Nothing defies the order of nature like Black Friday Sales. If you’ve ever been to one and survived it without a scratch, you don’t know how lucky you have been. In a world full of calm and kind people, there are just some individuals who violently attack for the last piece of voucher. Yep, you’ve read that right — for the last piece of voucher! We always hear stories from store customers, but what about the employees who have to manage that mayhem? We’ve gathered some of the most HORRIFYING Black Friday Sales stories from employees on Reddit. It was technically the day after Black Friday, but it was still busy, as you can imagine. I worked as a customer service supervisor at a CompUSA before they closed down (think BestBuy), and all of my checkers called in sick that morning.
All of them. So I am the only one ringing people up for the first like 6 hours of the day. When I finally got a 15-minute break, I went into the back area and blew up at the first manager I could find as I was so pissed and stressed. He just sat there and let me vent to him. After a little while, I went back to him and apologized to him, and he was cool with it all. What a tiring day. zechgroove
I worked at a store that had a service department. They couldn't ring up anything at the service counter, but they had a computer that made it look like a register. The guy is standing there patiently waiting to be rung up. Finally, somebody notices him and asks what he needs. "I'd like to pay," he says. "I'm sorry, this isn't a register," replies the service tech. The guy then tries to convince the service tech to let him pay because the line for the main registers is three hours long. Of course, the service tech couldn't because he didn't have a record. He just had a computer for making appointments and such. So after 15 minutes of argument, the guy moves off to find the line. Here's the fun part. While he was arguing, somebody else saw him standing by something that looked like a register and so got in line behind him.
Then people saw the shorter line and got in behind them. With nobody to control it, the line to nowhere multiplied. 15 minutes was all it took for the not-line to snake around the department. So when the doofus (stupid) who started this whole fiasco went to find the right line, he found the end of the line he had created. Then the guy behind him heard that there wasn't a register, so he followed the first guy. Then the next customer followed the 2nd, and so on. They walked around in a circle for an hour before somebody noticed them. We almost had a riot when a manager had to tell 100 people they weren't in line and just waited an hour for nothing. That same year we had several scuffles at points where the register line had forked into two lines. From then on, we marked off a huge register path and had several employees manage the queue. IntentionalTexan
I work at the largest lingerie retailer in the country. We had a security guard last night for the beginning of Black Friday. A southern belle mother decided she didn't want to wait in a 50-person deep line and would cut. Our security guard asked her multiple times to step to the back of the line or leave.
She proceeded to ream him with every curse word in the book and ended by threatening him with a gun she had in her bag. This will be my last holiday in retail. kittykatie0629
I worked for a golf superstore as a cashier. Black Friday customers come rushing in, and the line starts. I scan the first item and nothing. The registers are completely down, and the lines are growing fast.
The only thing we could do was take every transaction manually. Write down SKUs, calculate tax, and use the old credit card swipers for 3 hours. I never worked retail during Black Friday again. Steelergrl2310
This happened to me at Cost Plus World Market in July 2007. The electricity went out in the store, and our manager decided we should stay open. It's weird how few windows are in these stores! It was pitch black inside, and the only light came in through the front doors.
We had a lot of theft that day, so much that the manager admitted we should have just closed for the day. It was bizarre. mickeyperry
My dad was a police officer when the toy of the year was the Tickle Me Elmo. He responded to a call at Walmart or Target of two women beating each other over one. When he went to break up the fight, one of the women bit his arm. She bit him so hard that she actually spit some of his skin and blood out onto the floor.
He had to get his blood tested every 6 months for 2 years after the incident to ensure he didn't get any diseases from her. People are crazy. jennyanydots711
I remember that year. I had totally blocked it. My manager told people we still had stocks after we ran out, just to get them into the store. People drove for hours because he said we had them.
He made me handle every irate person that he lied to because I was a 5'3 high-school girl, so they were "probably not going to hit me." All day was frothing, customers pointing to the empty display boxes and accusing me of lying when I said we had none. One dude was so insistent that I had to take one of the display boxes and step on it before he finally shut up. It's nothing but betrayed customers, screaming at me all day long. president_of_burundi
When I was 15, I got my first actual job. It was at a clothing store, and my first day was Black Friday. I thought it wouldn't be a big deal because I was hired for men's formal wear. But when I show up at 4 am, the manager tells me I'm working on women's shoes today only.
Absolute madness. The worst part is shoe salesmen get a commission, but since I didn't have employee numbers, I got only minimum wage. I was losing out on hundreds of dollars of extra pay. bearded_booty
I used to work at Walmart during the late 90s. I worked overnight unloading trucks, and back then, the store I worked at didn't have mechanized lifts to get stuff up into the bins in the back, so stock reserved for the blitz sale was all thrown up there by hand. Anyways 3 hours to go, we had to get 3 pallets worth of 19-inch symphonic CRT TVs down. My coworker, Allen, didn't want to throw them down one at a time.
So he pushed a pallet of pampers down first, followed by all 3 pallets of TVs. Over the next few days, several of those TVs came back as returns. I try to think they were crap, but I also wonder how many were damaged during the fall. Nate0110
I've thrown one punch in my life. It was on black Friday. So it was the year the 360 came out. I was standing in line to get some external hard drive next to the video games. And there was this 11ish-year-old kid with a woman in her 60s. He was waiting for his 360 bundles. The woman before him had "gotten the last one," sighs all around. Then he says, "nope, one more," and begins the motion of handing it to the kid, and this guy comes out of nowhere and pushes the older woman and the kid. The kid hit his face on the edge of a video game rack with metal and plastic dividers.
At 19 years old, I don't know what came over me, but I instantly swung for the dude's head and caught him right in the temple, sending him into a Keurig tower in the middle of the Isle. Everyone froze, including me. Guy had dropped the 360 and got up and walked away. I slid it with my foot to the kid, and he didn't say anything. The best part was, as I still wanted the hard drive, I turned to get back at the end of the line. At the same time, the rep I was in charge of handing out the other items, such as the hard drive, asked who was next. The first two people in line just pointed at me, causing me to skip about 5 spots in line. Ruckus55
I worked as a server and manager for six years at a Johnny Rockets in a mall. We didn't open early like the rest of the stores because we are a restaurant and don't serve breakfast. We had people shake our gates, screaming that they wanted food. It would be just me and an opener getting the chairs set out.
I pointed them towards the food court and told them we didn't serve breakfast. A lady spat at me and told me, "I know you have bacon!" We do… In a fridge waiting to be cooked and put on a burger. Kidou
Just today, I sold a couch to a guy who drove a Prius with no roof rack. We do not deliver, and he wouldn't leave until we somehow found a way to get this thing secured to his car. Not only had he not planned or thought it through, but he was also a total jerk about it and insisted on making it our problem. We ended up using half a spool of twine to tie this thing down, and he had to climb in through the window because the cord went through his doors. I really wish I had taken a picture.
At one point, he complained to our general manager, who had no idea what we were supposed to have done to appease this moron. Finally, we insisted that he sign a waiver before leaving because we were not about to be held responsible for his stupidity. Of course, this was also during the busiest part of the day. I don't mind helping load or tie down for customers, but this guy took the cake. Uberhypnotoad
A couple of years ago, when the sale started, there was a surge of people trying to get their stuff. One lady got knocked down, and her pen went straight into her neck, thankfully missing the jugular. The messed up part is that no one tried to help. They just walked over her to get their deal items.
An associate that saw it happen had to stand over the top to protect her from getting trampled. When the ambulance crew arrived, they had to literally shove people out of the way because no one would move. wildcard084
I worked greets at American Eagle today. My job was to stand at the front and tell you what the sale was. Some lady walked in with like 8 bags, and the alarm went off. So I smiled and said it went off, most likely because there's possibly still a tag on one of her items.
This was her response: "I just walked in, and you're already accusing me of stealing?!" and then stormed off. Nothing special, honestly, just another day of retail. Little Canadian town life.
About 6 years ago, I was working at a mall bookstore's cafe. I had the opening shift, which was 8 am - 2 pm. Unfortunately, the late shift person called in sick, so I had 2 hours off before a 4 pm-close shift. While that sucks, it wasn't the worst part of the day. I actually had a customer stalking me and spent the entire day sitting in the cafe reading a book and occasionally coming up to order something new. Any time I wasn't behind the counter or in the back room, he followed me around, including during my 2-hour shift gap. I didn't dare go to my car during my break because I didn't want him to know what it looked like, and my manager didn't want to call security on him if he didn't approach me.
Worst Black Friday ever. Luckily, 2 weeks later, he did approach me while I was working and asked if he could clip my fingernails as a keepsake. That was enough to get him banned from the store and the mall. My manager also ensured someone walked me to my car for the next few months. NeedsMoreYellow
I worked at a restaurant right across the street from the mall (And open on Black Friday). So naturally, after people get great deals, they come and eat. I'm sitting in the back of the house on Black Friday morning, waiting for my inevitably long shift to start. It was jam-packed, but I wasn't about to clock in early. I was BSing with one of the managers when I heard a hostess scream "help, help!" through the walkie. So I immediately rushed to the entrance to see two grown men on the ground fighting. One in nothing but his underwear, and my shift lead trying to pull them off each other while screaming, "Can you please stop?! This is a family restaurant; there are children here!" I jolted forward in an attempt to break up the fight. This is where it gets weird.
Everyone was gathered around this small area, watching or trying to help, when someone grabbed a fire extinguisher and started spraying us with it. So we have a bunch of people trying to break up a fight between a man in his underwear and some other dude. Then someone is spraying us with a fire extinguisher while we have Christmas carols playing in the background. Finally, we get the fight broken up. Cops show up—the whole 9 yards. It turns out the guy got the last TV voucher for Best Buy, and the other guy got pissed and followed him over to try to buy the TV from him. The one who got the TV told him to stop, so this guy took off his pants and got into a fight. Usernamesarestupid12
On my first Black Friday, I was working at a Walmart. I was assigned to be one of the employees that would cut open the plastic on the pallets containing our merchandise on the floor. Basically, as I readied the box cutter, I got shoved by a customer and I fell right on it and sliced my hand open. After getting through that and patching it up, I came out on the floor and promptly got punched in the face when I picked up a DVD on the ground.
A customer apparently wanted it. Black Friday is a disaster. Wildfires
My first Black Friday started as peaceful. We were relatively calm, and then suddenly, a lady burst into the store with a cart from Target and headed to our bathroom. I shrug it off. A few minutes later, a customer asks where the bathroom is, and I point her to it. She returns seconds later, saying that someone used the bathroom on the floor. My manager went in and rushed out. Apparently, the lady who first ran in took a crap but missed. Instead of doing it in the toilet bowl, she did it next to it. My manager ended up having to clean it up (thank god for not being certified in bodily fluid cleanup).
I went outside the bathroom and saw cart tracks of poo making a little path through the store. I have no clue how it got on the wheel. I mopped it up, and later in the day, I found another poo spot almost under one of the couches. I have no clue how that happened. It was disgusting. Surprisingly I could still eat after that, but my manager couldn't. We haven't had anything like that happen again, and instead of Black Friday, it was known as Brown Friday. goldminevelvet
I work at a kids' store where almost everything was half off today. But the thing is, I usually help moms and grandparents at the register, so I don't see Best Buy-style murder over televisions. I get old ladies yelling at my coworkers over the price of smiley face pillows and women bringing in hundreds of dollars worth of clothing and kiddie makeup they bought weeks before at total price, just to repurchase it all right away at sale price after the returns are over.
A grandpa shouted "This is crap!" at me because I told him we were out of bath robes. Good times. AfroBB
If people see a line, they just assume it must be legit, and it will naturally grow. About 8 years ago, I had tickets to one of the reserved standing areas on the National Mall at Obama's inauguration. As I approached the entrance, I saw a long line of people waiting to get through security. I started following it to find the end and kept walking and walking. This line snaked around for at least a mile and wasn't moving at all.
I was told by people in the line it was for the entrance to the reserved section. I figured if I was in that line, there was no way I was making it in on time or at all, so I rushed to where the entrance was, hoping to find an alternative way. When I get there, there's just an open gate with someone checking tickets and no line at all. I asked security, and they had no idea why hundreds or thousands of people were getting in this mystery line because they could have walked right in with their tickets. kgunnar