't work hard, people, but why don't you get off people in retails backs? After all, how many of you are at work and posting on Dakka Dakka? Most retail employees do not have that luxury.

I agree htj, really I do. But people need some perspective. To compare the stress in Retail to the stress of an ER Doctor or an active Soldier is absurd..

sarpedons-right-hand wrote:I agree htj, really I do. But people need some perspective. To compare the stress in Retail to the stress of an ER Doctor or an active Soldier is absurd..

Having done both jobs (retail and soldier) at various points, I can assure you they are not comparable. But that is not to say retail is easy. Dealing with the general public is incredibly stressful - I could have quite cheerfully murdered the vast majority of customers that came to the store I worked at.

I can appreciate that filbert, I have had bar jobs in the past and 90% of the customers there could go spin IMO.
Dealing with the general public is a stressful experience, as a nurse I deal with the public every day, and in some cases it's an awful thing too have to do...so I can really see where people who work in retail are coming from. But they are uncomparable to the Armed Forces and Medicine. To do so is just plain daft..

sarpedons-right-hand wrote:I agree htj, really I do. But people need some perspective. To compare the stress in Retail to the stress of an ER Doctor or an active Soldier is absurd..

True, but there is an overriding trend in this thread of people presenting the attitude I mentioned. Your point is still valid, though, the jobs really aren't the same. They both have bad elements, but they're different elements.

filbert wrote:

sarpedons-right-hand wrote:I agree htj, really I do. But people need some perspective. To compare the stress in Retail to the stress of an ER Doctor or an active Soldier is absurd..

Having done both jobs (retail and soldier) at various points, I can assure you they are not comparable. But that is not to say retail is easy. Dealing with the general public is incredibly stressful - I could have quite cheerfully murdered the vast majority of customers that came to the store I worked at.

This seems like a good way to combine both skill-sets.

I feel as the following needs to be posted:

Wow, Penny Arcade doesn't have a punchline and states the obvious yet again. Why does anyone ever think that's funny?

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:Wow, Penny Arcade doesn't have a punchline and states the obvious yet again. Why does anyone ever think that's funny?

Look at their faces! They pull funny faces! Funny faces are funny!

htj wrote:

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:Wow, Penny Arcade doesn't have a punchline and states the obvious yet again. Why does anyone ever think that's funny?

Look at their faces! They pull funny faces! Funny faces are funny!

I just... I don't want to ruin anyone's fun, and obviously it wouldn't have lasted for a billion years if it didn't have a raving fanbase, but I've maybe chuckled a couple times. You'd have to be a moron to have not thought about what they usually talk about already at some point, and I have more faith in people than that. </frazzled>

I think the majority of it is the funny-because-it's-true appeal. The times I've enjoyed it are mainly because it's similar to a conversation I've had or a situation I've been in. It's vastly more popular than it's average content would warrant, but hey, at least it's not Garfield.

Oh, how I loathe Garfield.

I will be working until midnight on the night before Thanksgiving.

I will then be working from 4am on the morning following Thanksgiving.

I will be being paid my usual wage. I will be awake Thanksgiving day long enough to eat some turkey and then try to be asleep by 9pm. That is one of two paid holiday days I get and I will be sleeping through it.

Seriously, feth retail, the sooner I find a way to escape, the better.

People making comparisons to the emergency services should stfu, the emergency services pay well and provide very good benefit packages and holiday, retail gives all the gak and none of the benefits. Frazzled once told me that everyone should be made to work a year of US retail and then they'd never complain about their jobs again... Since moving here and taking a job in retail management, I now understand that. And my pity goes to the poor folks that work at the ground level, because they're getting an even shittier wage than me and less benefits. Oh and the poor bastards that will now be working on Thanksgiving, I hope they really are getting $40 per hour, because I'm sure as hell not.

I'm not really sure where the $40/hour figure came from. You're honestly really pimping to find anything in the double digits around these parts.

@htj: For the sake of argument, today's Garfield:

I believe that qualifies for a what is this I don't even.

The image was blocked by my work filter, but somehow I feel that I got exactly as much entertainment out of it as if it had loaded.

filbert wrote:

sarpedons-right-hand wrote:I agree htj, really I do. But people need some perspective. To compare the stress in Retail to the stress of an ER Doctor or an active Soldier is absurd..

Having done both jobs (retail and soldier) at various points, I can assure you they are not comparable. But that is not to say retail is easy. Dealing with the general public is incredibly stressful - I could have quite cheerfully shot the vast majority of customers that came to the store I worked at.

The real irony being that when he was a soldier he would have cheerfully sold things to ....