Yesterday.
The XBox 360 launched. System allocations were extremely tight. Microsoft cut allocations twice in the weeks running up to the November 22nd launch resulting in a few customer service issues. But by Monday customers who knew they wouldn’t be getting a system on Launch Day seemed pretty accepting of the fact, and yesterday’s launch went very smoothly.
We did a midnight opening at the store. Initially I was against the idea–I didn’t really see the point with so few systems available, but in talking the idea through with my supervisor we decided to do a midnight launch. Then, after I’d informed the launch day customers of the midnight opening my supervisor decided I shouldn’t do a midnight opening. Rather than recall these customers and tell them that my supervisor decided against opening at midnight I decided to go ahead and do the midnight opening anyway.
Took all of about fifteen minutes. The Halo 2 midnight opening, by comparison, lasted an hour and a half. The World of WarCraft midnight opening lasted about forty-five minutes.
I closed the registers down, went home, had a Guinness, and went to bed. The alarm going off at 5:30 came too soon. I had to be back at the store at 7:00 for an eight o’clock opening.
The morning went fine. Less than ten pre-orders hadn’t picked their systems up at midnight, and we had no systems available to walk-in traffic. By about one I felt like I’d hit a physical wall, and in a way I had–between the midnight shift and the morning shift I’d worked a full day. So about two I called it a day, then went to Best Buy and puttered about for no particular reason.
I got home, took a nap, got up in time for House, and went back to bed. Tired, that I was.
It’s starting to feel like the Christmas season. It’s not unseasonably warm anymore. The malls have their Christmas decorations up. I put some Christmas music in the stereo–the Fab Four’s two albums of Beatles-inspired Christmas music.
Pre-Thanksgiving.