This past Thanksgiving holiday, while everyone was enjoying their Thanksgiving feast food comas and buying their Christmas presents, I spent upwards of thirty hours working two retail jobs in the span of three days. During my shifts, I learned quite a lot about people and about the upcoming holiday.

First, Black Friday shopping is not as chaotic as you hear on the news.

While yes, there are big swarms of people at odd hours of the day, where I worked encountered no crazy incidents. There were no big brawls over five dollar fleece blankets, or disputes over discounted jeans. For most of the time, the weekend was rather slow. On Thanksgiving night, I worked from 4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at Old Navy, and up until I left, there was a steady and unchanging flow of people in and out of the store. In fact, within the first hour or two of working, the store was so dead that my coworker and I blew up balloons to make the registers look more festive and happy. Even though there were masses that came in throughout the day, it was actually pretty manageable.

Second, people are more patient than you'd think on Black Friday.

Keep in mind that I'm a college freshman, so I haven't worked retail since August. I spent a good three months or so not actively practicing ringing out customers. The systems were the same as they were when I left, but after being away from them for so long, I was rusty. I also had no idea where things were on the sales floor, so helping direct customers to items they wanted was slightly more difficult than it would have been had I worked recently. Surprisingly, all of the customers I dealt with were incredibly patient with me and understood that I needed time to find a piece of clothing or to reenter information into the register.

Third, some deals really are worth getting out there at 4:00 p.m. on Thanksgiving.

At Old Navy, we had a storewide 50% off sale. And, sure enough, people were in fact in the store at 4:00. But, considering that everything was 50% off, the purchases were incredibly worth it. Customers who spent about $200 would have spent upwards of $400 on a non-promotional day, which is an incredible protection to their bank accounts. And, we had these instant win scratchers that allowed our customers to win up to $100,000 - but only one person amid the entire store brand was able to win that grand prize, meaning that out of all Old Navy shoppers across the country was going to win $100,000. But hey, free shipping was also one of the scratcher prizes, and that's always a good deal.

Lastly, some places are actually really fun to work on the holiday.

At Bob's Stores, my other job, my boss told me before going on the sales floor, "You need some holiday swag" and directed me to the breakroom, where we had holiday stick-on decals to put on our faces, as well as Santa and elf hats. We could also wear Ugly Christmas Sweaters, which I did as well. Among my friends and family, I became known as a Christmas Elf, which I was totally okay with.

My experiences this Thanksgiving weekend were definitely stressful in respects to time, but it was an experience I wouldn't trade for the whole world. I saw kindness and patience in people, and restored faith in humanity. Plus, I made a lot of money, which is always a good thing. I probably wouldn't work thirty hours in three days again next year, but I'm grateful for this experience.

And hey, now I can go do my own Christmas shopping with all of my earnings.