Let me cut to the chase: You should not go shopping on Friday. Black Friday is amateur night (and morning, afternoon, and evening) – a time when shoppers work themselves into a frenzy over deals that aren’t even the best of the season .

Also, this year retailers have really crossed a line with regard to how they treat their workers. Asking employees to be ready for 5am “door busters” is crazy enough, but now some big chains have pushed back their opening time to 8pm on Thursday evening – before the Thanksgiving food coma has even set in.

Another thing slated to happen this Black Friday is a nationwide strike by many Wal-Mart employees. Employees in 12 cities have been walking off the job and picketing for the past week or so, and they’ve planned a wide range of actions for Friday. Sarah Jaffe explains why at the Guardian:

Walmart is by far the nation's largest retailer, with 2.2 million employees (the next largest is Target with 365,000), and its low wages have set the tone for a nation where the majority of jobs created in the so-called economic recovery pay less than $13.83 per hour ....