Omg, sweetie, darling I can hardly control myself!!! All of us at RHU are huge Absolutely Fabulous fans and I just spotted the report below saying the first new AbFab special will air in the US on Jan 8 at 10 via BBC America and LOGO! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!. I've posted some of the scenes a few times here on RHU. Joanna Lumely and Jennifer Saunders are beyond brilliant comediennes and Jennifer Saunders is a longtime mentor and inspiration to me as a writer. If you've never heard of AbFab check out their hilarious LOL old shows on LOGO or YouTube! You can never just watch them once! Below are a few funny retail scenes Eddie and Patsy get into. And be sure to check out the show!
“Absolutely Fabulous” returns Jan. 8 with the first of three new specials. The episode will premiere at 10 that night on BBC America and Logo.
Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley will once again play Edina Monsoon and Patsy Stone.
Saunders wrote the new episodes. No premiere dates were announced for the other two specials.
Also returning will be actresses Julia Sawalha, Jane Horrocks and June Whitfield.
Joanna Lumley also has a role in ”Mistresses,” which returns at 10 p.m. Jan. 18 on BBC America. It will be the third and final season for the drama.
BBC America provided this preview: ”It’s been a while since we last saw the girls and a lot has changed. Two years have passed and the once-unbreakable bond between best friends Katie, Trudi, Jessica and Siobhan has been shattered.”
Oh, no.
Classic LOL scene posted on RHU many times: Patsy as a sales associate.
<3 Eddie and Patsy! Fabulous as ever!
A bit of shopping!
Jennifer was recently on Graham Norton (it was awesome) and then premiered a clip of the special.
Abercrombie & Fitch is opening a store in Singapore on December 15th and what better way to get free publicity than to hire a wall of buff shirtless men in sweat pants and flip flops as greeters! Mayehm enswed (at least for a few gawking Singapore girls and tourists passing by on the sidewalk) Will the shirtless Aberzombie models be headed to the US next?
The Aberzombie Ab Army. You will do as they say.
Audition line for the Abercrombie Fucks Fitch porno?
My gay brother will love this!
Birdwatching at it's best!
A moment of adults having fun = a lifetime of therapy.
Thanks, but no we aren't into three-ways.
Yeah, well if you don't come up with the 50 bucks for the photos your gonna wish you weren't such a fat ass. And no we don't take credit cards, bitch.
The Custys have spoken and as usual greed wins out over compassion for people. Shoppers are like a herd of cattle and they will follow whatever the store corporations set up. And now that there is a 7% increase after making everyone work on Thanksgiving, you can bet your burnt turkey ass everyone will be open next year, and most likely all day.
You overworked retail slaves don't need Thanksgiving, you can eat your bird at 8 am then go to work, you can work all night when you're not used to it and crash your car into a canal, that's your job. You signed up for it. We are the customers and we want to shop after our big, leisure, enjoyable Thanksgiving dinners. Now ring us up and don't forget my 20% Black Friday coupon!
It's the continuing deterioration of a beloved holiday for many. Since the corporations have already conquered opening stores and making their employees work horribly long hours on thanksgiving, I think turkey day should just be named Black Thanksgiving, because it has now become a dark, exhausting day for thousands in a America. Happy Black Thanksgiving!
Info from Huff Po:
The holiday shopping season got off to a strong start on Black Friday, with retail sales up 7 percent over last year, according to the most recent survey. Now stores just have to keep buyers coming back without the promise of door-buster savings.
Buyers spent $11.4 billion at retail stores and malls, up nearly $1 billion from last year, according to a Saturday report from ShopperTrak. It was the largest amount ever spent on the day that marks the beginning of the holiday shopping season, and the biggest year-over-year increase since 2007. Chicago-based ShopperTrak gathers data from 25,000 outlets across the U.S., including individual stores and shopping centers.
The Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn. broke its Black Friday record for shoppers, thanks to a decision to open at midnight for the first time. Around 210,000 visitors came to the mall on Friday, up from 200,000 last year, according to mall spokeswoman Bridget Jewell.
Online shopping was strong as well, with a 24.3 percent increase in online spending on Black Friday, according to IBM, which tracks sales at 500 online retailers.
Bill Martin, who founded ShopperTrak, said he was surprised by the strong showing. He had expected the weak economy to dent consumer confidence and keep more shoppers out of the stores, or at least from spending much. Instead, he said, they responded to a blanket of promotions, from 60- and 70-percent off deals to door-buster savings on electronics.
"I'm pleased to see it. You can't have a great season without having a good Black Friday," Martin told The Associated Press in an interview.
Sales were also up 4 percent each in the two weeks leading up to Black Friday, as retailers started their promotions earlier than usual or extended their hours.
Still, he suspects things will quiet down this weekend, as promotions end and the buying frenzy subsides. ShopperTrak is expecting holiday sales to be up 3.3 percent this season. Retailers generally rely on sales between Thanksgiving and Christmas to make up 20 percent of their annual take.
There weren't many shoppers at Pioneer Place Mall in Portland, Ore., on Saturday.
I worked in retail department store for six years. A little longer if we add up the random months I worked for a local pizza shop and tent/party company. I started as a cashier for a year at this particular retailer, then moved to the sales floor when I couldn't deal with the rude, demanding, and inconsiderate customers complaining and yelling at me for things I have absolutely no control over, like company policies or how the computer system works. Not that customers on the floor were much better.
But I digress.
As the holiday season quickly approaches, poor retail workers are forced into the chaotic mayhem of early morning doorbuster sales on the day after Thanksgiving, the dreaded Black Friday. My first year working Black Friday, the company I worked for opened at 5 a.m., requiring employees to arrive at 4:30 a.m. The second year and every year following since I left the company, the opening time changed to 4 a.m., requiring employees to now arrive an hour earlier than the year prior, at 3:30 a.m. instead. Even at this ridiculous hour, customers were still lined up at the front door, in the dark, inching closer to the glass every minute to be the first ones inside and grab their must-have items while the rest of America was sleeping soundlessly and peacefully, without a care to actually be awake. Seriously, roosters aren't even crowing yet.
Being given a 4 a.m. shift on Black Friday almost always lasted 9 hours and often more, also cutting into my holiday time with my family on Thanksgiving. If I had to arrive at 3:30 a.m. and work until 1 p.m. or later, I definitely needed to sleep and rest for the anarchy that would ensue for the entirety of my shift. Which meant that to gain a full 8 hours of sleep to rest up and prepare to rise at 3 a.m. to arrive at 3:30, I would need to fall asleep by 7 p.m., slashing time with my family after Thanksgiving dinner, even missing the night football games that we all watch together. It never worked that way, as I could never actually fall asleep when I needed to, with all the holiday fun occurring downstairs. After a couple years of this insanity, I refused to work anything but a closing shift, when everything had calmed down and departments were easier to clean and organize, also allowing me a normal sleeping pattern and holiday time with my family.
Last year in 2010 is when Black Friday began to creep into Thursday, when stores like Walmart, Old Navy, and GameStop opened its doors at midnight, just as Thanksgiving Day ended. Sears stores were even open Thanksgiving Day, from 7 a.m. to noon.
"David," a former Sears Hardware employee in New York, recalled the Thanksgiving Day opening. "We had no customers at all. I was wondering why a hardware store would be open on Thanksgiving."
This year, Macy's also decided to take the midnight plunge. However, Macy's isn't the only store opening its doors to shoppers at midnight on Black Friday. It seems their decision has caused an avalanche of followers. Other major stores have decided to ruin Thanksgiving for thousands of their employees as well.
Hardwick's petition has sparked another retail employee to begin his own campaign against his company's Black Friday Time Opening War - Best Buy. He also asks Best Buy to open their stores at 5 a.m. Black Friday, instead of midnight. Push Back the Opening of Best Buy Retail Stores on Black Friday to 5am
R., a parent of a teenage retail worker adds, "I have a son who works in retail and has to be at his store at 11 at night. We shouldn't have to fight with these companies to have our children home to spend time with family on major holidays."
Is this the end of retail holiday pandemonium? Or will Christmas be next?
--Kerry
Waitress Victoria Liss gets a Retail Balls Award for calling out a rude douchey custy on facebook! RHU salutes you Victoria! Three bony thumbs up! The asshole should have his balls torn off with a fork and fed to RHU's dog Max!!!
Victoria did have an odd twist happen during her manhunt to expose the horrible custy, where the wrong man was thought to be the custy. But she also had an Awesome Custy come forward and do what we call on RHU a Random Act of Retail Kindness! The story is below, but I leave you with this question, RHU: Will custys start behaving if they get called out like this? Or will more slaves just get fired for talking about it publicly?
Here's the story from ABC.com:
Never leave a waitress scorned.
Beware of the dangers associated with having a common name in the Internet age.
Those two lessons were learned the hard way by all parties involved in “tippergate,” the Seattle tipping scandal that sparked a social media-fueled manhunt, and an apology.
It all began Friday night when a male customer at the city’s Bimbo’s Cantina restaurant left waitress Victoria Liss no tip, just this insult directly below the tip line on his credit-card receipt:
“P.S. You could stand to loose (sic) a few pounds.”
Angry and armed with the receipt as evidence, Liss began a virtual manhunt, posting a picture of the receipt, with the man’s name, Andrew Meyer, clearly visible, on her Facebook page.
With that, the search was underway for the man Liss called “yuppie scum.” Comments poured in and soon the photo and Facebook page of one “Andrew Meyer” were tracked down and posted and reposted through social media and on news sites.
Seattle area bars even posted photos of the man, like the “Wanted” posters of old.
One small problem. The angry mob marshaled by Liss had nabbed their wrong Andrew Meyer.
The Andrew Meyer in the photos, and now at the end of countless angry emails and posts, was, in fact, an Andrew Meyer living innocently in Texas, not Seattle.
By Tuesday, Liss’s angry posts seeking revenge were replaced with remorseful words seeking forgiveness.
“So sorry to the wrong guy, everyone please just drop it?” she wrote Tuesday.
“Honestly I have been hiding in bed with the covers over my head for 2 days so upset for the Wrong Andrew Meyers getting hate mail. I still feel so sick over it,” Liss followed up with on Wednesday.
“Beyond sorry, believe you me, just tried to make a point about the (expletive) way food service staff are treated. Threw the wrong guy under the bus,” she added.
While the real Andrew Meyer of “tippergate” fame has yet to be identified, or come forward, another Andrew Meyer, from California, stepped in to save the day for all the Andrew Meyers of the world.
This Andrew Meyer sent Liss a 100 percent tip for the Seattle Andrew Meyer’s Bimbo’s Cantina bill, which was $28.98.
“My ‘name’ can’t be shamed anymore,” he wrote Liss.
Then again, he did pop in Wal-Mart a few months ago:
There is a hell on earth and it's called retail! And I like to take a little Jack with mine! What about you? - Freeman
