Black Friday Death

[SunfallE]

[COLOR="RoyalBlue"][FONT="Lucida Sans Unicode"]I'm sure many of you know all about Black Friday as it's often called. The crazy busy shopping day right after Thanksgiving. Even though it's often super busy, I still like to go out with friends and enjoy the madness a bit. Mainly because by then I have all of my shopping for the holiday already done so it's more of a get together with people kind of deal. So we always have fun.

Though for some odd reason, it was less busy around here this year. o_O Some areas had no one waiting in line at all. Which I found surprising since it's the first time I've seen it so quiet on black Friday. I know last year was anything but quiet, I even fought crazy traffic just to go to a Christmas Concert with Darren. ^^

Anyway I thought nothing of how quiet it has been this time (at least here that is). Then I came across and read this article here: [URL="http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/290353/36/"][U]Black Friday Death[/U][/URL] and all I can think is how sick and sad is that? Pushing and shoving to the point that you end up killing someone in your haste to save a few bucks. So, your thoughts? Crazy stories of your own for this year? [/FONT][/COLOR]

[chibi-master]

[quote name='SunfallE'][COLOR="RoyalBlue"][FONT="Lucida Sans Unicode"]Though for some odd reason, it was less busy around here this year.[/FONT][/COLOR][/QUOTE]

You're being sarcastic, right? With the economy in shambles, of course less people are going to be out shopping like escaped lunatics from the local prison. The only places I went on Black Friday were Petco and Barnes&Nobles. No big lines or anything. For the past years of my life, I've waited Black Friday out in my house filled with Thanksgiving leftovers with not a crazed shopper in sight. Ah, boring peace and quiet.:animesigh

[ChibiHorsewoman]

[color=#9933ff]I'm reading that story and I heard about it yesturday on Good Morning America and I'm just sickened. It's bad enough that our economy is in the toilet but pushing and shoving at people just to get a bargain is barbaric. When in our society did we suddenly decide to forgo manners and courtesy and just mow people down to save a few bucks? And for what? Just look at what these people did to someone else's family for the sake of shopping just so they could have a cheaper more material Christmas. It's just digusting. I hope these 'people' do get justice properly served to them.

As for simular stories my mom was knocked to the ground on year on Black Friday. It was the year Cabbage Patch dolls were really popular and this store Toys R Us was having a few deals on them. My mom had gone for something else and got knocked over- she's 4'11 and kinda tiny.

My Black Friday experiances have been few and far between because I usually work on that day. Or I'm too tired to bother playing line backer just to save a few Loonies or Dollars or whatever currancy I'm using at 5 in the morning. Last year I went shopping on Black Friday at 10PM after my last assignment and even though there were still people in the stores it wasn't as hectic and I still managed to save some money. This year I only went to Big Lots on a break with a co-worker of mine because she wanted something and the store had run out. I think this year I'll skip out on Boxing Day too, I don't want to be run over by a Canuck :animeswea[/color]

[Sangome]

[SIZE="1"]My reaction to that article:

[CENTER][IMG]http://i37.tinypic.com/34zk7ly.jpg[/IMG][/CENTER]

Seriously, trampling over some innocent man just to save a few bucks? As if [i]that[/i] wasn't bad enough, shoppers were asked to leave when they were told someone might have been seriously hurt because of their own idiocy, and they either A: continued to shop, or B: whined and cried like little children.

I hate us sometimes.[/SIZE]

[The Spectacular Professor]

[FONT="Comic Sans MS"]There are times when members my species act so incredibly moronic, I start to regret my status as a human being.

This is one of them.[/FONT]

[eleanor]

[font=trebuchet ms] The part that disgusts me most is that shoppers continued to shop even after they were asked to leave becuase of the worker's death.

Black Friday has never been a big thing where I live. This is most likely because I'm in the affluent suburbs of Atlanta, which most of the time I'm grateful for. When I went this year (for the first time) I went to Target and looked around, but I was mostly unimpressed. The mall was equally unimpressive, it was mostly annoying because there were too many people and the deals weren't that great. [/font]

[ChibiHorsewoman]

[quote name='Lunox'][font=trebuchet ms] The part that disgusts me most is that shoppers continued to shop even after they were asked to leave becuase of the worker's death. [/font][/QUOTE]

[color=#9933ff]They covered this story today in the State section of my local paper (I'm in upstate New York for those not in the know) according to reports shopper not only kept on shopping after they were told that someone [I][B]DIED[/B][/I] they whined about how they'd been in line for hours! Babies!

Oh and now according to a report on my local news union reps are saying that WalMart was negligent and that this could have been prevented[/color]

[Rachmaninoff]

[quote name='ChibiHorsewoman][color=#9933ff']Oh and now according to a report on my local news union reps are saying that WalMart was negligent and that this could have been prevented[/color][/quote]What, by building stronger doors? These morons literally smashed the doors down. The whole thing was just painfully stupid, especially how they just shopped anyway. That is the sickest part of all... They trampled the person to death and didn't care.

Anyway, personally I just tend to avoid Black Friday... >_> Though like Beth said we did brave the traffic for the Christmas concert last year... It was Mannheim Steamroller... well worth it. ^^

This year, I did not go out and brave the madness. I did check out some of the sales Amazon had though. I got some music but that was the extent of my shopping.

[Darren]

Yep, I saw that on the news. Me and my mom just looked at each other and said in unison: "You've got to be kidding me"

I can't imagine that much shoving. Although, the line at my local Target spanned the entire building and then wound up and down the parking lot. (It sure made traffic crazy too)

But for my black Friday story, I was tackled by some huge woman. It was just like in the movies. There was one item left. We made eye contact and it was apparent that we both wanted the same thing. It almost turned into a sprint before she decided to trip/push me into the women's underwear section...

Then she turned around and said, "Oh, I'm sorry" (like it was an accident) and without helping me up, she just grabbed the last one and walked off. Luckily for me, I found it cheaper at another place. Black Friday is BRUTAL! Never again!

[SunfallE]

[COLOR="RoyalBlue"][FONT="Lucida Sans Unicode"][quote name='chibi-master']You're being sarcastic, right? With the economy in shambles, of course less people are going to be out shopping like escaped lunatics from the local prison.[/quote]I'm not being sarcastic... I've seen more Black Friday shopping weekends than you've been alive... it was eerie how some areas had the lines and others were just empty except for a few shoppers. In all this time, I've never seen empty parking lots before... ever.

I've seen it slow down but never outright die for some of the more popular stores that are usually mobbed. I kind of wish I had my camera for that, I would have taken pictures. o_O[/FONT][/COLOR]

[Kenso]

[quote name='ChibiHorsewoman'][COLOR=#9933ff]Oh and now according to a report on my local news union reps are saying that WalMart was negligent and that this could have been prevented[/COLOR][/quote]

[FONT=Comic Sans MS][SIZE=1]As much as I despise Wal-Mart, I feel the need to say something here. If there was any negligence on this, it was likely not on Wal-mart. Most large chains (Wal-Mart among them) hire additional security for Black Friday from an outside company. Unfortunately, the chain does not usually get to request a specific number of guards. Instead, the company decides how many to send. Chances are that if anyone was negligent, it was the outside security company who failed to send enough guards for such a large group.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[Korey]

[FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"]Well, you also really can't predict the number of shoppers that are attending the Black Friday event either. When doing sales like that, companies look at LAST year's revenues and that's what they send to these companies that they hire for security reasons. You can't really blame anyone in the situation but the people themselves. If people are THAT ravenous to have this year's hottest items at some ludicrous sales price at the crack of dawn, then I fear for the safety of people if the economy really turns bad.

Personally, I had no problems shopping for what I wanted. I woke up around 9 and was out the door at 10, came back after eating lunch at 1. No long lines, I paid in the department I was shopping in. Real nice experience. I did avoid the problem stores, which I would advise everyone else avoiding too.

[LIST]
[B][*]Electronic Stores (Fry's, Best Buy)
[*]Old Navy
[*]Wal-Mart
[*]American Eagle
[*]Hot Topic
[*]Abercrombie and Fitch
[*]Hollister[/B]
[/LIST][/FONT]

[silpheedpilot]

[SIZE="1"][COLOR="SlateGray"]Did anyone else see the huge comparison to a zombie outbreak?

Well.

Chainmail, automatic weapons, and take the high ground.

It should have been easily prevented.[/COLOR][/SIZE]

[Aaryanna]

[COLOR="Sienna"][FONT="Tahoma"]I heard about that. o_O People are just stupid really. I'd like to think that as a race we are smart enough to know that rushing the doors to a shopping center just to save a few bucks is inherently stupid, but apparently not.

What makes it really sad is how they just kept shopping as if nothing happened. That's just sick in my opinion. Really sick.[/FONT][/COLOR]