Black Friday. The day after Thanksgiving, with plenty of early-morning department store sales specials for people trying to get their Christmas shopping out of the way both quickly and cheaply. While a great day for zealous holiday shoppers, it’s a hideous, Type-A nightmare for stressed store employees. Right?
Wrong — that is, if employees at Emporia stores that opened early today were to be believed.
Before the stampedes for deals began at their respective stores, employees at JCPenney and Staples expressed feelings for Black Friday ranging from actual excitement to “It’s not that bad.”
“It’s probably one of the most exciting days,” said John Calderwood, manager of Staples. “I really think that our employees are disappointed if they don’t get to come in and work that morning. It’s an exciting time.”
JCPenney opened its doors at 4 a.m. today to a larger group of early shoppers than manager Christine Cross had expected. Staples opened its doors at 6 a.m. to an even bigger initial throng, with shoppers crowding immediately into a rectangular area near the back of the store reserved for the best “Early Bird” deals.
With the cold making life potentially miserable for the 4 a.m. crowd, JCPenney allowed shoppers to wait inside the store’s rear entrance, where they stood behind a chain until they were turned loose.
Jane Welch was among those at the front of the line. She’s not just a shopper; she’s also a Penney employee who was scheduled to come in to work at 9 a.m. Welch was planning to get her shopping done, then run home and get some sleep before reporting for work.
“I have been (in to work) at opening before, and it’s just as much fun on that side (of the chain) as it is on this side,” she said, adding that the hustle and bustle of the event was what made it such a good time.
Cross said the biggest key to a successful Black Friday — so called because it is the day retailers hope their annual balance sheets will be carried into the black by holiday sales — was getting as much merchandise on the floor as possible. She said a lot of employees were making holiday-related sacrifices to work today.
“But we’ve made some adjustments,” she said. “We have college students that are going out of town for Thanksgiving, so they aren’t working the day before, and they’re working the late shift the day after.”
Maryam Sajid was scheduled to work at Penney’s from 1 p.m. to 10 p.m. She’s worked at the store for 2 1/2 years and worked the 5 a.m. opening shift for last year’s Black Friday.
“It hasn’t been that crazy the past couple of years,” she said. “I mean, it’s been really busy, but not like people pushing each other like you see on the news or anything.”
Asked what she tells coworkers experiencing Black Friday for the first time, Sajid said, “I just tell them, ‘Don’t wear heels that day. Wear some flats, because you’re gonna need them.’”
Over at Staples, shoppers endured the cold all the way up to the opening, by which point the line snaked around the right side of the building. The earliest shopper had arrived at 1:30 a.m. At 6, shortly after a brief pre-opening meeting, Calderwood and his staff welcomed shoppers to such deals as a four-gigabyte flash drive selling for $19.99 and a portable GPS navigation system selling for $124.99. The flood of shoppers to the “Early Bird” area created a scene resembling a smaller version of the trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange.
Eric Buessing, who was scheduled to work a 14-hour shift today, said some of his associates at Staples had Thanksigiving plans that were affected.
“Especially with college kids here and everything else, some of them don’t get to go home, because they’ve got to be here Friday,” Buessing said. “I’m sure there’s an effect there. I know we’ve got an associate who’s out of state, about 10 to 12 hours out, who’d like to go home for a couple of days, but it just can’t happen.”
Calderwood said efforts were made to schedule around employees’ plans for Thanksgiving.
“But what I think is missing in all this,” he said, “is that I think this day is almost a tradition itself.”