Black Friday Hell

By  Kaitlyn Stocker
       Pennsbury High School

What's it like working in retail on Black Friday?
A frazzled teen recounts the madness.

                 I walk into work at 3 p.m.  on Black Friday, feeling as if I should have war paint on my face as I set out to face an eight-hour shift.
                The store is packed ----- customers are calling to each other in various languages, once neatlyfolded clothing is strewn about the store and my managers look postively cranky.  The line must be 20 people long, the fitting rooms are packed, and I literally have to push and shove my way to the back room so I can clock in and put my stuff away.
                 In the back, I find my coworker cowering, hiding from the crowds during his break.  I ask him if it's as bad as it looks out on the sales floor, and he shakes his head despairingly and says "worse".
                 Armed with a fitting room key and a lanyard reading "Aeropostale" draped around my neck, I take a deep breath and push my way back into the store, searching for one of my managers in the sea of frenzied customers.
                 Once I find one, I receive my hurried and distracted instructions to "recover the back of the store.....hop on the register if they need you" before my elusive manager slips away again, leaving me alone and clueless as to where to begin in a mass of unfolded clothing.
                 I spend maybe five minutes frantically trying to organize the mess in front of me before I'm called over to the register, where I face an impatient line of customers who, no matter how hard I try, I cannot ring up fast enough.
                 One customer insists on trying his declined credit cards five times before finally paying in cash.  Another asserts that the $12 hoodie she wants to buy is really $10, and will not stop arguing until I show her the math on a calculator.
                  Just about the only redeeming moment is when a customer offers me the free teddy bear they received for spending more than $100 because I'm "just so cute."  Never mind that company policy dictates that I can't actually keep the bear ------ the fact that someone offered me one was enough.
                  Once off the register, though, with six hours of my shift left to go, I need to figure out how to survive Black Friday ------ and fast.  It's at that moment that the Sales Lead walks by dancing to the horrible pop Christmas music blasting through the store.
                   "You just need to have fun with it !" she tells me as she fist-pumps past.  "Otherwise, you'll just go crazy!" 
                   Needless to say, she is right.  I spend the rest of the night dancing as I clean up after some of the messiest people known to man: Black Friday shoppers. 
                   By the time my break rolls around, more than halfway through my shift, the store has regained some semblance of organization and the line has dwindled to maybe 10 people at its longest.
                  The last half of the night goes by in a blur of folding, laughter and truly horrid dancing, so that by the time we roll out of there at half past midnight, I am ready to collapse into bed, thoroughly exhausted.
                  I can't say that working retail on Black Friday taught me anything other than how to fold clothes really fast, or count out change like a champ, but it has definitely left its mark ---- I now fold my laundry Aero-style, and have had multiple dreams about working the register.
                  I suppose it's not the kind of experience I'm likely to forget.