Black Friday

Black Friday is always a semi stressful day. Mostly because of the influx of customers we get in looking for deals.

Though I would have to say it was slightly more stressful today because we weren't sure what to expect. Like...with the pandemic we didn't know if the people would come in or if most of them would take advantage of shopping online and doing curbside pick up instead. 

But also because this was my first black friday as a Manager. And also the first Black Friday in a while where I was working a midday shift instead of the morning shift.

Plus. My head manager wanted me to be the "Covid Captain" in that I would be in charge of making sure people were wearing masks, socially distancing, and that high traffic areas were being cleaned. 

Thankfully....I didn't really have to worry much about being the Covid Captain as people overall were doing good with everything. So mostly I was focused on picking orders and taking them out to customers as well as helping in my PetCare department to grab animals for people. 

Not quite surprisingly....because I have dealt with a few Black Fridays before. It wasn't as busy in the morning as my new managers were expecting it to be. 

Like we only had 2-4 people at the door when we opened them at 7am. On busier years there can be up to 50 people waiting to come inside. 

Surprisingly we had plenty of coverage, which considering we only had 9 people working earier this year, it was nice that we have been able to hire enough new people to have three cashiers and three stockers and a couple of petcare plus the managers all out and about and ready to help people.

But like it was slow enough customer wise we ended up sending a couple of people home early.

And honestly it felt more like a busy Saturday than anything else with most of the crowds coming in for the 'lunch' and 'dinner' rushes.

Still we sold quite a bit of product and animals today. Enough that we were number one in the district with sales so ha! 

Still grateful that it wasn't as crazy busy as we were expecting it to be as it's stressful enough having to deal with a ton of people, let alone having to deal with them in the middle of a pandemic. 

Until you next find these words;
I'll be watching the leaves. 
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi