24 Hour Shopping People

Originally Posted to 'the Fake Headlines' by Mike Vardy

Having worked in retail for many years (until recently), I decided to focus my first entry on this blog to the recent 24 hour shopping schedule that Walmart adopted. And since the blog is entitled "The Fake Headlines", I thought I'd open up with a "fake" (a la The Onion) news story. Enjoy.

Walmart forcing potential shoppers out of bed to justify 24 hour schedule

Walmart's controversial "24 hour Christmas Week" stance took an ugly (yet not totally unexpected) turn this week as hundreds of people were forcibly removed from their homes at ungodly hours to shop at their stores.

Twenty Walmart employees at the Ancaster, Ontario location were sent out of the building at 2:13 am to begin rounding up the shoppers. Each were assigned a section as divided by postal codes, and began their herding. While some of those "convinced" to shop did so with little influence from these recruiters, many more had to be dragged from bed and thrown into large shopping carts prepared outside their homes.

"It was horrific" stated Marjorie Stinson of Truro, Nova Scotia. "We were so groggy from sleeping that we couldn't overpower them. But on the bright side, I snagged a really great single-cup coffeemaker for my aunt with very little waiting in line."

The 24 hour operation for the week of Christmas was implemented to boost sagging sales, as walmart struggles thanks to online shopping, primarily from auction sites such as eBay.

Herv Johnson, Vice President of Strategic Hour Implementation for Walmart Canada, simply views it as smart business. "If these people are up at ungodly hours surfing porn on the internet, they should be able to come in and buy their kids some My Little Pony...or Ponies."

Employees of Walmart stores were too tired to comment.

Has the holiday season really come to this? I have a suggestion for anyone reading this. Avoid the line-ups and causing people to work at terrible hours by doing the following: start your Christmas shopping for next year December 26th.

I mean isn't that when all the sales are anyway?