Black Friday Madness

Jennifer Hernandez
Nov 3 · 5 min read
Citadel Outlets, Commerce CA

With October coming to an end and November kicking off the rest of the year, everyone begins to prepare themselves for the holiday season. However, for many retail workers the thought of Black Friday creeping up on them is spookier than any Halloween activity they participated in this year.

Over the past 70 years Black Friday has become more and more hectic for retailers all over the United States. Black Friday has become so popular that a lot of retail companies have begun to open their doors on Thanksgiving Day or evening. However, this year a list of companies agreed to not open their doors on Thanksgiving in order to let their employees enjoy the holiday.

Some of the retailers in this list include: Costco, Marshall’s, Nordstrom’s, Lowe’s, Sam’s Club, T.J. Maxx, Office Depot, Office Max, HomeGoods, Guitar Center, Burlington, etc. Although the list of companies seems pretty long, most of the retailers on them are stores that are not located inside shopping malls but shopping plazas.

Outlets are usually some of the biggest shopping malls with almost double the stores as a regular mall and lower prices. Citadel Outlets in Commerce opens their stores for 27 consecutive hours beginning 8:00 p.m. on Thanksgiving night to 11:00 p.m. Friday night. Some stores want a little more traffic and open their doors at 6:00 p.m. In 2018, Citadel Outlets attracted around 100,000 people according to CBS Los Angeles.

Year after year, news vans arrive at Citadel Outlets to interview customers and how they feel walking through the crowd of bodies. However, retail workers are overlooked and ignored as they work 8–10 hour shifts throughout the four-day weekend.

Ashley Lopez outside her new job at The Flip Flop Shop

Ashley Lopez is 19 years old and has been working at Citadel Outlets for the past two years. Last year she worked at Journeys. Recently she started working at Flip Flop Shop a small privately-owned business dedicated to selling sandals. Ashley remembers having to miss Thanksgiving dinner last year with her family because she was scheduled to work at Journeys from 6:00 p.m. Thursday to 2:00 a.m. Friday with only a thirty-minute break in between.

“There were people waiting outside the store before we even opened. There was no line outside controlling the traffic, so the store got more and more cramped as the night went on” Ashley said. “It was like a bunch of sardines stuffed in a can, but all the sardines are yelling at you asking for shoe sizes” she described. Ashley admits that the Black Friday sale during Thanksgiving is the same sale Journeys had since the beginning of the week. “Technically, you could have showed up on Monday and got the same deal on the same pair of shoes but without the big crowds” she said.

This year Ashley’s schedule will be much different but much better in her opinion. Her new manager, Lynn, thinks that the employees should be able to spend Thanksgiving dinner with their families. Lynn has decided that The Flip Flop shop won’t be opening until 11:00 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day.

“It makes me feel like I work for someone who understands that I’m human and want to spend time with my family. Having the opportunity to eat Thanksgiving dinner makes me excited to work Black Friday whether I have to work at 11:00 p.m. on Thursday night or early in the morning on Friday” Ashley said.

Another business at Citadel Outlets that is contemplating opening their doors late this year is LIDS. Daisy has been the manager at Lids at Citadel for the past 12 years. She likes to think that she’s mastered Black Friday weekend but with her 13th year coming up all she wants is to eat dinner with her family. “People will shop and spend their money no matter what time the store opens” she explains. Lids controls how many people enter their store by starting a line outside. Daisy says the goal is to make money in the least stressful environment she can provide for her employees.

Over the past years, Lids has actually opened their doors at 6:00 p.m. which is earlier than what the mall expects them to. This means that employees who start their shifts at 6:00 p.m. need to leave their house at least an hour early to make it to their shift on time. “I live about 10 minutes away but have to leave my place about an hour early to beat traffic and find parking. If my shift starts at 6:00 p.m. I need to start getting ready at 4:00 p.m. so I can be out of the house by 5:00 p.m.” she explained. This year, Daisy wants to give her employees the opportunity of spending at least a couple of hours with their loved ones on Thanksgiving Day.

“Deciding to open the store a little later this year isn’t a decision that I can just make on my own, if it was I would have made it years ago” laughed Daisy. Lids is a big corporation. Although Daisy is the manager, a decision this big needs to be approved by her District Manager first. She plans to pitch her request on the next conference call but doesn’t want to get her hopes up in case it is declined.

Outlets, like most other malls, have strict rules about opening their stores at the same time that the mall opens. In any situation, a store opening late without permission from the mall can lead to the store or company getting fined.

Not all retailers are thinking about their employees this holiday season. Many employees will be overworked for Black Friday and not see their families. Ashley and Daisy agreed that being treated with kindness and respect on Thanksgiving weekend makes the time a little more bearable. So, remember, if you’re looking to spend your Thanksgiving night out shopping be kind to all the employees because most of them didn’t choose to spend their holiday working.

References

Open for 27 Hours: Citadel Outlets Draw Massive Crowds, Long Lines. Youtube, uploaded by CBS Los Angeles, 22 Nov. 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puYLJKIY4ho

Wehner, Matt. “Stores Closed on Thanksgiving 2019.” Best Black Friday. 28, Oct. 2019. https://bestblackfriday.com/blog/stores-closed-on-thanksgiving-2019/

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