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I'm not working as much as I used to - school and all that - but no one escapes Black Friday.
I just have a problem with the entire concept of the day, the more I see of it. Retailers know it's the main day of the year where people will go through discomfort, distress and outright danger to get a particular item, if you advertise it enough. I've seen various retailers abuse that. I've seen places shout out a particular price for Friday and then slash it by ten or twenty percent the day after. They know that people will buy at the higher price, and most of them won't come in to see the difference. (I wish I'd documented it at the various chains when I saw it, but I didn't. If I see it again, I just might.)
There's so much deceptive advertising going on in various places, too. Calling out deep discounts, revealing only in tiny print that part of the discounts are a rebate that can't be spent everywhere - that's par for the course. Or stores will advertise an item that they only have two or three units of, and then not offer rainchecks, knowing full well that they will run out and probably be able to sell the next best thing.
Advertising these days is a black pit of half-truths that are just true enough to avoid being called out. Black Friday is just one of the worst example of that.
Still. For myself, I can't complain as much. I'm doing a lot better than I have in previous years - I'm not working any closing shifts, and I only have one super-long day. The work hours do seem to be a lot better than they have been in the past.
(Still missing the family Thanksgiving, though. I really wish that opening on Thanksgiving hadn't caught on.)
I just have a problem with the entire concept of the day, the more I see of it. Retailers know it's the main day of the year where people will go through discomfort, distress and outright danger to get a particular item, if you advertise it enough. I've seen various retailers abuse that. I've seen places shout out a particular price for Friday and then slash it by ten or twenty percent the day after. They know that people will buy at the higher price, and most of them won't come in to see the difference. (I wish I'd documented it at the various chains when I saw it, but I didn't. If I see it again, I just might.)
There's so much deceptive advertising going on in various places, too. Calling out deep discounts, revealing only in tiny print that part of the discounts are a rebate that can't be spent everywhere - that's par for the course. Or stores will advertise an item that they only have two or three units of, and then not offer rainchecks, knowing full well that they will run out and probably be able to sell the next best thing.
Advertising these days is a black pit of half-truths that are just true enough to avoid being called out. Black Friday is just one of the worst example of that.
Still. For myself, I can't complain as much. I'm doing a lot better than I have in previous years - I'm not working any closing shifts, and I only have one super-long day. The work hours do seem to be a lot better than they have been in the past.
(Still missing the family Thanksgiving, though. I really wish that opening on Thanksgiving hadn't caught on.)
