[Market Research] Did You EVEN Bust Doors?
7
Once upon a time, Black Friday meant fighting for your life in an overcrowded store while nursing a Thanksgiving hangover, not just getting twice as much retail spam in your email for the month of November.
Who remembers? Discuss your tales of bygone retail combat below.
- 15 comments, 39 replies
- Comment
I remember people camping out overnight in front of the big stores. I never felt the slightest bit tempted by all that nonsense.
@Pony this. And the fact I always had to work. Or if I didn’t have to is it I got later in life I volunteered to because the young people with kids have the day off
@Pony I camped for the Rose Parade once, but never a store sale. I might have been willing to …
/showme Confused star wars fans lined up the night before black friday while thinking it was for a new Star Wars movie.
@mediocrebot Is it just my imagination or have these AI bots been developing a wicked sense of humor?
( My kind of people!)
I knew it was a scam, so I stayed home.
I used to have an ice cream parlor in the Montgomery Mall back when that was still a thing. Black Friday was a PITA. Early hours, late hours and crazy busy in between.
The only time I participated was to buy 2 Oystr $20 clamshell phones from Best Buy for my mom and me. They were great, durable phones.
The only other time I participated was to buy a $99 laptop from Circuit City. It was a wonderful little all solid state machine. It worked great until Mr. Whiskers knocked my drink over into it.
@therealjrn
/showme Mr. Whiskers the cat wearing Circuit City employee shirt and pouring water onto laptop.
@mediocrebot
/giphy BWAHAHA
I once got up at 5am and rushed to sears dragging a very confused and much younger Englishman behind me. I was so excited. We still lived in the UK and they didn’t have anything like it. I was hoping to score a deal on tools we could bring back with us. So we tail it down to the store and we’re waiting. No one else in sight. The staff got there and looked confused. Then they opened and much to my chagrin, there was no huge Black Friday sale. It was surreal. I felt like I was in an episode of the twilight zone. He thought it was hilarious and poked fun for ages. That was early 2000s methinks.
@sillyheathen holy crap this reminds me of hosting some visitors from the UK for Thanksgiving and taking them to see (1990s) Black Friday craziness just for the spectacle.
They were beyond fascinated by the whole thing and couldn’t believe their eyes. (also we eventually had to explain that Black Friday was an annual thing and this wasn’t just how we behaved one day a week all year)
@jouest that’s what I was hoping for. I felt like it was April Fools day and not Black Friday. I guess the Cajuns thought it was too much fuss that year.
@sillyheathen You went the wrong day. They do that on Guy Fawkes day.
/showme Department Store full of shoppers wearing Guy Fawkes masks.
@cfg83 v is for vendetta!
@cfg83 and we have introduced our local Americans to bonfire night. We have a guy fawkes bonfire but we don’t his effigy because we probably would’ve helped with the gunpowder.
I remember going to Toys “R” Us for fun at night because I wanted to walk the floors while everyone else was in manic mode. The line was around the block so I passed.
@cfg83 It was really a mob at Best Buy. They had laid “channels” out on the floors with different coloured tape according to department to funnel the chaos.
I once stood in line for hours to be able to get my then minor child (she is now an adult) Christmas presents when I was in the middle of chemo. Somehow I managed to snag an expensive thing she wanted the very most for Christmas at an amazing Black Friday price. It made everything worth it seeing how excited she was when she unwrapped Christmas morning.
Another time, when my niece had lost her job, and her three little kids believed in Santa, I ended up shopping all night for Christmas for them. I remember being in one store where the line went all the way to the back of the store.
Staying up all night I managed to get each kid a Santa present, a present from their mom, a present from their dad, and a present from me. I also got them clothes that they needed.
When I went to UPS to send the big box, it was very heavy. I told them what was in it and why and they gave me a huge discount to mail it.
The kids never found out that year that there was no Santa as they were thrilled with their Santa gift. The youngest was just turned four and she got the desperately wanted. I no longer remember what I got the boys from Santa but I do remember they got from somebody remote control cars but their day.I made sure that Santa gave them the very best gift, their parents gave them the next gifts and what I gave them was what was left.
Oops, somehow deleted part of my answer. The four-year-old got her desperately wanted dollhouse. And the remote control cars made the day for the boys. The last big typo error that needs corrected was that their parents gave them second best gifts.
I actually somehow I ended up on TV when they were interviewing us in the line that went to the back of the store. That was pretty funny.
I have always done my absolute best to avoid stores from thanksgiving until new years.
@kittykat9180 Wow, you must be a survivalist.
/showme Anthropomorphized kitty cat survivalist in bunker with 36 day supply of food.
@cfg83 I try to stock up before hand. I still have to go to the grocery store once a week. I usually go Sunday evenings to avoid the crowds.
Never work retail.
Never work retail during a holiday.
Never work retail during a holiday when people have their paychecks in hand.
Similarly, don’t work in food service – you have multiple rushes, including a double on weekends.
@pakopako On the contrary - every person should work retail or food service for a while at least once in their lives, so they understand what it’s like.
@Kyeh while I agree to the effectiveness of trial by fire, I would prefer kids learn that fire is hot from trusting my words, pictures, or scars and do something else that’s new and stupid
@pakopako I’m not talking about a trial by fire. I’m saying that people should undergo the experience to make them better customers, more empathetic to retail & restaurant workers. They don’t have to stay in those jobs.
@Kyeh @pakopako You want a shitty service job experience? Try pumping gas during the 70’s oil embargo!
Imagine selling a product that the customer needs and must pay for but never actually sees or tastes or touches. And with shortages, long lines and steadily increasing prices.
I survived, but was never quite the same.
@macromeh @pakopako And now we all pump our own. Maybe nobody was willing to do that job anymore.
@Kyeh I understand the experience should teach them empathy, but I want to skip that part and eliminate the experience altogether and find an alternative expedient teaching method so that in the future, people who are jerks to servers will be extinct. Perhaps mass electroshock therapy.
(We still have full service gas pumps across the US; though they are getting fewer and farther in-between.)
@pakopako
Oh, yeah - much more compassionate .
@Kyeh @pakopako
Actually ALL the pumps in NJ are NOT self-serve and until a couple of years ago neither were the ones in Oregon.
@Kyeh @pakopako
Is that to protect your kids or because that type work in beneath them…?
@chienfou @Kyeh @pakopako And only the Oregon gas stations with multiple pump islands have self-serve (+ full service). The small mini-mart + gas station that I frequent has no self-serve pumps. (Full-service only and it has the lowest price for name-brand top tier gas in the area.)
@chienfou @pakopako @macromeh–Dang, you’re lucky!
@Kyeh @macromeh @pakopako
Win/win!
@chienfou @Kyeh @pakopako
This is the place - on US30 on the way to the Oregon coast.
@chienfou @Kyeh @macromeh @pakopako I honestly love that we have both now. Sometimes it is nice to drive up when it’s insanely hot or cold and have someone else deal with it. But it’s also nice now when self serve is empty and all the Oregonians are queueing for full service and I can pop in and pump my own.
It was insanely maddening to me to have to wait for an employee when they only had a few people on and long lines.
The only door I’ve ever busted was on a bedroom closet, when the oldest kid was about 4. He’d gone in and shut it behind him and the handle got stuck so busting was the only way to get him back out.
@algae1221 that’s happened to me twice. First time involved using a lockpick, the other was asking for a ladder from the neighbors to get in through the windows.
Honestly, everything about the whole “doorbusters” just makes me feel sad. Surely we were consumerist enough without amplification.
When there was a world market near me, I would go to their sale because I liked their wrapping paper and I could always find some unique things. Then afterwards go to the half price books 20% off sale if I was looking for particular books. Also first 100 people in the got a gift card and a tote bag. Most gift cards were $5 but there was a $100 one thrown into the mix. Every time I was either just ahead or just behind the $100.
For a little while (several years ago) the small town I live in had a Walmart that was open 24 hours a day. I did score a couple of nice Black Friday specials by going after I got off work in the ER at 11:30 pm on Thanksgiving night. Even though it was “Black Friday” there was hardly anybody in the store. One of the benefits of living in the town and having a
Wal"Small"Mart!@chienfou Oh, those were the days. My SmallMart shut down quite awhile ago and was converted to a Blue Cross/Blue Shield call center.
I really enjoyed the smaller footprint of it. Bigger than the Neighborhood Markets yet smaller than the Huge Supercenters.
All of our Walmarts stopped being 24 hour during the Coof Wars and never went back.
:Plays Taps:
@therealjrn
Ours closed a few years back when they built a new mini supercenter. It has a full grocery side and a lot of different items though maybe not the depth of variety of some stores. Still for a town of 6,000 people it’s super practical. The next closest good sized Walmart is 15-20 miles away.
Unfortunately when it pulled up stakes that left an empty spot in the strip center where they used to be. Still haven’t managed to find anything to go in there yet. It would make a good skating rink if that was still a thing.
@chienfou True, but it probably has pillers inside to hold up the roof. That would limit it from indoor soccer and such.
@therealjrn
Maybe we could cross snooker with indoor soccer… think that could be a thing?
@chienfou @therealjrn There are entire dead malls that could afford the opportunity to make a two-cushion play mode challenging.
@chienfou idc about Black Friday but damn do I miss a 24/7 Walmart…
Never went early or waited in line.
Did enter some stores over Black Friday weekend back in the 80’s and 90’s. I think Fry’s.
Got some deals maybe? I forget.
Never had to really deal with crowds due to near getting there late.
Hate all that.
I do wish Wallyworld would let1-2 stores in v populated counties to be open 24 hours.
Like if a city or county has more than 10-20 Walmarts can’t one of them be open past 11?
Oh well they’re not listening to me.
Nope. Well… kinda… Being a retail drone I’ve worked almost every black Friday morning since '98…