The Insanity Is Over For Another Year.

When you work retail there are two days that no one looks forward to. One is inventory, the other Black Friday. The physical work is harder on other nights, but on those two it is more draining. Last night I was given 3 helpers in dairy and told we had to be done by midnight. I let two of my helpers go at 11:00 and the other at 11:15. I finished up at 11:30. At that time there were already more people in the store than normal. I was told to relieve one of the people who was pulling pallets to the floor. In 15 minutes I was able to get one whole pallet taken to the other side of the store. There were just too many people in the way. By then the person that I relieved got back from break and I was given a much better job. The merchandise that went on sale at 5:00 A.M. had been put on pallets, shrink-wrapped with black plastic, and put on an empty truck trailer that was in grocery receiving. My job was to use our electric jack and pull those pallets off the trailer and others pulled them to the floor. That was much easier than pulling pallets through the growing crowd.

After that, my job was to stand next to one of the 5:00 A.M. pallets and make sure that no one got anything off it before it was time. Except for lunch and my breaks I stood around from 12:30 until 5:00. Then we cut the plastic and got out of the way. The pallet I was by had cords for HDTV's and TV wall mounts. Surprisingly there was no one grabbing for those. Next to that was the RockStar set for PlayStation 3 and X-Box. That was a hot item, especially the X-Box version. For the most part it was an orderly crowd. I didn't see any pushing or shoving. Of course I wasn't in the whole store. If anyone tells me about any I will write about it tomorrow. The rest of the morning was spent condensing displays down and clearing the floor. I came home exhausted. That standing around is for the birds. Tonight I am back to my regular routine. I look forward to that.