There’s nothing quite like the feeling of getting to be at home with your family, especially after you’ve gone away to college. After being at home for the majority of your life, when you leave you learn to appreciate some very typically overlooked things- a home cooked meal being pretty much number one. I don’t know about you, but after surviving basically just on Ramen, Lipton and every other brand of pasta for the past few years, one of the things I look forward to most is the spread on Thanksgiving day (of course, second to spending time with my family). Except, like a huge amount of people, I normally spend Thanksgiving and the following day that shall not be named selling electronics to the masses.

For the most part, working during the dark lord of shopping days isn’t all that bad. You go in, you go through all the normal retail things like getting yelled at by adult-children that don’t get there way, but it’s spiced with a few extra special events, like people fighting over prices and availability of items. Despite their belief that the warehouse door is like a portal to Narnia, but instead of magical creatures and adventure, it’s littered with awful $200 55” TV’s that you actually only have five of (looking at you, Panasonic), you have to tell them no until they either leave or submit and buy something else.

Now don’t get me wrong, I have had a lot of good experiences in stores on that day. Plenty of people are kind and caring, but somehow the typical “I’m so sorry you have to be here! I’m going to go home and eat my fourth plate of food and sleep until Christmas now bye” doesn’t feel quite as compassionate as it could. But if, instead, no one showed up and we got to eat and sleep all day like everyone else. If no one would go shop and give the retail companies what they wanted, they wouldn’t make it such a huge deal and a lot more people would get to go spend Thanksgiving with their family.

I am impressed though. A fairly large amount of companies are actually starting to get the idea that no one wants to be there and closing, which is amazing. Gamestop is closed, which is amazing because they are one of the most infamous for being busy on the shopocalypse, and having worked two of them there I can confirm. REI is even trying to get people to go outside instead, which is a noble replacement but let’s be honest, no one will want to move after what they do to that pie on Thursday, let alone hike, but still props for closing. However, the truth of it is, it probably won’t go away for the foreseeable future because people still believe you get actual, astounding discounts which is totally not the case.

Luckily, with a decent team around you, the time you have no choice but to spend from roughly 5:00 PM on Thursday to who knows when on Friday can be enjoyable. Everyone is all in the same boat and honestly around 3:00 AM the stores are barren, so it can end up being a little fun. Either that or everyone is just normally so delusional and hopped up on caffeine at that time that we imagine it’s fun to cope. Even the managers are typically in good spirits, realizing that everyone would rather be somewhere else, including them.

Ultimately, Black Friday is just another day. It won’t stop being a shopping juggernaut, keeping college students locked down for two months regardless of birthdays and holidays, but we’re all used to it by this point. I am lucky enough to have this Thanksgiving free from retail for the first time in six years, and I wish all my retail friends at the Best Buy, Meijer, Target, and anywhere else the best of luck- I’ll eat some pie for you. If you do go out on Friday morning when you should most definitely be in bed, a few words of advice: don’t fall for the deals because most of them aren’t real, and be kind to the employees. They don’t want to be there, they are just doing their jobs, and they don’t have magical powers. If they’re out of something, they’re out. They don’t set the prices. Don’t be a crazy customer, because trust me- we talk about you as soon as you leave.