Not shopping at Midnight

We all know what Thanksgiving is about. And whether you spend it with your biological family, or the friends who have become your family, Thanksgiving is a great day to relax, eat, drink and fun. Because, traditionally, the next day begins the mad dash to the Christmas holidays.

Now, however, Thanksgiving is becoming an excuse to avoid both friends and family. Retailers have decided that Thanksgiving -one of the few holidays that they were closed- should become a shopping day. Walmart and Kmart will be open on Thanksgiving, while other retail outlets like Kohls, Target and Best Buy will open at midnight on Thursday.

People are camping out at stores, as I noticed today at the Best Buy in Montclair. I was checking out, buying the sixth season of Doctor Who, and I told young lady, after a brief talk on why I was not purchasing the DVD set with my Best Card (long story), that those guys waiting outside were idiots. 

She said they were waiting to get the good deals -which are not all that special really (another Best Buy worker informed me). I told her that she should be upset that some of her co-workers have to cut their family time down due to the company choosing to open for Black Friday. That its not the customers who need or want the store open, but the shareholders, the CEO's and the other 1%.

To say that its the customers "demanding" the stores open early is empty rhetoric. The truth of the matter is, if Best Buy opened at 6am everyday, they would have customers. Some stores in big cities open at 7 or 8 am. And because they do, they have customers. Simple logic.

What I don't get is why the 1% think its okay for them to have a holiday, but not okay for the frontline workers. 

Also, because the sales are not that much different from the normal ones, the customers are fools to fall for such psychological manipulation. But that's the brilliance of marketing, create a mythical notion that the sales that begin the day after Christmas are somehow better than the ones before (how many times does Khols and Macy's advertise "the lowest prices of the season?" You would think things were free on Black Friday, considering these sales are suppose to be better) or even later, as Christmas nears. 

Which is another thing. Many shop the first weekend, and then business dies. It's like movies that are front-loaded, ones that do big business the first week and die (sometimes by half) the next week. Then they wait until the last week, hoping stores are desperate to put things cheaper.

Meanwhile, who gets screwed in this equation? Yep, the frontline worker who has to put up with all kinds of shit from customers who expect them to know what their mom or dad wants for the holidays. This is time of year that most frontline workers hate, dealing with unruly customers who insult, push and generally destroy stores more than usual. It's a time when the limits of most employee's nerves are pushed to the breaking point. 

All in the name of a holiday that has no meaning anymore to most people. It's simply an excuse to max out credit cards and buy stuff people will be throwing in their closets by the end of January. 

In the end, its the 1% that will benefit from all these stores opening at midnight on Thursday. They win. You lose.

But I win, because I know these bastards. And I say fuck you, Best Buy, Target, Walmart and anyone else.

Fuck You!