Have any of you ever participated in this insanity ? Today was my first ... and LAST experience with it. Perusing the sale papers yesterday morning my wife identified a couple of "great deals" and decided that seeing as I am off today, while she has to work, what a great idea it would be for me to get an early start and save some money. Well , I happened to wake up and noticing it was 4:00 am figured why not give it a shot. Objective - laptop & flatscreen monitor, destination - Best Buy. I was thinking how bad could this really be as I drove over there set to arrive 1/2 hour before the 5:00am store opening. As I approached I quickly realized that this was NOT going to go as anticipated. The lot was full. I parked my car, expanding the lot a bit and walked toward the store. There was a bit of a line.. ok I can deal with that, I thought, walking towards its end... I thought. The line curled around the side, then a couple hundred yards around the back and halfway down the back of the entire shopping complex. 2000 people, per an estimate of one of the employees passing out doughnuts. It was about 20* and the wind was blowing. I figured , well it opens in 10 minutes and I'm here so I may as well play it out. As the line began moving, the guy behind me began creeping in front of me. Under normal circumstances I would've objected, but who knows what sort of nut gets in a line like that before 5:00 am to shop. If it meant that much to him to be the 2,016th person to enter the store instead of the 2,017th... go for it. After entering , I quickly grabbed the monitor I wanted (well, a 17" instead of the 19", no biggie) ... so far , so good...and headed for the laptops and another line of a couple hundred folks. Fortunately an employee stopped me before I got in line and informed me that unless I had a voucher I was out of luck. God bless him. Apparently the vouchers were passed out to those who had been in line since around Halloween. I'd planned on exchanging a much more expensive monitor I'd bought a couple of weeks ago, which was in my trunk. No returns or exchanges until noon. So I got in line with what seemed like most of the population of SW Oakland County and shuffled my way toward an uneventful checkout. At least I can now say that I've had the experience. Who KNOWINGLY does this sort of thing ? Is it worth it ?
It always seems like I have to go get a gallon of milk or something right in the middle of these sales. People during them are generally pushy and rude, and it makes me sad to be a human.
Sad to say my wife got me out of a nice warm bed at 3:00am to join in the madness at the local mall that's what it is nothing but madness. Even gray haired ladies that are other wise the nicest people you could ever met are vicious to say the least do not and I repeat do not get in the way of one of these grandma’s going for a sale item you may loose a limb or two or get a cane across the knee caps.
I feel for you man, that sounds like it was extremely frustrating. I've always held that retailers need to make their buck and if you keep your eyes out for them, good opps will come between Thanksgiving and Christmas, maybe perhaps not "the best" of deals, but reasonable in my mind.
I personally would never do it, but at least you tried and not through a fault of yours it didn't work out...bummer!
Have any of you ever participated in this insanity ? Today was my first ... and LAST experience with it. Perusing the sale papers yesterday morning my wife identified a couple of "great deals" and decided that seeing as I am off today, while she has to work, wouldn't be a great idea for me to get an early start and save some money. Well , I happened to wake up and noticing it was 4:00 am figured why not give it a shot. Objective - laptop & flatscreen monitor, destination - Best Buy. I was thinking how bad could this really be as I drove over there set to arrive 1/2 hour before the 5:00am store opening. As I approached I quickly realized that this was NOT going to go as anticipated. The lot was full. I parked my car, expanding the lot a bit and walked toward the store. There was a bit of a line.. ok I can deal with that, I thought, walking towards its end... I thought. The line curled around the side, then a couple hundred yards around the back and halfway down the back of the entire shopping complex. 2000 people, per an estimate of one of the employees passing out doughnuts. It was about 20* and the wind was blowing. I figured , well it opens in 10 minutes and I'm here so I may as well play it out. As the line began moving, the guy behind me began creeping in front of me. Under normal circumstances I would've objected, but who knows what sort of nut gets in a line like that before 5:00 am to shop. If it meant that much to him to be the 2,016th person to enter the store instead of the 2,017th... go for it. After entering , I quickly grabbed the monitor I wanted (well, a 17" instead of the 19", no biggie) ... so far , so good...and headed for the laptops and another line of a couple hundred folks. Fortunately an employee stopped me before I got in line and informed me that unless I had a voucher I was out of luck. God bless him. Apparently the vouchers were passed out to those who had been in line since around Halloween. I'd planned on exchanging a much more expensive monitor I'd bought a couple of weeks ago, which was in my trunk. No returns or exchanges until noon. So I got in line with what seemed like most of the population of SW Oakland County and shuffled my way toward an uneventful checkout. At least I can now say that I've had the experience. Who KNOWINGLY does this sort of thing ? Is it worth it ?
Luckily in Canada we don't have Black Friday, or I'd likely be dead from all those maniac shoppers. Something about women and a bargain... I guess there's a monster beast inside of everyone!
Waz, I can totally sympathize! Your experience was my routine for about a month when the stores first opened back up after the storm, except I waited for hours in the heat. For the most part, the crowds were patient and I met some really nice people. There was always the few people that tried to cut the line, but the National Guard guys handled those situations quite well.
I used to love shopping, but now I feel like I need tranquilizers to even cope with grocery shopping. The lines and wait to check out is still extremely long. Most of our stores still have limited hours due to the lack of employees. Our Wal-Mart is only open from 8am to 7pm with an average of about 10 lanes open to check out. I don't know how I'm going to deal with Christmas shopping this year. Giving gift cards will just subject the recipient to the same ordeal, so I may just try to shop online this year.
November 25th, 2005, 03:30 PM
Perusing the sale papers yesterday morning my wife identified a couple of "great deals" and decided that seeing as I am off today, while she has to work, what a great idea it would be for me to get an early start and save some money. 
Well , I happened to wake up and noticing it was 4:00 am figured why not give it a shot. Objective - laptop & flatscreen monitor, destination - Best Buy. I was thinking how bad could this really be as I drove over there set to arrive 1/2 hour before the 5:00am store opening. As I approached I quickly realized that this was NOT going to go as anticipated. The lot was full. I parked my car, expanding the lot a bit 
and walked toward the store. There was a bit of a line.. ok I can deal with that, I thought, walking towards its end... I thought. The line curled around the side, then a couple hundred yards around the back and halfway down the back of the entire shopping complex.
2000 people, per an estimate of one of the employees passing out doughnuts. It was about 20* and the wind was blowing. I figured , well it opens in 10 minutes and I'm here so I may as well play it out. As the line began moving, the guy behind me began creeping in front of me. Under normal circumstances I would've objected, but who knows what sort of nut gets in a line like that before 5:00 am to shop. 
If it meant that much to him to be the 2,016th person to enter the store instead of the 2,017th... go for it. 
After entering , I quickly grabbed the monitor I wanted (well, a 17" instead of the 19", no biggie) ... so far , so good...and headed for the laptops and another line of a couple hundred folks. Fortunately an employee stopped me before I got in line and informed me that unless I had a voucher I was out of luck. God bless him. Apparently the vouchers were passed out to those who had been in line since around Halloween. 
I'd planned on exchanging a much more expensive monitor I'd bought a couple of weeks ago, which was in my trunk. No returns or exchanges until noon.
So I got in line with what seemed like most of the population of SW Oakland County and shuffled my way toward an uneventful checkout. At least I can now say that I've had the experience. Who KNOWINGLY does this sort of thing ? Is it worth it ?
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