Black Soul Friday

I have always been interested in Black Friday, mostly because as business student I knew the importance of the day to the retail sector and just how muh energy and work goes into a weekend that makes or breaks wall street's corporate projections and has such a profound impact on the economic outlook.  Yet the sound of staying up all night in the freezing cold weather to save only a few dollars in order to personally participate in the "event" never sounded like a very worth-while endeavor.  Yet year after year I hear the stories from family members and read the paper the next morning and I am ceaselessly amazed at what I hear.  One year my wife got in a fight at Best Buy and nearly threw punches while I was fast asleep in a nice warm bed.  So I decided this year I wanted to experience it!

One of the cardinal rules of Black Friday shopping is knowing exactly what it is you want and where to get it.  I however wasn't very interested in saving money. In fact I spent most of 2010 building the website and fulfillment for www.CityDeals.com and I hardly ever used it myself.  I was far more interested to see how we as intelligent human beings would literally risk our lives (http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/2010-07-07-wal-mart-black-friday-death_N.htm) for a good deal.  Yet at the same time I did not want to waste my sacrifice for nothing so I decided that I'd stake a spot near the video games section of Walmart out in South Jordan.  I got to know the people around me really well.  To my left was a guy wearing overalls with no shirt on underneath and to my right was a hot co-ed attending school in Missouri.  Two older ladies were in front of me and I heard all about their grandkids for the better part of an hour.  By 10:00 pm there were people to my right sitting on the floor playing cards.  In another area of the store some people had setup THEIR OWN camping chairs ans TV and were watching a movie.  Walmart has provided us with a map of the store and showed us where lines were forming for each of the door-buster sales.  I felt bad for the people had to waiting the freezer isle for a crappy laptop.  The cashiers were all asked to provide "security" around the crates of items in the middle of the isles all wrapped in plastic with signs that said do not open until midnight or 5:00 AM for electronics.  That in and of itself was hilarious.  They had no idea how to control crowds.  Patrol cars were stationed outside the front entrance, but they were not about to come inside unless necessary.  About 11:30 was when things started getting interesting.  People literally left their humanity at home for this event.  I had one lady come up to me and say, "I am just going to look under the plastic so I know which side I want to be on."  She crouched down by my legs and immediately grabbed 5 or 6 games and turned and ran.  I yelled "liar!" at her as she hastily moved through the crowd.  She yelled back "You should know better."  So I suppose their is a chance I was wrong to believe that people are generally honest.  It became very apparent that those who were dishonest and cared little for the time and sacrifice made by those around then did fair much better than those who actually had any sense of decency in them.    It's an interesting phenomenon that we wait in lines and consider it unfair if someone cuts in line and attach a social stigma to those who who disregard the unwritten rule of first-come-first server.  Individuals who can lower themselves below the level of feeling any sense of responsibility to those around them do come away with better deals.  So before heading out, you must answer the question of how much your humanity and civility is worth to you.  Left to decide on the spur of the moment will certainly result in others seeing the value you instantaneously decided on.  Their opinions however are fleeting and you will likely never encounter them again.  Leaving those left standing with only a hope of some degree of Karma.  Walmart made the sale either way - no need wasting precious resources to avoid some social discomfort when the Income Statement is unaffected.  I wonder if the Walton family has discovered the equation for finding the perfect balance between litigation expenses and people tramping one another to make purchases at your place of business?

By 11:30 I was still on the front row with hoards of people around me.  It took me back to the days of riding the subway in the former communist republic of Romania.  Yet that did not stop some people from pushing to get closer.  We heard that one lady walked up a grabbed a trampoline well before the midnight time limit and the masses of people waiting to get them immediately grabbed it back and began to yell at her.  She did not give up without a fight however and security was called in that case.

The portly gentleman next to me in the overalls decided he was not about to loose out on his time spent waiting.  He crouched into a catcher's stance and placed both hands on as many Wii Games as he could grab.  I have no idea if he intended on buying them all - but I was certainly impressed that he was able to remain in that stance for nearly 20 minutes given his stature.  There ought to be a study conducted on human resilience in the face of 50% OFF!

I was deep into a game of Angry Birds on my iPhone when some rustling was heard from the crowd next to us who were waiting for some kind of kids toy.  This immediately caused heightened emotions in the crowd I was in.  With easily 8 minutes before midnight, something sparked and the dash was on.  Because video games are small, easy to grab, and hold a large number in a small space, it reminded me of the carp on the docks of Lake Powell.  Through some food in the mist and a swarm of them rush to get it first.  We are obviously no different.  I however leveraged a skill from my negotiations class in graduate school to make a deal with the lady across from me.  She was closer to a game I wanted and I was closer to a game she wanted.  We agreed that we'd grab the games and make an exchange afterwards.  This is the kind of intense activity that take place over cardboard covered in plastic wrap when you have been on your feet for a couple hours past your bedtime.

I have no idea why I took so much pleasure in watching what unfolded in front of me.  The masochist in me certain reared it's ugly head this morning as I saw people fight and grab at anything and everything. Most people seemed to respect the fact that once you had it in your hands, the race was over, but a few did not agree with that philosophy.  I told my brother I wished he had worn his head-cam to record this from the front lines.  I would not have believed it had I not seen it first had.  

My immediate family was stationed at different locations throughout the store.  My brother saw a lady who otherwise probably had no athletic ability manage to pull a whole row of waffle irons ($9.99 by the way) into a cart, and jump on top of them to protect them.  My wife was after a floor vacuum steamer combination, she had a lady who she described as "looking like a relief society president" literally crawl between her legs to pull one from the bottom of the pile before they were all gone.   My mother-in-law witnessed people take no regard to the "wrist-band" process that had been put in place for some of the rare items and the yelling arguments that ensued.  Here is a picture of my brother-in-law's fingers who were cut when some lady grabbed a box out of hands.  He had to leave his items with my sister-in-law while he went to the mens room to stop the bleeding.

The wait to scramble for discounted chinese sweat-shop products was nothing compared to the wait to checkout.  Well over two hours later I found myself searching for caffeine at the in store McDonalds as we got closer to the checkout stand.  The funniest part however that one lady asked if she could cut ahead of us to get int the 20 items or less line because all she was buying was shampoo and conditioner.  Who does their household shopping at 2 AM on Black Friday?  

While the women waited in line the men decided to head over to the other retailers in the area and scope out the lines and plan our next move.  I am certain that those who use a military style intelligence and communication process with walkie-talkies and the like would benefit greatly on any given Black Friday.

At 2:30 AM we parked the car in Kohls parking lot which was as full as it would be on a saturday afternoon.  The temperature gauge read 10 F.  Unlike Walmart Kohls was not about to share the warmth of their facility.  10 minutes to 3 AM and the line wrapped across the whole front of the store, past Shoe Carnival and disappeared around the corner.  Who knows how much further it went after that. One lady was in line with holding a car seat with what looked like a few week old baby - I was shocked.  

Now 5 minutes to 3:00 AM and the line began to compact and suddenly 10's of people got out of their nice warm cars and headed toward the front of the line.  Their plan was to rush the front of the line or sneak in as the line began to push it's way into the store.  To the credit of the store employees they stood in front of people trying to do that and did all they could to prevent them from moving forward.  My guess is they probably had about a 50% success rate.  Sprinting toward the item my brother told me he was after (which I cannot disclose in the unlikely case that she or anyone in my family reads this whole post) I was definitely no longer tired.  We discovered the same $9 waffle irons that Walmart had and also found a number of other good deals.  My brother made the wise choice of getting what he wanted an then running straight for the checkout line rather than moving on to the next door buster.   

By 4:30 everyone in my family had made their way through the check outline that was probably a football field or more in length.  My brother and I debated on whether or not to head back to Walmart fot the 5:00 AM electronics sale.  After seeing the parking lot twice the size it was at midnight we opted out. Mostly because we couldn't do the checkout line again.  The women were not as defeatist was we were. They were just getting warmed up.  Mindy hit 3 more stores before rolling in at 8:30 AM this morning.  She got amazing deals on some good stuff and even asked manager for more of a discount wherever she went.  

As I drove home exhausted early this morning to get home in time to get some sleep before the kids woke up, I was still smiling at what I had witnessed.  Every year I was fast asleep in my bed having no idea what was going on a few blocks away. I imagined how small of a piece of Black Friday I had just seen and thought about this happening all across the country.  I would LOVE to watch a documentary on this event someday!