Sunday, November 30, 2008

The Blackest of Black Fridays

Historically the Friday following Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season and has often been called Black Friday because that is when many retailers begin to turn profitable.

Black Friday will never have the same meaning to me because this year people showed their lack of humanity in the possible worst way, they trampled a Walmart worker to death and on the whole showed absolute disregard for the event.

People were not lining up for food; they were lining up to buy discounted TVs.
People were not without money; after all they were there to shop and save a hundred dollars or so on a TV.

We are not in a depression and the world is not falling apart. Times are hard for virtually everyone but that does not allow us to become savage.

Imagine that you are on line and eagerly awaiting the store to open. There is a slight delay so you begin pounding and pushing on the glass doors. The collective force of 40 or 50 savage people up front causes the doors to buckle. They are glass, transparent. You see the employee on the other side. Do you rush forward or halt? Do you rush around away from the fallen person or over him? The people at that Valley Stream Walmart decided that the best course was to rush and step on the fallen figure. How do you ignore the screams? Not see the person beneath your feet?

According to reports in various papers people tried to push rescue EMT personnel aside and when told that the store was closing due to the tragedy refused to leave. For them saving a hundred bucks was more than the value of a human life.

Where is the outrage? People are blaming Walmart for being unprepared and yet were any other people trampled at other stores? Any other stores?

I hope that those shoppers in Valley Stream take time to think long and hard about their actions and reactions and have as happy a holiday as the family of the murdered worker.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What has this to do with financial planning?

Morris Armstrong, EA said...

It has nothing to do with financial planning, only humanity.