Kudos to the Black Friday worker

With the upcoming Black Friday, I thought it would be appropriate to extend a certain appreciation to all the retail associates out there that hate their lives. 2 years ago I worked for a hellish electronics store. I won't say any names but here's a hint: Fry's Electronics... Everyone get that? Good. I worked in the computer department as a computer accessories sales associate, I wasn't exactly a salesmen quite yet. I was more of a helper for the real salesmen. I didn't become an actual salesmen until after Black Friday. I was earning minimum wage which I think was $7.50 per hour and the salesmen were getting $15 per hour plus commission. Needless to say, considerably more than me.

I was to work 20 hours from 5am to midnight on Black Friday with only a 3 hour break spread throughout the day. When I arrived to work, the line of people wrapped around the perimeter of the store waiting to get in and get all their special deals. This day was already bad and I was not looking forward to it at all. When the store opened, it was chaos as any Black Friday is at a retail chain. Customers are extra demanding on this day too because of the good deals but it's only while supplies last and if we don't have that one item, someone is going to be blamed...might as well be me.

This day was pure hell. To add to my stress, I had to be at work again the following day at 11am and work another 7 hours. I might as well be in the military. Whether or not this is even legal has been in the back of my mind ever since. After Black Friday was over after what seemed like an eternity, I went to work the next day like the reliable slave worker that I am. At the end of the day I started feeling really sick. I had about three hours left in my shift and I told my boss that there's no way I was going to make it. And my boss was one of those guys that didn't believe anybody was sick unless they were bleeding out their eyes. If you called in sick, he wanted you to to come in to work and prove it, no joke. Anyway, I convinced him I was not lying and I almost did not make it out the store without puking right there in the middle of the store, I knelt down in the middle of the store for about 5 minutes and rested, trying to hold off this upchuck. After I got up, I sped walked toward the time clock and punched out hoping that if I was going to throw up here, at least it would be outside. I was lucky enough to save it till I got home and I let loose. I puked the nastiest brown liquid but it felt so good.

My theory is that my sickness was caused by the massive amounts of holiday stress with the 20 hour workday and the following day, but I kept in mind that my paycheck would be a lot more because the rule is that when we go over a certain number of hours, the pay goes into double time, then triple time. This helped my motivation to work harder. I was averaging $230 per week already, so I figured I would make more than that in this day alone not including the hours from other days in the week.

Pay day arrived and I was looking forward to it. I opened up the check and saw $320. Are you kidding me? After working the most stressful 20 hours of my life plus my regular hours and getting sick on top of all that, my check was only $90 more than a regular work week? But who am I to complain? Who is going to listen? Fry's Electronics doesn't care about what I think is fair or even it's employees in general. I speak from inside experience and honestly when I say that this company is corrupt and evil. Things happen behind closed doors, that's all I can say. And it's no coincidence that the company had a class action lawsuit against them which I got a little money from, but it was barely gas money.

Another thing about retail chains like this that cracks me up is their ways of motivating their workers. I remember every morning we'd have a 'morning meeting' near the front door before the store opened and at the end of the meeting we'd have to do a little cheer. This little cheer involved five people picked from each department that would lead everyone else in a cheer. We'd say "Give me an F! Give me an R! Give me a Y! Give me an apostrophe, Give me an S!" As we would say these letters we'd have to make the shape of the letter using our body and arms as if you were acting out the classic "YMCA" song. If we didn't participate, we were forced to do the whole thing by ourselves in front of everyone. First off, you know you're in the wrong job when you're doing stupid cheers like this. And what kind of sick person thought this would be a good idea and an effective way to motivate the associates? I will bet on my life that not once did I, or anyone else that walked away from a cheer feel motivated to work at Fry's Electronics. In fact, it made us hate the company even more for being so stupid. After working for this company for 8 months and being in retail for 6 years, I vouched to never return to retail again. I would rather die.

So I say "Cheers!" to the hard working retail associate who will be working on Black Friday and all the crappy people you have to deal with. May God have mercy on your soul.