Greetings, all. I hope you have survived Thanksgiving (if you celebrate the holiday at this time of year), and I hope any of you brave (foolish? insane?) enough to venture out to the Holiday Shopping Bacchanalia made it home intact.
I have never understood the whole Black Friday thing. I guess it is just how I operate. I go Christmas buying–I know what I want, I go, I buy it–and have little need to share the shopping experience at 4AM with 50,000 of my closest neighbors. And lately, with the rise in idiocy (the deaths due to trampling last year, the pepper-spray incident this year), I'm less inclined to go out and shop at all, let alone on Midnight on the morning after Thanksgiving.
Having worked retail either full- or part-time for more years than I care to count, I can tell you that about this point in time (mid-afternoon Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend as I type this), my patience would wear thin. Why? Because I had about enough people shouting at me, being generally rude to me, or asking advice and then ignoring it. There's only so much one can take, and coupled with the fact that working this weekend means that we had to give up family time to go to work made it rather a chore.
So, as you venture out to "push and shove" as my mother and Grandmother used to say, remember that while you are tired and worn out, so are the people trying to assist you–they've been up longer than you, as most of them had to show up at work an hour before the store opened–or will be there for an hour after it closes.
I'll do my shopping–er, buying–later, and much of it online…
Thanks for reading. Be good to one another, and, as always (and especially now), I bid you Peace.