And so starts the month of retail hell...

[Locut0s]

I manage a retail store that sells gaming, electronics, and pop cultural loot / swag. It's Thursday but our black Friday starts today. Send warm thoughts that I survive lol. I'm joking I'll be fine. I've worked retail off and on the past 10 years. But this is my first holiday season as a manager. Lots of long hours ahead though. I've already out in lots of overtime already of course.

[Irish_Dem]

1. Is it true that between now and Christmas, you will make most of your yearly revenue?

That is a lot of work compressed into a short period of time.

[SouthernIrish]

2. Yes it is true.

Hence the name, Black Friday. It helps retailers get out of the red. I have been in retail 22 years and it is a trying time for us. I am thankful for my job, but some customers can be very rude and demanding. Those people are few and far between. We don't let them ruin our day. So if you are going shopping today or tomorrow, please realize that we are there to provide a service but would much rather be with our families. We work a lot of overtime and are mentally and physically exhausted so please have some patience. Happy Thanksgiving

[Irish_Dem]

4. No excuse for rude people, but it is a very stressful time for most people.

A lot to do at big expense.
Not fun.

Hang in there....
I cannot imagine working under these conditions, you sure should like a pro!
Happy Thanksgiving to you too. Hope you get a bit of fun time.

[SouthernIrish]

7. Thank you so much.

It really can be fun too. We don't sweat the small stuff.

[Freddie]

3. Best of luck!

I’m surprised there’s still a Christmas shopping madhouse anymore, especially with things you can easily buy online. I am done my shopping already except for a few gift cards. All done with my tablet and my Visa.

[lunamagica]

5. Good luck! At least your store sounds like a fun place to work

[Generic Brad]

6. I seriously do not comprehend this American phenomenon

And I have lived here my entire life. My wife is an immigrant, so perhaps I view our culture from a different angle than everyone else.

I truly do not understand why most of my fellow Americans are compelled to buy shit they don't need at this time every year. The whole gift giving routine at Christmas feels so forced and hollow. Outside of the obvious social obligations I can't avoid - I just don't feel comfortable participating. No offense intended to anyone.

I hope the season goes well for you from a business standpoint.

[msongs]

8. China Inc. thanks you nt

[csziggy]

9. I am happy to say both sides of our families have abandoned adult gift giving!

We'll still give gifts to the children - but we give books, not toys or other junk. Our nieces and nephews who grew up with books we gave them now want their children to have that joy, too.

I'm going to have to do my book buying online this year, though. There is no way in hell I will go shopping this weekend. Next Wednesday I get another operation and will not be recovered early enough before the holiday to go shopping. I'm kind of pissed - I love going through the books in the store to make my selections.

[krispos42]

11. We do a Yankee swap thing among non-parent family and friends

We each bring one gift then basically fight over the coolest one.

[krispos42]

10. You have my sympathies

Two Christmases at Radio Shack was enough for me.

Setting fire to a returned and written-off Dancing Santa is very therapeutic.

[Locut0s]

12. Thanks for all the well wishes. Today was a long one. 8 am to 9:30pm...

There were about 1 and 1/2 hours of breaks in there. 1/2 hour actual break during work and then I left the store for 1 hour at the end before returning to help out with the close. Still that's a tiring number of hours to put in on such a busy day. Although it wasn't actually nearly as busy as the previous years I worked at one of the other stores when I was assistant manager. This store that I manage now is actually much slower, although I've turned it around so that it's doing well now. More long hours to put in before the holiday season is over but one of the major hurdles is almost over now

As I've said elsewhere in another post, I really don't have a lot of complain about in life. This is 1st world problems I'm talking about and my life (aside from life long depression and anxiety which is mostly controlled) is actually good. I'm one of those who loved to complain all the time 24/7 in a joking way to cope, most of it is not serious and is laced with humour. Dark humour

[crazycatlady]

13. I just hope some of those retail dollars

Trickle (I hate this word) down to small businesses.

I run an Etsy shop consisting of handmade jewelry and a few pussyhats. My Black Friday hits were lower than the rest of the week (90%) and I wish that customers would look for more unique goods instead of mass produced in China.

I used to work retial. Black Friday was interesting but the positive thing I'll say about it is the day was so busy that it went by very fast.

[Locut0s]

14. I wish I could say that the money gets to small businesses...

The reality is that I know different. Luckily this is not my own business. I'm the manager of a store in a chain. I would never be able to survive as a small business myself. I know what the margins are and they are so insanely razor thin on some of the hardware that we sell that we are incentivized almost not to sell just a piece of hardware by itself because we literally lose money after everything is factored in. That's why we sell used stuff and pop culture merchandise. Even then it's only because we are a chain business that the individual stores can make a go. The companies that manufacture the hardware and games set the prices and leave so little room for any profit at the retail end that it's impossible for any kind of smaller business to make a go of things. Honestly it leads to a lot of shady business practices and incentives stores to push all kinds of unwanted junk onto customers like crappy accessories that fall apart because stores make no money on a lot of the other stuff.

This isn't only our industry of course. Manufacturers leave similarly razor thin margins on lots of things. Cars, computers. It means only the huge retailers can survive. Sad.