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Black Friday Shopping
Nov. 26th, 2005 01:22 amA few days ago, someone in one of my classes expressed apprehension toward working on the day after Thanksgiving. I get that. She works at Express, and while I've never done retail myself, I've read ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
customers_suck, and I know what it's like to spend a long day on your feet at a job you don't like. Then another person in the class expressed uncertainty regarding the sanity of the people who actually go out and shop on what they know is the busiest shopping day of the year. So, yeah, I get that too. But, as I told her, I love being a doorbuster on Black Friday, for many reasons:
--I love capitalism. I enjoy exchanging money for stuff, I enjoy finding ways to exchange less money for more stuff, and because I volunteer to do my mom's shopping for our extended family (1), I am actually lucky enough to be able to find ultimate enjoyment in exchanging someone else's money for stuff. It doesn't get any better than that.
--I love buying gifts. Sure, some people are harder to shop for than others, but the challenge is the best part. Even if my gifts suck, I figure the recipients will still like me anyway (2). For example, my best friend from high school and I suck at giving each other gifts. Seriously, every single gift we've given each other has gotten a rather subdued reaction, with the one exception of the CD she gave me for my eighteenth birthday, which, coincidentally enough, was the same CD I had gotten her for her seventeenth birthday seven months earlier. (No, she did not regift; it was in original packaging.) Anyway, point is, buying gifts is fun and is good for taking me out of the sections of the stores I normally stick to.
--I love Christmas. But I really, really love order. Seeing Christmas decorations out before Halloween bugs me, because I believe the holiday season shouldn't overflow from the convenient natural constraints of Thanksgiving and New Year's, and I don't want to get into that mindset when there are still major holidays yet to come. Once those major holidays are over, though, I feel free to immerse myself in Christmas, and because I love Christmas, the sooner the better--and going shopping early on the day after Thanksgiving is a good way to do that.
--Showing up before the store opens (3) is totally underrated. You get excellent parking (4), untouched displays, fresh cashiers (5), and did I mention the seriously excellent parking? There is no way I will get such good parking at the Mall of America anytime from now until New Year's unless I do this again (6), and what's the point if they're not going to bribe me with sales to get up that early? Of course, getting up early is by far the hardest part. But, yeah, the sales are for real, and they are what make it absolutely worthwhile (7).
I feel like I should say something about the camaraderie of people huddled together in the snow (oh yes, it snowed) while we waited for the doors to open, but that would require actually feeling some kind of camaraderie. Mostly it just feels like standing around outside with a bunch of people in the dark. They're not particularly interesting people, either. Though the ones in line ahead of me at Target do stand out in my mind--three young-looking high school kids in letter jackets. I looked at one of their sleeves and thought, "okay, 2006...that makes them...seniors. Oh my god." So, yeah, no camaraderie. Even so.
( The footnotes are the best part. )
Okay, that's enough out of me for tonight. So I leave you with my thoughts from recent events atcampfuckudie:
Ed. Has a pet chocolate frog. Named Slippy. I think I might be dead of awww. Also, I'm kind of starting to ship CFUD Wolfwood/Hawkeye.
customers_suck, and I know what it's like to spend a long day on your feet at a job you don't like. Then another person in the class expressed uncertainty regarding the sanity of the people who actually go out and shop on what they know is the busiest shopping day of the year. So, yeah, I get that too. But, as I told her, I love being a doorbuster on Black Friday, for many reasons:--I love capitalism. I enjoy exchanging money for stuff, I enjoy finding ways to exchange less money for more stuff, and because I volunteer to do my mom's shopping for our extended family (1), I am actually lucky enough to be able to find ultimate enjoyment in exchanging someone else's money for stuff. It doesn't get any better than that.
--I love buying gifts. Sure, some people are harder to shop for than others, but the challenge is the best part. Even if my gifts suck, I figure the recipients will still like me anyway (2). For example, my best friend from high school and I suck at giving each other gifts. Seriously, every single gift we've given each other has gotten a rather subdued reaction, with the one exception of the CD she gave me for my eighteenth birthday, which, coincidentally enough, was the same CD I had gotten her for her seventeenth birthday seven months earlier. (No, she did not regift; it was in original packaging.) Anyway, point is, buying gifts is fun and is good for taking me out of the sections of the stores I normally stick to.
--I love Christmas. But I really, really love order. Seeing Christmas decorations out before Halloween bugs me, because I believe the holiday season shouldn't overflow from the convenient natural constraints of Thanksgiving and New Year's, and I don't want to get into that mindset when there are still major holidays yet to come. Once those major holidays are over, though, I feel free to immerse myself in Christmas, and because I love Christmas, the sooner the better--and going shopping early on the day after Thanksgiving is a good way to do that.
--Showing up before the store opens (3) is totally underrated. You get excellent parking (4), untouched displays, fresh cashiers (5), and did I mention the seriously excellent parking? There is no way I will get such good parking at the Mall of America anytime from now until New Year's unless I do this again (6), and what's the point if they're not going to bribe me with sales to get up that early? Of course, getting up early is by far the hardest part. But, yeah, the sales are for real, and they are what make it absolutely worthwhile (7).
I feel like I should say something about the camaraderie of people huddled together in the snow (oh yes, it snowed) while we waited for the doors to open, but that would require actually feeling some kind of camaraderie. Mostly it just feels like standing around outside with a bunch of people in the dark. They're not particularly interesting people, either. Though the ones in line ahead of me at Target do stand out in my mind--three young-looking high school kids in letter jackets. I looked at one of their sleeves and thought, "okay, 2006...that makes them...seniors. Oh my god." So, yeah, no camaraderie. Even so.
( The footnotes are the best part. )
Okay, that's enough out of me for tonight. So I leave you with my thoughts from recent events at
campfuckudie:Ed. Has a pet chocolate frog. Named Slippy. I think I might be dead of awww. Also, I'm kind of starting to ship CFUD Wolfwood/Hawkeye.
