Black Friday

Hey everyone, Jeremy here again!

I am excited to see some people have seen our blog and taken our poll. I think that I am most excited to see that so far, the poll results have our baby being a girl! Hopefully word will spread about this blog and more people can vote for a girl!

So today is Black Friday. It is the day that most retail stores go into the "black" meaning that they have fulfilled their costs for the year and for the rest of the year, simply make profit. Being a sales rep for HP, I have the duty to go into my Best Buy store and work during this day. This is a little bit crazy! I admit that I have never been in the store as it first opens, when people are running all over each other to get the product they want and get in line to buy it. I will say however, that after this initial rush, some crazy stuff does happen!

Today, I got to the store at 8:30, 3 and 1/2 hours after the store opened. One might think that the crowds would have slowed down a bit in those hours, but you would be wrong. There were customers everywhere and all of the desparate to get help. While Best Buy does employ extra employees to cover the extra rush, it is never enough. I try my best to help customers find the products that they want and to answer their technology questions, but sometimes I get overwhelmed.

There are too many people and all of them expect help. I talked to a customer who wanted to know if any of a certain computer were in stock. I took the tag and was walking to a computer, on the way, I was approached, nay, attacked by a customer, demanding to know if we had any more of the "door-buster" monitors on sale. After trying to convince the customer that all the "door-busters" were long gone (and failing to convince) I took another step towards the computer and was asked by a customer for help on a router. I am not an expert on networking and so after trying to answer his questions (and failing) I finally got to a computer. While there, I was asked by another customer if a different computer was in stock. I looked both up and attempted to return to my original customer, being stopped every step along the way. I realize, that people do not want to wait for help, but mercilessly encroaching on my ability to help other customers, is really not the way to do it. This type of constant barrage of people continued well into the afternoon, with no one customer really pleased with the amount of service we are able to provide. I think that best way to describe it (for you MASH fans out there) would be "meatball sales" get them stable and get them out the door.

Also, for those of you who don't know "door-buster" means that they are the absolute best sales of the day and people are trying to bust the door down in order to get what they want. I think that is fairly self-explanatory, but for some customers, I think it escapes them. 6 or 7 hours after the store opens, I have customers coming up to me and asking me if we have the $99 monitor or the $379 computer left. I stare at them for a moment, wondering if they are serious, or just plain dumb. "No, I don't think we have any left," comes my reply. This is quite the understatement. There have been people camped out at Best Buy since Tuesday night (not an exaggeration) in order to get these deals and they are tagged for sale before the store opens. Now, if only one or two customers asked me about it, I could understand, but every other customer?? Is the word "door-buster" really not straight forward enough?

To sum up, I can say that while no single customer really hurt my feelings today or was really rude, I think it makes me sad for people as a whole. Hundreds of people storming Best Buy's all around the country, just to obtain a $400 computer that will be obsolete in 6 months, makes me well, a little disgusted with people in general.

I vow never to contribute to the madness! Never will you find me outside an electronics super store, selling my comfort and indeed my very soul, for a lousy computer. (At least not for a Toshiba notebook:)