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Show WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 30, 2016 5 Black (and blue) Friday: A retail survivor’s story of customer chaos SARAH EARNSHAW Davis News Reporter Shopping on Black Friday is like gazing at the Christmas lights on a house. You can appreciate the experience, but you can’t always see the work that goes into it. On Nov. 26, a customer told me that she had a blast on Black Friday, and she wouldn’t have wanted to spend it doing anything else. I just smiled and told her I was glad. See, I worked on black Friday at the Kohl’s in Layton, and I woke up the following morning with bruises all over my body. I could barely open my eyes, and it was difficult to put pressure on one of my feet. I didn’t fight anyone over an item. Rather, I fought to give customers what they wanted. When we were about to open, my manager gathered together all of the associates who were working the floor and piled us outside. We grabbed each other’s hands and formed a line around the line that had been waiting to get in. This was to prevent people from cutting as they raced to get in the line. Initially, I found this crazy as I stood outside in the cold, but SARAH EARNSHAW | The Signpost Shoppers may favor Cyber Monday, but retailers nationwide still felt the pressure on Black Friday. then I saw the people racing to get in line, just seconds before we opened. A line of people wrapped around the building, and they cheered as we came out, ready to race in to retrieve their goods. For the first little bit, we had to run around and grab all the items people had stuffed in odd places — a doomed attempt by customers to hide things so that they could come back to them later. I came across slippers hidden beneath robes, drones slipped behind a pile of purses and toys stuffed under blankets. Once people realized stashing items wasn’t going to work, I spent a good four hours taking pillows in boxes that reached my shoulders down from a shelf taller than me and carrying them to the front of the store, only to have shoppers take the pillows out of the boxes as I was taking them off my cart. After this, I had to refold pajama sets that people ripped apart in order to keep things tidy, all while helping customers try to locate what they were looking for. The walkie-talkie in my ear continued to buzz, as associates were trying to contact other associates looking for items that customers wanted as shoppers came expecting our hot items to still be available. One customer came in Friday afternoon, looking for a $1000 camera on sale for $400 that had sold out within an hour Thursday night. When I told them we didn’t have any, they looked at me like I was an idiot. As they turned away, they couldn’t believe that we didn’t have more cameras be- Cyber Monday makes record sales By SPENCER HART News Correspondent Nike had a bittersweet experience in Seattle this weekend. More than 20,000 people stormed one of their shoe stores on Black Friday, leaving a shop that looked like it had been through an earthquake. Josh Gardner described similar events when he was out with the crowds on Black Friday. “We stood in line for about two hours to get a TV. It was a limited item, so they only had three of them. I grabbed one and hid in the toy aisle until I could make my way to the checkout counter.” He probably won’t go again, sticking to Cyber Monday from now on. “I saw a few fights when people wanted the same item,” Gardner said. “It was nice and clean when we went in but then got really dirty. There were DVDs all over the ground, clothes everywhere. I would hate to work in retail.” Matt Child works in retail and was happy that he had the day off. “I’m praising Jesus that I didn’t have to work on Black Friday. I did go out and shop, though. It’s not always a great time — everything is getting destroyed, and I know how it is to clean up, so I was just going around fixing things as I shopped.” “I went in on Thanksgiving to get a few deals,” Child said. “It was even a few hours after opening, and it was still so bad, so crazy — the stores were still jam-packed.” Black Friday crowds didn’t stop many from going out to get good deals. Black Friday is the day most retail stores usually begin making Source: C Michael Bergen / MCT money. Even those who couldn’t Hundreds of shoppers lined up outside Target in Columbia, South stand the crowds or the chaos still Carolina, to take advantage of Black Friday sales on Nov. 22, 2012. went for the deals. Figures from Business Insid- cause on Black Friday, the store had been open for 14 hours, and we should still have a camera for that price. I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining, but it’s important for people to remember that associates are people, too. We are people who had to leave their families early from Thanksgiving dinner and had to work so hard they can hardly stand up the next morning. Comment on this column at signpost.mywebermedia.com FAFSA ››continued from front er show that online shopping went up 22 percent from last year, smashing sales expectations, and mobile sales accounting for 36 percent of all e-commerce sales. Shoppers are spending more, with online transactions increasing by $115 million from 2015 to 2016. Taylor Winnie worked on Black Friday and had different thoughts on the day. “I had a positive experience, no punching or shoplifting. People would come in waves, so sometimes it was busy, other times quiet.” Winnie also chose stick to online shopping on Cyber Monday. “I usually just wait until Monday to do all my shopping,” she said. Child echoed the sentiment about continuing his holiday shopping online. “I still have some shopping to do. I’ll go on to Amazon later tonight,” he said. Having good or bad experiences with Black Friday is part of our culture now, even though trends show that online shopping will quickly overshadow in store shopping. permanent submission date for the following years. The FAFSA also allows people to directly transfer their tax returns over from the IRS and to use the tax return from 2015 for 2017–18. Previously, those filling out the application had to either wait until the year had ended or partially fill it out and then finish it later once they had their income information for the year. This means students who filled out the FAFSA last year will be able to reuse the income information from year before on this year’s form. “It’s a much easier process to manage,” Curtis said. “Everyone should do FAFSA.” FAFSA Frenzy events are held the first Saturday of every month to help students or parents fill out the FAFSA step by step. More information on the FAFSA or the next FAFSA Frenzy can be found on weber.edu or by calling The Office of Access and Diversity at (801)626-7006. Comment on this story at signpost.mywebermedia.com Comment on this story at signpost.mywebermedia.com |