If you don't work in retail and have never experienced the anticipation and more-than-small amount of fear that goes with working Black Friday, you may want to consider that experience more closely. As customers demand an online-only item or complain about the limited discounts, retail workers are trying their best and are not paid enough to care about whether someone can find midnight indigo jeans and not destroyed blues.

Don't get me wrong, most retail employees want to help you, but when they have spent all daylight hours in a store that plays five songs on loop while their family is playing games at home, they would appreciate some sympathy and patience.

Last year, I ate my Thanksgiving dinner at 3 and rushed to the eerily desolate outlet mall. Other employees started trickling into the store, and everyone was either still lit up from the excitement of the day or distant and visibly irritated at being far from the apple pie and family elsewhere. We set up the store, although customers wouldn't be there for another hour. Once they came in, the meticulously organized store transformed into what my room looks like when I can't decide what to wear.

My schedule for the next day, the big day, showed me working four hours in the morning, taking a four-hour break, then doing another four hours in the evening. I went to confirm with my manager that I would be sent home during that long break only to find out that the app wouldn't allow him to schedule me the 12 hours straight I would be working.

Although it was exhausting, it was a new experience to be on the other side of one of America's most infamous holidays. My family doesn't have any relatives nearby, so our Thanksgiving normally consists of us in our pajamas eating all day, until the nighttime hours come when we compile my cousins' Christmas lists and plan our strike on the closest mall. To me, Black Friday is a festive, happy day in its own right. We treat our entire family to presents and buy cheap Christmas pajamas until we get tired and go home for another round of pie.

Being a part of the busy operation of the store is the closest I have ever felt to being one of Santa's elves.

Each employee had a small task to maintain order in the madness: fold jeans like pancakes and not crepes, greet every customer. I would run to the stockroom, crawl on shelves to find the perfect flannel, just to forget what the customer who asked for the flannel looked like. It was dizzying and draining, but the day flew by.

Almost all customers are friendly and cheery, but there is the occasional shopper that believes the holiday is for them, The Day the Stores Do What Karen Wants. We don't control the prices. At all. I also did not personally design the store app, so I am sorry if there are glitches. I also must ask you to sign up for our rewards, I just must.

If you are going to take part in the thrilling and rewarding celebration of American consumerism that is Black Friday, simple things make the life of a retail employee much easier. If you pick something up and don't know where it goes back, you can put in on the racks in the dressing room or give it to an employee rather than do some re-merchandising of your own. If you need a size but can't find it in the pile, ask an employee because they can find it quickly and keep things neat. If you are friendly to us, we will be friendly to you.

We want to give opinions, give you options and help you find what you are asking for. But don't ask us to do the impossible. We are human, and we are tired.