In the week leading up to the annual fantasia of consumption known as Black Friday, the grimy perimeter of Alderwood Mall thrums with trucks and delivery workers. “Freight season” is how one store manager described it, while hurling a bag of store trash into a green dumpster whose lip sat far above her head. Her store’s back room, she said, had become “beyond overloaded with product.”
As a manager, this is the season when she receives projections from corporate telling her how much she’s likely to sell and how many people she needs to temporarily hire to meet expected surges in demand. In some senses, it’s a fun challenge. “Kind of pushes us to the limit,” the store manager said.
The start of this limit-pushing used to be the day after Thanksgiving, a Friday designed to pull retailers solidly into the black…
