Every Black Friday, people continuously show up to their favorite stores at the crack of dawn simply for the chance to purchase goods at a discount. Microwaves are snatched, and wrapping paper is thrown.

People will go to extremes to get 15% off of a sweater, but it is rare to be able to find a deal that is worth waiting outside of a retail store for hours at a time, waiting for it to open with the cold November winds blowing. People who sleep deprive themselves to get to the stores early are predisposing themselves to fatigue which can make a person more accident-prone and moody. They are only setting themselves up to disrespect employees.

An abundance of students at North work part-time retail jobs. The pressure and high-intensity that Black Friday shoppers put on employees is outrageous, and that same stress is put on the students if they have to work Black Friday. Freshman Evan Carroll is lucky to work at Kroger rather than Walmart because according to him, “Kroger doesn’t really do Black Friday.”

Out of all the stores in the nation, Walmart is clearly a popular location for the ‘Black Friday Crazies.’ In 2008 at a Walmart in New York, an employee was tragically trampled to his death. It was early that morning when the Walmart door crashed and shattered, and tons of adrenaline-filled, eager customers took this opportunity to barge into the store, crushing the employee. This man’s life was way more important than any deal that could have been found in that Walmart.

What is really at question here is are the deals on Black Friday worth that much? Is the satisfaction of getting 40% off of an item great enough to become sleep deprived, waking up before the sun was even thinking of rising? The answer is simple, no, but nonetheless, Black Friday will still occur every year. But at what expense? 

High school employees will still get disrespected by tired adults who are too sleepy to think about what they are saying, and Walmart and Target are still going to be a battle-zone.