resinrats

I keep hearing employees say they hate working black friday. I can imagine it is hell. I wondered what would happen if a bunch of them (enough that it would make a difference) quit right before BF, too close for the store to hire replacements. Wondering how the store would handle it.

bunkaroo

If it was a major chain store they would just pull in as many people from other district stores as possible I think.

EdTheRipper

Exactly. I work retail for a major grocery chain. My store lost two full-time workers from one department in one day. The very next day, two replacements were in the store.

If employees staged a mass exodus and left in flocks, management would man the registers and do everything they can to keep afloat until more bodies could be sent to the store.

Long story short? It might be a more difficult time for everyone involved, but ultimately business would continue.

DVD Polizei

Well, long story short, this isn't the government, so business will operate on schedule. Many employees think they have some sort of power, but they don't. Retail is designed to keep it simple...so it's easy to replace you. All employees do is cut their own paycheck short and a business who will never hire them again.

If anything, if management decided to do a collective "screw you" and walked, we all would be very entertained.

Pizza

I'm sure it's business as usual. I'd imagine a lot of folks quit at this time, especially when it's minimum wage.

mike07

In today's economy, why would anyone quit a job, even in retail, just because they hate one [1] day of the year?

DonnachaOne

This sort of things happen every year. I generally staff redundant levels of employees to counteract such an event, but realistically? I get on well enough with my staff that I doubt they'd do that to me personally, and they know the worst affected would be their coworkers, many of whom they're friends with. I realize this could be a false sense of security, of course, but I'd also like to think good management has a good handle on morale.

A mass exodus - well, that would certainly be bothersome, but one would try to overcome the challenge as best as possible; at the end of the shift you still get to go home. Call other managers who can help who can get additional staff or outside staff, and hopefully within two hours you're back to normal. It could always be worse.

Even the poor and desperate have their petulant jerks. There's a lot of people who have good jobs, who might even be pretty good at their jobs, who have an inflated sense of importance or don't care if they have a job or not. Not all, but a lot of teens are like this, especially ones whose parents take care of every entitled wish they have.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

There's also temp agencies with tons of low skilled people ready to jump in.

Abob Teff

As a former retail manager for various companies: Retail does not treat its employees in a professional manner (broad overgeneralization) ... why should they expect any loyalty from their workforce?

Personally I would find a movement by fed-up retail employees to be much more meaningful than anything accomplished by the Occupy Movement.

As somebody who worked a few Black Fridays as a lackey for Toys R Us: I enjoyed the first one so much I came back for a second one. I had to be there at 4am and didn't mind that. I would have drawn the line at being "required" to be there on Thanksgiving.

In this economy why would anybody leave any job? Seriously? A schedule that fluctuates anywhere from 16-35 hours a week at minimum wage is worth leaving for the right reasons. Especially when the job likely won't be there in 5 weeks anyway.

Alan Smithee

I had a temporary holiday job at Toys R Us back in 1995- it was awful. When they interviewed me they said I'd be helping customers with video games. When I got there, they put me in the back room where they unloaded all the trucks- a lot of my co-workers had done time in prison and they forced me to listen to the rap-crap station on the radio all the time, plus it was freezing. On top of that, employees got NO discounts on merchandise! I don't know if that ever changed, but that royally sucks for any retailer. Seems like it would encourage employees to steal stuff too.

I already had one job but I was hoping to work 2 jobs for a while since I didn't make a lot of money- they said they'd hire me on permanently if I did a good job selling games, but of course since I never got to do that I got dumped right after Christmas. I was kind of glad by then anyways.

I'd love to see a mutiny anyplace where workers get treated REALLY bad, like Wal-Mart.

Josh-da-man

Martial law would be declared. The police, national guard, and army would round up the offending employees and force them back to work at gunpoint.

Abob Teff

Alan -- I suppose the reason I enjoyed it was because I did it on my terms. I already had a background in retail management at that point so I expected they would want more out of me without paying me. I went in with the following conditions: I would work for the pay offered BUT I would only work the retail floor assisting customers, I would NOT run a cash register, I would not work the storeroom (we had a good storeroom staff, so that wasn't a problem), and I would not perform any "supervisory" or "management" functions. I was fortunate that the manager saw the value in the arrangement.

I had customers from over 100 miles away bringing us food, received several phone numbers from "moms in need" (unfortunately I'm married), and had people asking for me after I left. I was a fan favorite!

Nick Danger

I got fed up and quit working at a small store. I went back there a few weeks later, and everyone else had quit as well. The staff consisted of the store manager, another store manager from 45 minutes away, and the district manager. (I'll bet that he never planned to work a cash register again.)

A store will figure out a way to get by.