Why I'm Skipping Black Friday

How did you spend your Thanksgiving?

I cooked a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. It was vegetarian except for the obligatory turkey (free range) for the carnivores in the house and almost completely from scratch (Crescent Rolls were requested and I had to buy a frozen pie shell after messing up the pie crust I was making). If you're interested, I put the links on my Diigo page under a Thanksgiving tag. After that, I cleaned up and watched The Muppet Christmas Carol.

On the other hand, a friend of mine helped feed over 1000 people a free Thanksgiving dinner and, rather than spending the night at home relaxing with her family, she had to go to work for one of the midnight Black Friday openings.

I've always tried to avoid Black Friday simply out of pragmatism. In a nutshell, the really good sales are usually reserved for the people who are willing to camp out in front of a store at 3 AM and fight for their place in line when the doors open. I don't want to go through that and most of the sales that still there at more reasonable hours aren't worth fighting through the crowds. In recent years, it's started to make me angry.

I had hoped that after the Wal-mart employee was trampled to death in 2008, people would wake up and realize that no, it doesn't matter how much you save, it's not worth it. Unfortunately, nothing changed, even though injuries and crazed crowds are hardly uncommon on Black Friday.

Instead, it's getting worse. Not only are the deals being hyped more, but the stores are opening earlier and earlier. Here's a list of Black Friday opening times and a lot of the stores are opening by midnight. Pretty much all of them are open by 6AM and, in case that wasn't bad enough, Toys R Us is even opening at 9PM.

The unbridled consumerism would be bad enough (watch a few of the videos of Black Friday shoppers fighting for sales and tell me you aren't disturbed), but it's becoming more and more clear that the employees aren't happy with having to destroy their Thanksgiving plans to facilitate more extreme Black Friday hours. The Target petition should be proof of that.

Here's the thing: If retailers make working extra hours on Black Friday voluntary (and hopefully give the employees who have to fight those crowds a little extra for doing so), then I'm okay with it. It's becoming more and more apparent, though, that at least some of the employees don't want to be there and are only showing up because their job is at stake.

I like my days off. I like spending Thanksgiving eating way to much food, doing a little Christmas decorating, watching television, eating more food, and waking up the next day at a reasonable time. I especially like not having to risk my safety on Black Friday because people really, really want that super laptop deal. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that most people probably feel the same way, even the people who are currently working in stores that opened two or more hours ago.

Because of that, I can't in good conscience support retailers on Black Friday. Or the Thursday formerly known as Thanksgiving and soon to be known as "Black Thursday." And until retailers stop promoting sales and events that are designed to produce a consumer feeding frenzy and start giving their employees a say in whether they give up their Thanksgiving, then I don't plan to spend a penny on Black Friday.

The Computer Is Always Right

I love computers. I really do. I think that they're a valuable tool that makes everyone's life easier, even the people who wouldn't go within ten feet of a computer voluntarily. (Actually, do those people exist anymore?) The problem occurs when actual intelligence is subservient to artificial intelligence. What I'm referring to is a situation where clearly the computer is wrong and the solution is simple and obvious, but somehow no one is able to step in and override it.

My experience at Best Buy today is a great example of this.

My roommate and I needed a new all-in-one printer. The Brother I bought years ago that grudgingly worked with Windows has declared outright war on Macs, specifically my roommate's Mac. It refuses to work with her computer at all, which is a pretty big headache since she needs to use the scanner fairly regularly for art. We've debated getting a replacement for a few months, but never got around to it.

We decided that yesterday was the day. I had a $15 rewards certificate from Best Buy that was set to expire that day, plus the printer we wanted had a great price. We hit one minor snag, though. Actually, multiple minor snags in the form of holiday shoppers forming the longest line I had ever seen in a Best Buy before. It occurred to me that we could order the printer online with in-store pickup. I could use the certificate and we could just pick up the printer with minimal hassle.

Or not.

Despite the fact that there were about ten printers in the store fifteen minutes before closing, I still received an email this morning saying that the store couldn't fulfill the order because the item wasn't available. Naturally, we were both a bit skeptical and decided to check it out for ourselves. We found the display and there were eight printers left.

Now, common sense says that I wanted a printer and they wanted to sell a printer, so I could easily get this problem ironed out and there would be a nice shiny new printer at home tonight. Unfortunately, I forgot I was dealing with computers and customer service.

After the obligatory computer menu and a few minutes of hold music, I finally had a person on the line. I explained the situation. He explained to me that despite the fact that I was holding the item in my hand, the computer said that there were none in stock and so nothing could be done. I might be able to talk to someone who worked in the store to find out what they wanted to do, but it probably wouldn't help since the computer said there were zero in stock. Oh, but it might be possible to have another store send a printer to the store I had ordered it from.

I thought briefly about trying to flag down a store employee, but realized that would be an exercise in futility. There were ten people in line at the customer service desk, so that wasn't a very appealing option either. Finally, I gave up and told the man I was talking to that I would figure out what I wanted to do and call back.

My roommate and I carried the printer that didn't exist back to the seven other printers that weren't really there. After all, the computer is always right, right?