Am I going to convince anyone to not shop on Thanksgiving and/or Black Friday?
...not really.
I accept that.
However, I feel at least I can give out some tips coming from my accursed life of working retail. (This may mainly be Macy's things, but just go with flow...you might pick up a few things.)
1. Don't assume everyone who works there can work the register. If they say they can't check you out, don't bitch about how they're lying. If they trained all workers to work the register, then Support and Recovery people will be checking customers out while people complain about how the store is a wreck, there's no new merchandise and everything's signed wrong. A Catch-22 ala consumerism.
2. If they're out of the product, they're out. Don't yell at the workers. Don't start huffing and puffing like the Big Bad Wolf...get over it, those $19,99 boots weren't going to mend your dysfunctional family ties. Trust me.
3. I won't ask you to be nice to the workers ...they'll all assume you will be at your absolute worst. How bad? I always assume the shoppers just got back from their Satanic meeting of chanting for their devil spawn like from Rosemary's Baby. Try to surprise them and be humane.
4. Stop complaining about your feet hurting and carrying all these heavy bags. Guess what? It's 4am, it's optional and YOU chose to be there. The workers? Hurting, stressed, pissed beyond all beliefs and they're forced to be there.
Final thing from me (but FAR from final):
5. I'm repeating myself, but none of the workers want to be there. NO ONE. Time and a half means jack shit when staring into the eyes of a ravenous shopper, foaming at the mouth for Cashmere sweaters.
I'm shocked nobody's made this day a horror movie.
