33 Black Friday Horror Stories from Retail Workers

A lot of elderly women are brawling over doorbuster deals
33 Black Friday Horror Stories from Retail Workers

While Black Friday has drawbacks for consumers (frantic energy, claustrophobia and the risk of getting kicked in the face over a gaming console), retail workers bear the brunt of the most chaotic shopping day of the year. Thankfully, the boom of online shopping has eliminated some of the in-store mayhem, and retail workers are now able to look back on the most insane scenes they’ve witnessed at the hands of doorbuster sales — like watching a woman stuff her pants with frozen lobster tail, or seeing a grandma tackle and bear-mace a woman over a piece of clothing — with some ability to laugh. 

Either way, if you’re serving on the front lines this year, we salute you and hope that no one starts throwing hands because of a discounted label maker.

Wildfires 9y My first black Friday , I was working at a Walmart. I was assigned to be one of the employees that would cut open the plastic on the pallets which contained our merchandise, which were all in the floor. Basically, as I readied box cutter, I got shoved by a customer and I fell right on it and sliced my hand open. After getting through that ands patching it up, I came out on the floor and promptly got punched in the face when I picked up a DVD on the ground. A customer apparently wanted it. Fuck black
madamimadam89 . 9y I saw an elderly woman steal an ice cream maker out of a man in a wheelchair's electric handicapped cart. Не got a security guard, and she flat out denied it saying the man was using his handicap to embarrass her. I lost a little faith in humanity in that moment. I followed her and took stuff out of her cart and put it back on the shelves and out random embarrassing items in their place. ... 400
bestincal 4 9y Not really a horror story, but I used to work at Best Buy and worked home theater my first Black Friday. Store opens at 6am Friday. Guy walks in. Walks up to me, while I'm wearing my khaki pants and best Buy polo. Не looks at me and asks do you work here? I look at my Best Buy logo on my polo, then to my name tag, then up at him and say Nope. Не just walked away. ... 354
Uberhypnotoad 6y Just today I sold a couch to a guy who drove a Prius with no roof-rack. We do not deliver and he wouldn't leave until WE found a way to get this thing secured to his car somehow. Not only had he clearly not planned ahead or thought it through, he was a total jerk about it and insisted on making it our problem. We ended up using half a spool of twine to tie this thing down and he had to climb in through the window because the twine went through his doors. I REALLY wish I
. 6y Definitely the woman who came out of the dressing room to tell us that a pipe must have broken. Upon checking said pipe we merely found that she had peed in the corner of the dressing room. Water doesn't smell like urine. ... 562
Nickdubs . 9y When I worked at Sam's Club, during the madness one black Friday morning, we caught a woman stuffing the inside of her pants with frozen lobster tail. She would unpackage them and throw the trash in a stack of tires that were on display ... 1.5k
anteru . 6y When I worked at Best Buy I watched two elderly ladies get in a fist fight over a Nintendo DS. That and the cleaning the aftermath of black Friday. Looked like a grocery store before a hurricane. ... 4.5k
Sufiguru1137 . € 6y The customer who took a shit in one of my fitting rooms and then wiped his ass with a $125 Polo Ralph Lauren shirt. Nothing more needs to be said. ... 8.5k
KnowMatter . 9y Back in my poor college days when I worked at walmart we had a fight break out over a bike. Fists were thrown and there was some blood. Eventually one guy got ahold of it and managed to get away from the crowd, he rode the bike out of the store to flee his pursuers (without paying). ... 2.7k
awsnapitsrachel . 6y at staples, i i watched two grown men get into a brawling fist fight over a $30 label maker. ...it wasn't even the last one. ... 676
Thebootydiaries . 6y We had a lady call the police on our store because we sold out of a TV. I really wish I was lying... they came too. ... 369
Acharai 9y I work back of house at a Toys R Us. I spent Black Friday taking big ticket items to the back where we just loaded them into the customers car instead of trying to make our way to the front of the store. Apparently, someone decided it was fine to wander into the back storage room and start opening boxes to find what they wanted. Other customers saw this one jackass do it, and then decided it was ok if they did too. Myself and the other back of house guys were busy wrestling with a really obnoxious
Jsquaw 9y I worked at RadioShack for a year in college. During Black Friday, one of the sale items was a $10 calculator marked down to $5. Two sweet, elderly women came in to the store looking for them. When I told them there was only one left in the display, the shit was ON. It turned in to a geriatric version of roller derby without the skates. The one grandma who lost the race called the other one a fucking bitch as she was standing in the checkout line, gripping her $5 prize. I always imagined some little kid
BoNamath 6y Guy tried to steal a bluetooth speaker this black Friday at Best Buy. After we caught him and called the cops he was searched. The cops ended up discovering three items he was hiding. 1. Loaded Gun (he did not have a concealed carry permit nor was it a registered weapon) 2. Bag of Black Tar Heroin 3. JBL Flip 3 Speaker This man will now be serving hard time because he wanted an $80 speaker. Nice. ... 193
9y I worked one black Friday in the clothes dept at walmart. For like 2 straight hours before the sale began, people hovered over the pallets. The alarm went off and the swarm just went insane. There were two women in particular on opposite sides, tossing clothes back and forth to each other. Idk what their system was because half the stuff they were just catching and tossing aside. But this little teenager (I mean like petite tiny girl) intercepted a pair of jeans being tossed and the women went fucking INSANE and elbowed her in the face. Instant
starfoxbella 0 9y I used to work at Victoria's Secret PINK and my first black Friday, I was at the front of the store. People were already outside waiting to get in at midnight. When the foods lifted, I was pushed backwards and almost fell to the ground, luckily I fell on our launch table. I climbed the table and stayed up there throwing customers hoodies and yoga pants. It was fun yelling green hoodie, size small, who wants it? And everyone jumping and yelling for it. Also, a girl fainted and I had to push people from walking all
gointhefridge . 9y Ex Best Buy here. Four Black Fridays at the highest grossing store that day in the company gets you a few wild tales. This one is quick: Guy tried to shove a Panasonic Blu-ray player into the front of his jeans. Не was a rather large man, but dude its a blu-ray player, seriously. ... 1.4k
wildcard084 9y Walmart story time. A couple years ago when the sale started there was a surge of people trying to get their stuff. One lady got knocked down and her pen went straight into her neck thankfully missing the jugular. The fucked up part is no one tried to help they just walked over her to get their shitty deal items. An associate that saw it happen had to stand over top over her to protect her from getting trampled. When the ambulance crew arrived they had to literally shove people out of the way because no one would
. 9y I was a Gamestop Worker when the Wii came out. The second we unlocked the doors, shit was a riot. People were fighting one-another, swearing, crying, just about everything. People were so desperate, when people managed to get one, somebody would throw the other person to the ground and buy it. ... 650
InfinityKitty . 9y I worked at walmart for 4 years and worked all Black Fridays. I've seen a woman hit another woman in the chest with those toddler car boxes you drive in. Woman who got hit was a week or 3 post ор of open heart surgery. Lots of blood. Right In front of me. No idea what happened to the woman who hit her. I do think she got the toy car purchased it and left.
shes_a_lurker731 . . 9y I used to work for Build-a-Bear several years back. They usually had a special holiday animal for Christmas, limited edition. Like penguins, Rudolph, and others I can't remember. Anyway, these limited edition animals tended to sell out super quick. I remember one Black Friday when it was the year they had the penguin, people literally got into fights over these stuffed animals. It was ridiculous! ... 221
Kidou 9y I worked for six yrs at a Johnny rockets in a mall as a server and management. We didn't open early like the rest of the stores because we are a restaurant and well, we don't serve breakfast. Had people shake our gates screaming that they wanted food. Ot would be just me and a opener getting the chairs set out. I pointed them towards the food court and told them we didn't serve breakfast. A lady spit at me and told.me I know you have bacon We do. In a fridge waiting to be cooked and put
npc_Human 6y Be me, working my first job, second week in and I'm working the floor at a Best Buy on Black Friday. I wasn't that great at my job, so they had me running people from the line they had set up to different registers and quickly answering questions from customers. No big deal. At about 1am as I'm running customers back and forth we hear a commotion on the other side of the store and a few police officers come in. Turns out some guy had broken a bit of plastic off one of the information plaques and
Hereforthefreecake 9y I haven't told this story in a while: So I worked for Mrs. Fields Cookies in my local mall during black friday back when I was in high school. Our manager got called to a store in a different city because a manager had very severely hurt themselves melting chocolate for their chocolate dipped cookies. I end up having to work for the majority of the day with an equally lazy buddy of mine slinging cookies and taking orders for cookie cakes while the mall was packed. Around 4 in the afternoon (and about 1600$ in sales) a
9y An 80 year old grandma tackled and then bear- maced a woman over fleece fabric at my store. The old lady wanted a cancer pink-ribbon fabric, and the woman she ultimately tackled had called ahead and ordered a bulk amount of it, because she works for a cancer organization and makes blankets for cancer patients. The woman was wheeling a cart in the store with several large bolts of the fabric in it (which she had special ordered, and we put it in the cart for her so she could continue shopping.) Old lady sees that this woman
Lineman72T 9y Worked security at Target for 5+ years. For being a store in the rougher part of town, I don't have too many horror stories. The funniest one I like to tell is a couple years ago, I was there early doing crowd control. I would always talk to people in line, try to keep them entertained while they waited in the cold. The first couple in line had been there for about 13 or 14 hours. So we open the store, and we have deals on all sorts of electronics, toys, etc. They get in line and have
boss34112 . 6y I worked at best buy in 2010 Black Friday was hell but someone brought sloppy joes for all our hard work. I got food poisoning and almost died 4 times in the ER and shit my pants in front of a hot nurse as I passed out the 2nd time. ... 436
. 9y Someone punched a security guard in the face because he thought he was a customer skipping to the front of the line..he was just walking in the door to start his shift. So yeah, my town has those kind of people in it. ... 606
The_Dingman . 9y A simple one, not a horror story, but funny: I managed a RadioShack store in a mall. An old lady came in with her walker for a new battery for her cordless phone, completely oblivious to what day it was. She asked me if the mall was always so busy. ... 3.2k
Stellar-rific . 6y I used to work for Wal-Mart, my ex still did. My 1st Black Friday working for another company, she calls me crying around 7:30 AM. I finally calm her down to find out that right before the store opened at 6 AM, the people greeter was at the time clock, ready to punch in, and had a massive heart attack and died. Dead before he hit the floor. They still had to open. The entire store was in tears. I stopped by before I went into work and it was a horrible darkness over the store. l'll
siameezer44 6y When I was working at Walmart, me and another со- worker had a lady come during our black Thursday sale with her children. She was going around shopping with her kids for a while, but then she saw me and my со- worker in the bedding department, and left her children with us, asking for us to watch them while she went to get some products. Before we were able to tell her no, she disappears and doesn't come back for her kids for twenty minutes. Both of us are just standing there, watching her kids slowly freak
ryemanhattan 6y This was about twenty years ago, and I don't recall if it was actually Black Friday or just holiday shopping season. Working at Costco, I witnessed a fistfight between two men over a parking space (started just as you'd imagine, car A is hovering waiting for someone loading up their car to leave, and when they do car В swoops in from the other direction into the spot). It was a fairly even matchup, until the the girlfriend of one of them decided to give an assist with some pepper spray. She managed to pretty effectively get both
maybepants 9y I ran an electronics department in a large retail store and was a veteran to Black Friday. My team always had everything under control. We had tickets for everything that would sell out quickly, we knew exact numbers and where everything was, and had signs for lineups for hourly deals. We were always prepared and never had an issue. One year, the district manager decided to observe our store during Black Friday. She stopped by my department in the thick of it to see how things were going on my end. It was insanely busy of course, but
Scroll down for the next article

Must Read

VIRAL ON CRACKED

A WEEKLY
NEWSLETTER OF
JOKES + TRIVIA

Forgot Password?