Date posted: 12-13-01

Editors: You are encouraged to use this story in your publication. Please credit the author and DeKalb News Service as shown. And, please send two tearsheets to: Jim Killam, Department of Communication, Watson Hall, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115.

The Target: Christmas

By J.D. Piland
DeKalb News Service

DeKALB -- Almost all the lights in Target have been shut off. It's late, and it's quiet. The store echoes like a canyon with the absence of crying children and mothers trying to quiet them. The pressure from inquisitive "guests," as Target team members are required to call customers, has ceased. Five men wax and buff the white tile floor at the other end of the store. It's time to unload the truck.

It's only the start of October. But in a routine played out at retail stores across the nation, it's time to get ready. The holiday season is almost here.

In early October, Target, 2555 Sycamore Road, begins hiring more team members to work overnight shifts because the merchandise trucks are relentless. During the rest of the year, supply trucks only come on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. But come holiday season, the massive semitrailers with the familiar red bullseye back into the stalls behind the store up to six times a week.

The trucks are loaded to the brim with brown cardboard boxes, ranging in size from a box full of Chapstick to boxes the size of Power Wheels vehicles. There are holiday and winter items like sweaters and artificial Christmas trees.

The garage-style doors in Receiving are pulled up to reveal the mass of boxes, and the overnight team springs into action. One team member starts unloading the boxes from the truck one by one and hands them to the next person in an assembly line.

At the last stop, the box is picked up, sorted and placed on a wooden pallet based on its department. Softlines here. Hardlines there. Domestics over there. Toys right behind you. The merchandise finally is sorted and placed on the sales floor.

As October continues, the trucks keep coming. The rest of the store may be decorated for Halloween, but in the back, it's already Christmas. Throughout the stock room and receiving, red and green poke from every little cubbyhole, Rubbermaid storage bins are red and green and silver, sparkling tinsel is glittering in the fluorescent light. It makes the gloom of the normally dim backroom more enjoyable, at least for the holidays.

Once Halloween arrives, things really start to get busy. Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 are known at Target as the 48-hour turnaround.

The overnight team goes through the motions as it always does, but this time volunteer team members who decided to help with the transition of the seasons join them. Even though the team has 48 hours to complete a full transition, it scurries around frantically.

This time, all the store lights are on.

In the seasonal area - Christmas merchandise -- boxes unloaded from the truck are lined up and stacked on the ground near the bikes and the car cleaners. These boxes have artificial Christmas trees of all sizes and shapes. Six-foot pine trees, 3-foot firs and new fiber optic trees, the ones with little white strands and different colors at the end, are decorated with brown glass and Disney ornaments and arranged inside a cardboard-fenced area. Holographic snowflakes get hung from the 20-foot-high ceiling.

The security team, known as Asset Protection, also must gear up. With substantially more guests entering -- and, more importantly, leaving -- the store every day, security must be tighter than on a normal day. Hours and shifts are always full (during the rest of the year, there may be a time slot where no one is on duty for Asset Protection). During the holiday season there will always be at least three people on duty.

At the front, Kyle Schambach, dressed in black pants and a white button-up shirt, watches for anyone who sets off the alarms. If they do, he will check their receipt and the items in their bags. Normally, it is just the signals coming from a cell phone that can set it off, but once in a while, the person tries to sneak a CD or some electronic device.

All the while, Alex Alaniz, Senior Asset Protection Specialist, strolls around as if he is a regular guest, looking at the newest video games, playing the display X-Box and shuffling through the hanging clothes in men's. What he's really doing is looking for anyone who looks like he or she is going to steal something. If there is someone, then he radios Kyle to tell him to look out for the person and make sure that he goes through the checkout lanes.

The Big Day has Arrived

All of the efforts so far point to one day … when Thanksgiving is over and the turkey and pumpkin pie consumed yesterday will be burned off today.

It's the biggest shopping day of the year. This is what the entire Target team has been working for, and waiting for, the whole year: the beginning of the season when stores like Target make close to half their annual income. The day that, for some shoppers, starts at 5 a.m. and goes until closing time.

At 4:30 a.m., Cathy Flewellin unlocks the front doors to let employees in. The store is practically dark until she punches in the code to turn on the lights to the rest of the store. The lights flicker twice before completely illuminating, and the store is fully lit. The re-waxed tiles shimmer in the light and almost everything seems in order.

Next, she boots up the registers and helps stocks them with the appropriate currency and rolls of quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies.

As Cathy walks to the back, she notices several women already have lined up outside the doors, waiting for their chance to get into the store before anyone else.

"It's only 5 a.m.," Cathy murmurs. The store doesn't open until 7.

When she makes it to the stock room, she begins to place all the items from the sale flyer on pallets and rollers to be wheeled out to their places on the sale floor. Half of her morning team is busy unloading the remainder of a truck, and the other half is busy placing items throughout the store.

A few minutes before 7 a.m., Cathy walks back to the fitting rooms, in the middle of the men's and women's clothing department. A pyramid, stacked almost eight feet tall, of five-disk CD-changer stereos, which are on sale for $48, is situated next to the fitting room.

She knows what's about to happen to those stereos as soon as she opens the front doors. The stereos were in the Thanksgiving flyer.

At 7 a.m., Cathy walks up to the red front doors of the store. Nearly 100 shoppers have gathered outside. The crowd is not yet restless, but it is easy to tell that people are fidgeting and more than eager to get started.

Cathy addresses the crowd.

"The stereos in the ad are located back in electronics and back by the fitting rooms by men's and women's," she says.

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

As Cathy finishes speaking outside the doors, an elderly man, wearing a red apron with the shield of the Salvation Army, stands next to the familiar tripod with a red bowl hanging from it. He begins ringing his brass bell.

And, as Cathy steps out of the entranceway, the frontrunners in the crowd jolt forward. The stern looks of determination on the women's faces say there is no way they are not getting one of those stereos. Half of the group turns to the right and heads toward the electronics department and the other half runs straight toward the fitting rooms.

Although the stereos will not be the day's biggest-selling item, they certainly sell the fastest.

"Well, we are sold out of the stereos back at the fitting room," Cathy says over her walkie-talkie.

"Sold out here, too," a voice replies from the electronics department.

It's 7:20 a.m. Two hundred stereos have sold out in 20 minutes.

The front doors see thousands of people enter and exit all day, from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Once inside, beeps from the registers, strange voices, sizzles from the grill in Food Avenue and crying children assault the ears. The Asset Protection team is busy watching as you walk through the door. With so many people, there are now four team members walking around the store, making sure items like the new Britney Spears CD don't fall victim to the five-finger discount.

By midday, shoppers weave in and out of countless people and red carts, not even noticing the snowflakes hanging above, hoping to get the stereo that is on sale. Alas, there are none. But for spending upwards of two hours in the store, including a half-hour in a checkout line, they might have found other things on their lists: a Gameboy Advance, or the newest Harry Potter video game.

The Aftermath

By 11 p.m., the store is ravaged and left for the closing team members to mumble and mope around while trying to make the store look like it did yesterday.

The toy aisles are undoubtedly the worst. Harry Potter merchandise is scattered everywhere, even down the Barbie aisle. Only a handful of action figures are actually hanging on their respective pegs. And the biggest vacancy of the day is where Babbling Boo, from the movie "Monsters, Inc.," used to sit. To the disappointment of many, she will not return to that spot for the rest of the year.

The money from the cash registers is gathered from Electronics, Jewelry and the front lanes.

"We have made sales today by a lot," Cathy says over her walkie-talkie. "Way to go, team."

"Woo Hoo!" responds a voice through the other end.

Now all that's left to do for the Red and Khaki Target Team is to hang everything back up on its respective pegs, fold all the clothes and towels and straighten the ornaments in the Christmas section. The store will look good for less than 12 hours, and then the cycle starts over again and won't end until after the New Year.

# # #

Source list:
· (Cathy Flewellin, Executive Team Leader- Logistics, 748-3080)
· (Joe Hodder, Level 2 Seasonal, 748-3080)
· (Alex Alaniz, Senior Assets Protection Specialist, 748-3080)
· (Kyle Schambach, Target Protection Specialist, 748-3080)