Well, I just made it through my eighth Black Friday without incident. No one was seriously hurt or killed (as far as I know anyway) as opposed to last year’s infamous tragedy at that Long Island Wal-Mart where an employee who was built like a pro wrestler was trampled to death by rabid customers who cared about nothing except where to get the best deals. This year, things were much more organized this year than the previous Black Fridays that I’ve worked.
But before we get to that, I just want to catch up on some things. To start off, remember when I said that I was working six days this week? Well when I came back to work this past week, I found out that the six days I had to work turned out to be 12 days straight. So that means I don’t have a day off until next Friday. A lot of that might have to do with the fact that the holiday shopping season has officially started.
And of course, Thanksgiving was yesterday. My folks came up and we had dinner at my house as opposed to the last two years where we had to go to their house. It was pretty good, despite the fact that I only got a few hours sleep yesterday. In a way, Thanksgiving here is actually easier for me because I can just leave for work at the usual time. On a normal night I usually leave for work around 9:30 pm unless I have the money to stop off at McDonald’s.
Well, as soon as I went through the hole in the fence between Wal-Mart and the high school football field, I noticed the yellow barriers in front of the store entrance. It was part of their precautions to avoid another Long Island tragedy. However, I couldn’t resist a photo op so I managed to take a picture of the barrier as you can see on the blog. Unfortunately I couldn’t get any video footage to put on YouTube, but I should be lucky that I at least got that pic out in front of the store. And so I have to make a mental note: Next year (providing I am still there), I got to figure out a way to get video footage.
Despite the organization, Black Friday was still Black Friday, meaning loads and loads of chaos. And as usual, I planned to go home for lunch to do my Internet thing, but even if I could get out, it would have taken more time for me to get back in with the growing crowds. So I ended up eating my second Thanksgiving dinner of the night. Pizza came a little later. Pizza had always been a Black Friday tradition for as long as I can remember. Even though I haven’t worked the Friday night after Black Friday in four years, it is nice to know that some things never change.
Now that I got Thanksgiving and Black Friday out of the way, now all I need to do is get through the next seven days being that I am scheduled to work all weekend. However, by next Friday, my schedule will be back to normal. Hopefully this will be all be worth it in the end. After all, ’tis the season.