Black Friday 2020

Much quieter than last year in store. Much busier online though. We had a sizeable line outside when the store opened, but nowhere near capacity. Didn't even have to call for back up cashiers.
 
Had a heavy throng of people. Not sure what the world they were buying but they were buying whatever we put out.
 
My store fucked most of the overnight team with food. It was delivered after all of Inbound and GM left. They opened a SCO for them though and put out some dubious date individual cereal cups (without milk!). So there's that. Last year on Thanksgiving they at least thought ahead enough to have deli sandwhiches delivered the day before and stored in the cooler for those of use who were there.

*Seriously. No milk for the cereal. When this was pointed out to the TL in the building, he went nuts but said there was nothing he could do about it. So, I opened up a GS register and requisitioned a couple of gallons under TM recognition. I'll gladly take the hit if anyone wants to question me about it. But, the TL should have just done it.
 
So if they give food it has to be individually packaged? So no more pizza or catering?
I didn’t work today so I am not sure what they had in my store. But when we had labor day, my store ordered from a restaurant I forgot the name. They were individually packed meal (burger w chips, wraps w/ chips, sandwhich w/ chips etc).
 
The check lanes were quiet till 1. I did have to call for backup once, but that one person who responded was enough to clear out the line. Guest service and OPU was not bored at all.
 
Very quiet at open with just a small line. After 3, though, we came close to hitting capacity limit and as I was leaving at 5, they were setting up for limited entrance. There were literally thousands of people in our store throughout the day, but no backups except a couple of times at Guest Service due to order pickup. Food in the breakroom was a joke... not even enough water. Nothing was there for the early team at all with nothing set up until after 11:30.
 
From what I hear from a friend, there were far too many people this morning working fulfillment. The back room was completely full of people who kept getting in each other’s way. There wasn’t that much to do shipping wise but OPUs picked up over time. I echo the fact that after 3, a ton of people flooded in. They evidently had meals catered to them for lunch/dinner
 
Our store did approx $500k. Had to meter due to max guest capacity. 800 people in the store for a good part of the afternoon. No social distancing at all. I got pulled to do OPU all day and the toy department looked like a mosh pit😢
 
we scheduled an absolutely preposterous amount of ppl for fullfilment. i was one of them and ive been in entertainment for nearly the entire shift so far. on lunch and im still gonna be in entertainment.
 
I'm in grocery, and it was not too much busier for us than a normal weekend, but that's to be expected.

In fullfillment, I know we had over 120 TMs scheduled there today, but half the time they had nothing to do because of how few orders there were, so we had a lot of help in grocery as well as the rest of the store from them. That is, until all of a sudden dozens of orders dropped in and kept steadily coming in the rest of the evening, so everyone went back to fullfillment and I imagine they won't get through it all tonight.
 
Busy as fuck where I was. I was just glad near the end of the night it finally fucking slowed down at the end of the night. Scared to death that the new guy's gonna get fired for drawing during the job. Shame because he's really good at the job for new guy.
 
Line at the door of about 50 guests at open. Most wanted PS5s which we did not have. It got boring after that. Steady, but with every lane open it was boring.

My store seemed to stack the morning because they knew we’d get our visit during the morning/ afternoon. The visit happened and all the ETLs/ SD left soon after. Our Service and Engagement TLs both came in to open, so that left normal peak Friday time without front end TLs, which was just so wonderful. But it was manageable and easier than most black fridays.
 
I'm in grocery, and it was not too much busier for us than a normal weekend, but that's to be expected.

In fullfillment, I know we had over 120 TMs scheduled there today, but half the time they had nothing to do because of how few orders there were, so we had a lot of help in grocery as well as the rest of the store from them. That is, until all of a sudden dozens of orders dropped in and kept steadily coming in the rest of the evening, so everyone went back to fullfillment and I imagine they won't get through it all tonight.
The same thing happened in our store. Orders were being picked as they dropped and then we got slammed. We were wondering if it was the way the system funneled them?
 
We have 12 permanent drive up spots and another 4-6 during busy times. Yesterday we had 30 spots. I don't think we ever used more than 12 at the same time.
 
Quiet in the store except for order pick up & Starbucks.
They doubled the number of Drive-Up spaces & they were still full o_O
Traffic in-store gradually picked up during the day.
 
I had yesterday off but today is maybe slightly busier than a regular Saturday. I will check the numbers when I get back from break.
 
i worked yesterday morning and it was super slow. i was expecting crowds like last year but it was super quiet until about 3. we were def overstaffed on the front lanes but we were able to use some of them for drive-ups which seemed like the only busy part. our TL's had a whole plan to have every lane open because they though it would be busy but we only had about half of them open. i think most people shopped online idk if it was bc of the pandemic or because it was too early but yea it was just like a busy weekend i guess. hr also gave the overnight crew and the rest of us lunch but it was all individually packaged
 
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