Walmart: The Blitz

So all my training for the previous week was all leading up to this day: Black Friday. At Walmart, they call it "Blitz." And all the employees were buzzing about it. One of the things that helped with the hype was that we got the newspaper supplements that showed what all our specials were going to be that day. Everyone was pointing out what items were going to cause people to line up as early as midnight. The main item was a 26" TV. I can't remember the price, but it wasn't one of the main brands. I recalled that a year earlier, I had purchased a 19" TV at Walmart before Christmas because I had gotten a DVD. I saw a lot of the off-brand TVs, but decided to pay extra money for a name brand. It looked like those off-brand TVs were the Blitz item from the year before.

Up to this point, I'd never been shopping on a Black Friday before. I knew that people tended to rush the front door and tear each other apart trying to get to bargains, but I never felt the need to do my Christmas shopping that way. In my past jobs, I usually had to work that day anyway. So I was shocked at the number of people waiting in line outside the store.

In 2001, the Walmart store where I worked opened up at 5am, two hours earlier than normal. We were scheduled to arrive for our shifts at 4:45am. I didn't think that 15 minutes really gave us much time to prepare, but it looks like Ms. E was bound and determined to get the most amount of work out of us that day, and 15 minutes was being awful generous.

I walked around inside before I had to go to the front end. I saw that there were HUNDREDS of the 26" TVs. They were stacked up all over the store. I knew that every person in line who wanted one of these TVs was going to get one and there would be several left over like the 19" TVs the year before.

Just before the store opened, they had all the cashiers go up to the "red line" in front of the registers. This is something you're only going to see at the beginning of Black Friday and when a new Walmart store opens: All of the cashiers are lined up at attention and ready to take customers. Most people probably don't even notice this as they all rush to the Electronics and Toy departments, but it's a nice little touch everyone should try to appreciate.

Things did not go completely crazy when they started letting the customers in. There was a lot of noise from the crowd, but everyone appeared to act civilized. But I also didn't get to see what was happening in Electronics or any other departments with a limited supply of special items. All I had to worry about was ringing up customers.

I wound up getting the first customer. He just came in to buy a TV and was ready to leave. He was NOT going to stick around to shop some more. Years later, I would hear about people who make plans to hit up several retail stores on Black Friday and strategize to get the best deals. He must have been one of them. He was probably going to head out to another store that opened a little bit later.

Fairly soon, we started getting a steady stream of customers. For me, the day was a complete blur of customer after customer buying TVs and other merchandise. I remember looking up fairly regularly to see how far back my line stretched. Sometimes, I couldn't see the end.

But I do remember one unusual thing that happened. We had been told ahead of time that lunch would be provided for us. But when the first set of employees took their lunches, they found that there was no food available. This was because sandwiches had been ordered ahead of time at the Sam's Club in Lemon Grove. However, when the people picking up the food arrived at Sam's Club, they discovered that they hadn't made the sandwiches yet. They had to wait for them to make the sandwiches. It took almost an hour for them to get the food back to the store. This would mean that we would have employees who hadn't eaten because they didn't bring lunch since they were expecting to be fed. So the Store Manager decreed that everyone who didn't get food on their lunch could clock back in and eat while on the clock. This was even though they were needed on the floor to assist customers. Fortunately, I only had to wait 30 minutes for my lunch, so I wasn't impacted.

At the end of my shift, I was glad my part was over. But it didn't mean the end of the Christmas shopping season.