Archived Worst... black friday.... ever

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@talan.. You mean to tell me no ETL's or TL's worked a Wednesday night or Thursday morning shift to completely set up for the 2 day ad?? Wow! I can't imagine that happening at my store.. How did you beat sales
 
Yeah, I just got sliced on the knuckles. I slapped some disinfected on it and it was fine.
 
@talan.. You mean to tell me no ETL's or TL's worked a Wednesday night or Thursday morning shift to completely set up for the 2 day ad?? Wow! I can't imagine that happening at my store.. How did you beat sales

No, they did it in the rest of the store, just not at electronics/mmb for some reason. Every single department/group has denied any involvement AND responsibility for getting the product out there. I still had two day ad stuff in the backroom on Saturday that was supposed to be on the floor but it had been tied to a phantom location so none of it came out because nothing was selling. It wasn't put out until late Saturday.

As for beating sales... At my area of the store, once I realized the other guy was completely useless because he kept running off (despite everybody's misgivings about him, the ETL's recently said he was the top contributor of the store for putting stuff out there on the sales floor), I kind of did a lot of things that were definitely not brand/safe. When pulling things from the backroom, I didn't use a ladder because it would have taken a minute to do it and there was a riot with people screaming for the damn $50 cell phone. I was sprinting between the backroom, crowd control, electronics, the cashiers, and video games and I mean full out sprinting with the collisions.

By no means am I proud of my behavior for that day but I didn't have a choice. It got so bad that I went into the backroom and burst into tears for a while (I am not an emotional guy), sucked it back up and went back out there because I had two other team members depending on me to take the hits so they could cashier. Our regular guests were there as well and they started pitching in on crowd control with one of them catching a thief.

Thanks to the brilliant scheduling by the same ETL's, all of our people except one guy who was staying 16 hours, went home at the same time while he went to his first lunch so on black Friday, there was going to be a spot where there was no coverage. I refused to leave until they had another team member there, who knows nothing about electronics, came in 30 minutes later.

On top of that, we had a walk through with from DTL's that day who were coming in to say that they got it about coming in Thanksgiving and that they were sacrificing their weekend as well. Nobody cared.

\The joke is that we sold all the ETL's/Sr. TL's soul to the devil for a 5% discount to make sales.
 
No, they did it in the rest of the store, just not at electronics/mmb for some reason. Every single department/group has denied any involvement AND responsibility for getting the product out there. I still had two day ad stuff in the backroom on Saturday that was supposed to be on the floor but it had been tied to a phantom location so none of it came out because nothing was selling. It wasn't put out until late Saturday.

As for beating sales... At my area of the store, once I realized the other guy was completely useless because he kept running off (despite everybody's misgivings about him, the ETL's recently said he was the top contributor of the store for putting stuff out there on the sales floor), I kind of did a lot of things that were definitely not brand/safe. When pulling things from the backroom, I didn't use a ladder because it would have taken a minute to do it and there was a riot with people screaming for the damn $50 cell phone. I was sprinting between the backroom, crowd control, electronics, the cashiers, and video games and I mean full out sprinting with the collisions.

By no means am I proud of my behavior for that day but I didn't have a choice. It got so bad that I went into the backroom and burst into tears for a while (I am not an emotional guy), sucked it back up and went back out there because I had two other team members depending on me to take the hits so they could cashier. Our regular guests were there as well and they started pitching in on crowd control with one of them catching a thief.

Thanks to the brilliant scheduling by the same ETL's, all of our people except one guy who was staying 16 hours, went home at the same time while he went to his first lunch so on black Friday, there was going to be a spot where there was no coverage. I refused to leave until they had another team member there, who knows nothing about electronics, came in 30 minutes later.

On top of that, we had a walk through with from DTL's that day who were coming in to say that they got it about coming in Thanksgiving and that they were sacrificing their weekend as well. Nobody cared.

\The joke is that we sold all the ETL's/Sr. TL's soul to the devil for a 5% discount to make sales.

The two day execution plan thing specifically says for InStocks to shoot stand-alone outs on key areas - Toys, Small Appliances, Electronics / MMB. How the heck did they over look that?! I actually shot outs twice in electronics. Once at 10pm Thursday and then again at 6am Friday lol. Unless you're saying even the spls weren't set then I just don't know how your POG / SF-TLs dropped the ball like that. Congrats on making sales though, we missed it by 50k.
 
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Later in the day a guest said "I love this place, the people here are so happy compared to Wal-Mart." I immediately replied, "That's because of the mandatory anti-depressants in the drinking fountain."

That's great, Talan. And good job surviving such a disastrophe.
 
We had a fine young citizen in the store at the release of the flood gates and she was able to snag one of the Element TV's, when she went to check out her debit card was denied, so she insisted in trying again, and again. Eventually she called her 800 number on the card and was told that the account was frozen due to multiple use attempts of a flagged purchase, and that she needed to contact her bank when they opened (at 0800). She flipped out and said she was going to take the TV and wait in Food Ave. Now another customer heard this and decided that he wanted to pre-buy the TV for when this person couldn't pay for it and was trying to get Guest Service to get his name and number and to take a blank check.
Really dude, you that desperate?
I mean, what the hell brand is Element..
Hell, we got some better brands for like 50 bucks more on TPC ;)
 
I don't know if anybody has posted this but how do you just walk over someone who is having a heart attack?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/27/black-friday-target_n_1115372.html

A Black Friday shopper who collapsed while shopping at a Target store in West Virginia went almost unnoticed as customers continued to hunt for bargain deals.

Walter Vance, the 61-year-old pharmacist, who reportedly suffered from a prior heart condition, later died in hospital, reports MSNBC.
 
That is horrible! I swear, people are animals on Black Friday. They have no cares about anything in the world other than getting their hands on a still-overpriced off-brand TV. And I thought tramplings were bad...
 
What was the reason the store gave for not helping...something on the lines that 'store policy prevents us from helping???'

If someone is passed out on the floor, you block off the area and have the operator call 911.
 
I was fortunate enough to be picked for the backroom this year and I hope I can get back there for future Black Fridays. There is no better place to be in my opinion!
 
my target missed our sales goal by about 20,000 dollars and our sales were about 13,000 less than last year.

I am dissappointed with the way my stores "leadership" planned for the event. In years past, we have had black friday meetings at every huddle for about two weeks before black friday in order to make sure everybody knows where to park, how early to show up, what doors to get into, etc. Well this year there was not a single word mentioned about these things. Most of the people who worked last black friday were waiting outside the fire doors by tsc because that's where we have been let in for the last few years. Apparently that was changed and we were suppose to go in the customer entrance on the side of our target.

I mean I'm glad nobody was injured at our store, but it's the little things like this that piss me off. We have these executive leaders who can't plan ahead and have no business being in charge of other people. But on the positive note, a lot of team members at my store got a lot of free money by taking advantage of the chaos and confusion. Some of my friends worked 15 minutes, went and ate black friday food for 15 minutes, "worked" another 15 minutes, took another break, rinse and repeat for most of the shift. I don't condone this type of work ethic, but I can't really blame them because they very well could have learned from etls!!!
 
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I guess when there is cheap crap to buy all humanity goes out the window, I love you America! :bad:
 
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