Huh, I went to my first-ever "Boxing Day Madness Sale"

What a bizarre phenomenon.

Okay, the scenario is this: I got something for Christmas, from my mom, and I wanted to exchange it. She told me where she got it ("Future Shop", the Canadian version of "Best Buy"), so I checked their hours, and decided to hit them when they opened, and avoid most of the Boxing Day insanity.

Imagine my surprise when, at 5:45AM this morning, I rounded the corner of the Future Shop and found their parking lot FULL.

Even the local TV News was set up with their Live Eye truck, broadcasting about the frenzy.

The sidewalk around the store was littered with sale flyers, empty food wrappers, beer cans, and coffee cups, and inside the store was PANDEMONIUM. I counted at least 60 sales associates, frantically hustling people to check-outs, and loading peoples' carts with things like microwaves, car stereos, and computers. These guys are on commission. One guy I spoke to said that he'll work 16 hours today, and make more in commissions than he will in all of January, February, and March. It's just fucking amazing.

There were literally hundreds of people in there, all buying everything from a 100 pack of CD-Rs (9.99) to fridges and big screen LCD TVs ($1000 off). There were a few loss-leaders (mot of which were already sold out), but most of the "sale" merchandise was. like, 5% to 15% off. Hardly worth waking up at 4:00am to take advantage of.

Or so you'd think.

The shoppers had apparently completely abandoned the stereotypical Canadian politeness, and it was every consumer for himself. People would cut in front of each other, argue over the last of some mutually desired item, take things from other peoples' carts, and so-on. It was like an upper-middle-class bread riot. The sales people weren't much better; I overheard one guy sayint to a customer, about something they were thinking of buying, "look, do you want it or not? Because I need to know RIGHT NOW!" I feel for the salespeople, though. I can only imagine that they probably had to be there at 3:00am or something to prep the store, and only a few hours after a no-doubt brief Christmas with their families.

The place was pretty much trashed by the time I walked in, :45 after it opened at 5;30AM. There were no staffers available to clean-up or organize the store. All they could do was bring paletes of new stock out to replace the sold ones, as quickly as possible. Often customers grabbeed stock right off the carts as soon as they emerged from the back rooms.

And, to top it all off, they wouldn't take my return until the 28th, because they just don't do returns on Boxing Day. Just sales.

But, yeah, I bought something anyway.

When I was leaving, I asked an Assistant Manager at the front door (who was checking receipts because security couldn't keep up with the sales volume) if this happened every year... "Oh, yeah, people start camping-out around 10:00pm Christmas Day".

:wtf: I was floored. Do we need any of this stuff? Is saving $50 off an iPod worth losing a night's sleep? And on my way home, I drove past another electronics/music chain, which didn't start their insanity until 7:00am, and there were would-be consumers lined up around a city block waiting to get in. And, just as the guy at the Future Shop had claimed, there were people camped-out; there were even a few pop-up tents and lean-tos set-up on the sidewalk.

Wow.

Just 'wow'.

I didn't read your whole post. I just thought that I'd add that worthless little tidbit. He has very pointy hair too.


Edit: OK, I finished reading the rest of the post. I wouldn't camp out to save 50 bucks on an iPod, but I'd elbow someone in the neck.

Maybe it's a corporate dress-code.

:puke: