Archived Black Thursday/Friday 2016 War Stories

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I'm not sure how we did in sales, but when I left at 5am today we still had a decent amount of tvs and systems left. I didn't have two customers who got very angry when they found out that we did not have anymore of the 3DS at about 11pm. Thankfully they weren't made at me though, apparently two separate stores told them that we had a ton left in stock still. The one guy actually thanked me for working on Thanksgiving, which was really nice of him.
 
It was definitely busier than last year. I left at midnight and came back at 4 and it was still very busy with most of the checklanes open.

We had a lot of big ticket items left though, even later in the day. Had probably half the TVs (including a pallet of the $199 4k Element TVs) and a half pallet of PS4s still on the floor. I ended up picking a bunch of TVs for SFS orders, including 2 of those $700 Samsung doorbusters.
 
Dumb things Ive heard

1) I need a 60 inch what am I going to do with a 55 inch tv?

2) Can I get a rain check on the iphone 7?

3) I cant take this ipad up to the front myself?
 
Front end was pretty slow from the time I started at 8:30 to about 12:30 and then it got pretty steady from that point. Our Electronics team was slammed the entire day though.
 
I did crowd control inside the store, which at my store, consists of speed weaving guests up and down aisles to get to the registers. Always amazing to me, every fucking year, how many guests complain about having to stand in line. One guest went on and on, so I very plainly and succinctly explained "it's Black Thursday. There will be a line. If you don't want to stand in line don't shop Black Thursday. I'll be happy to take your 1 item and put it back so you can leave. Of course, she stayed in line. Biggest bitch of the night. Most people shop here Black Thursday and know the drill. They slip in line, smile and gave a good time.
 
SFSFun said:
It was definitely busier than last year. I left at midnight and came back at 4 and it was still very busy with most of the checklanes open.

We had a lot of big ticket items left though, even later in the day. Had probably half the TVs (including a pallet of the $199 4k Element TVs) and a half pallet of PS4s still on the floor. I ended up picking a bunch of TVs for SFS orders, including 2 of those $700 Samsung doorbusters.
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No one wanted those 43" Elements. I had to haul so many of them back to the TV flat in RTW. Spot really overestimated the demand there.
 
Holy shit what happened to our guest today? The guest at our store where extra salty today. I wasn't on my box for an hour and I already had 4 people yell at me. I swear if my patients weren't so thick, and if I still had a soul, I would've quit on the spot. To top it off, my card reader died and my GSTL told me to go cash only, and I had a guest throw a fit like he was 5. "Why the hell don't you have a goddam sign!" he told me. After a while of angry guest and dirty looks, I got the GSTL to move me. Fuck my life. And Fuck Today. I hope people chill the fuck out.
 
Did anyone else have two operators for the Friday overnight shift? This was the first time I've been operator for Black Friday and I had to do it alone when we've never had people solo it before. It was absolutely insane!
 


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I had a guest yell at me because her red card wouldn't work and she said well online it says I have a balance and she also continues to tell me the card didn't work at another target store and I apologize and she says stupid card never works I'm calling corporate!! Okay I say to myself go ahead with that..
 
TeamRed said:
I had a guest yell at me because her red card wouldn't work and she said well online it says I have a balance and she also continues to tell me the card didn't work at another target store and I apologize and she says stupid card never works I'm calling corporate!! Okay I say to myself go ahead with that..
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Of course Black Friday of all days is when the registers decide to be dicks...
 
Thanksgiving day was actually pretty serene in the backroom so I escaped most of the madness... until the autofills dropped.

However today, I had to get to and from the Electronics stockroom quite a few times. Aside from the usual guest posturing, I got asked 6 times if I was a manager. Thankfully, I can just say "nope" and walk away!
 
ETL's were grumpy. Barely said "Hello" or upset I was in their way.

Team members were tired and bitchy.

Guests making up their own prices or rules. ETLs or TL's just let them break the rules. "Sure you can buy 8 NES classics so no one else can" or " Just honor the $9 price for finding dory blue ray" On top of being extremely messy or letting their kids run though domestics. Found popcorn down several eisles not sure if they were afraid they wouldn't find their car later so left a trail like Hansel and Gretel.

Yet no one can figure out why Holiday season is the most depressing time of the year....
 
Had hoverboards sold out seconds after people got to them. People were skipping and briskly walking for the electronics as I saw them flood in lmao. My TL and I just don't get it, we aren't going to be angry or sad if we can't get the one, two, or three items we wanted. But I can't complain, I got holiday pay.

Sat at food ave, crowd didn't pick up until later. Starbucks was so backed up though. Today on Black Friday, ran out of popcorn oil and we looked all over and into the back stockroom, only to find out there was a drum behind the current drum in the machine. I literally face palmed, and installed it and got back to making popcorn. Went an hour with no popcorn and had to deny 10 or so guests.

Line winded around 4 isles once people got there stuff at 7 or 8 PM. It was massive.

First Black Friday was a success.
 
3 o'clock pull time 15.5 Hrs (37 batches) with no vehicles, and only 2 BRTM ya I finished at 11pm; with 12 batches left. They didn't finish the Autofill this morning (20 batches left). Double truck tomorrow....
 
Grizzlies said:
3 o'clock pull time 15.5 Hrs (37 batches) with no vehicles, and only 2 BRTM ya I finished at 11pm; with 12 batches left. They didn't finish the Autofill this morning (20 batches left). Double truck tomorrow....
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We only had one backroom TM when I came in at 4pm and he was still pulling the 3pm batches at 7 or later I think. I was scheduled market but the BL TL and myself both jumped on MyFAs for a few hours to clear them out

We have a 2400ish flow truck and a 500ish C&S push tommorow....and the store is a total wreck..so glad I dont have to deal with that shit tommorow
 
My Black Friday was disastrous. I live in Massachusetts so we're only allowed to open after midnight- and I guess because it's a retail store we're not allowed to work on Thanksgiving at all. Showed up at 12:05AM, punched in 40 minutes early. I was slotted for Electronics Crowd Control and got this gorgeous lime green shirt to wear.

Since I was there early I offered to the electronics TL to help in whatever way he needed, and he told me he was too busy for help.

Starting off great.

Five minutes to opening (1AM, I think) I get told to go grab electronics keys because all the video game cases needed opening. Y'know, maybe would have been thing to start me on when I first got there.

The two people who were slotted to help guests in electronics had only ever worked in other areas of the store for Flow, and one of them is just the end all "no one wants to work with him" type person on the team.

While I started trying to control the line for Mobile and Apple products, guests seemed to figure out I was apparently the one running the show and flocked to me in droves because the other two TM knew nothing and were coming to me with guests anyway.

I ended up stealing someone from Toys to manage the line, then proceeded to spend the next six hours "tearing it up" as my STL, HR-ETL, and flow TL said later when I was on my break.

Got congratulated, then told the first of our double trucks for Saturday morning was already here and they were going to start unloading it and I was gonna have to break out electronics on the back wall using a green rack as my table and a single carriage for garbage.

After giving a million guests the stink-eye I manage to get it all broke out and pushed with a few difficulties - like my cage lock being switched out for another which doesn't work with my key (even though I was reassured it would.)

When I punched out I had acquired a walkie, my device and PDA- even though I wasn't slotted for any device at the beginning.

End all- my four hour and 15 minute shift ended up being 10 hours, but I managed to get an Xbox Skyrim Spevial Edition before leaving, and tons of leftovers from the caterers.

Sorry for the long story.

TL;DR my day sucked, and next year I'm demanding devices, a map of sale products, a flyer, and a competent team member if I'm gonna be the only one in electronics "running the show".

Edit: forgot to mention I hit a nice lady accidentally and felt super bad about it until I got busy again. Most people were really polite when they saw me red faced and running around.
 
Today was rough for Flow and Backroom. We had a 4500 piece double truck. 14 pallets of seasonal and 14 pallets of toys. Something like 1000 pieces of backstock. Stuff did not get done...
 
abstractpremed96 said:
We just got new spider keys at every register in the Spring. But AP chose black Friday of ALL DAYS to begin using a new type of spider wrap. The one where the mechanism to wind/unwind it is kind of like a fishing pole reel. And nobody, GSAs included, was taught how to open them.

Black friday was actually pretty smooth. Our STL and ETL-AP had everything well organized and we made it with just the ETL-AP in plainclothes, our one TPS, and two off duty cops—one at the entrance and one at the boat. We had every lane open (yet someone had the bright idea to press the backup button). I had the shadiest transaction I've ever seen. I won't go into details because it will probably out me, but leadership gave me the go ahead so not my problem. After the first hour or so, things slowed down so much that 19 lanes was overkill, so the STL (who also acts as ETL-HL with a SrTL) grabbed some of us to do pulls and reshop. We got a crash course in that, and ended up having to become Electronics TM too when we did reshop too close to the boat. I went from having never been anywhere but on a lane to doing spider wraps, opening video game cases, and doing reshop in HBA. It was a cool night. Great atmosphere all around.
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On the new wraps, I showed the cashiers to open all types of wrap. I was told that they didn't know to wine up the wrap after taking off the wrap.
 
Hardlinesmaster said:
On the new wraps, I showed the cashiers to open all types of wrap. I was told that they didn't know to wine up the wrap after taking off the wrap.
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I've showed my entire team how to use the new BoxGuards and most of them can't do it still. Doesn't help that they get stuck all the time.
 
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