Black Friday

Recently reconverted into retail, I’ve just survived my first Black Friday — or rather Black Week, because apparently one chaotic day wasn’t enough.
It was insane, messy and completely absurd.
But as I went through it, I realized something surprising: I have never felt as stressed in retail as I did waiting for a paper to be reviewed.

Naturally, my scientist brain started drawing parallels between the two worlds.
Some funny.
Some… less funny.
Here they are.

The Hook

Black Friday hooks are big signs, bold promises, flashy ads.
“–30% OFF IN THE ENTIRE STORE!”

— and suddenly people come running inside.

Scientific titles work exactly the same way: a snappy sentence, a clever twist, a hint of novelty — bam, people start reading.

But as soon as you walk closer to the shiny sign, the fine print appears:

“Spend 500 NOK first.”
“Results may vary.”

Just like the “limitations” paragraph we all bury somewhere at the end.

The Pre–Black-Friday Hype

Customers scan the store days in advance, mentally mapping which aisle to sprint to on D-day, to reach their favorite item as quickly as possible.

Researchers follow similar patterns: we try to shape projects to fit a specific call, a trend of the moment, or whatever is currently “in fashion” scientifically.

But when the big day comes, the landscape may have shifted — goods suddenly out of stock, as funding suddenly cut, or the topic no longer considered sexy.

In both cases, we stalk numbers (prices or impact factors) because they dictate where we will allegedly run.

We can also seen high-impact journals as the luxury brands or rare goods of the academic season; everyone wants them, few get them, and it usually requires sacrificing sleep, sanity, or both.

The Security Guards

Many shops have security guards — and reviewers come in the same species (except reviewers are not optional...).

• The chill ones: they pick up only the most obvious issues.
• The hyper-vigilant ones: spot a typo on page 17, line 3, and write you an entire paragraph about it.
• The silent skeptics: quietly convinced that everything is slightly suspicious.

Nothing gets past them — except maybe your sanity (again).

The Refreshed Page

Like customers refreshing a checkout page hoping for a price drop, we refresh our browsers and email boxes obsessively, waiting for any update from the journal.

No, it won't magically appear because you checked 12 times.
Yes, we all check anyway.

The Fake Email Discounts

Black Week brings a flood of fake discounts — those “70% OFF” deals that were never really 70% off.

Predatory journals fit perfectly here. They “invite” you to a Special Issue the same way sketchy websites “invite” you to click for your Black Friday reward.

Your inbox says:
“Dear Esteemed Researcher, we admire your outstanding contributions…”

Sure you do. But it’s overwhelming, it’s pushy, and most of all: you absolutely didn’t ask for any of it (or you don't need it at first).
But they really, really want you to think you did (evil face).

The Store on Black Friday

Black Friday stores are a mess: people and goods everywhere, zero space, noise, confusion.

Scientific publishing system feels weirdly similar.

Furthermore, like trying to squeeze as many hoodies as possible onto a tiny hanging bar, you’re trying to squeeze your entire project — years of work — into:

• a 150-word abstract in a post-it note,
• a results section in a space the size of a fitting room,
• a 500-word discussion, which is about the number of seconds you have at the cashier before the next customer loses patience.

It’s like trying to fit the entire Black Friday crowd into a single aisle!
Good luck.

The Fitting Room

The supplementary materials are like the fitting room hangers: full of items you don’t know where to put back, mismatched data that no longer fits, and extra stuff that somehow appeared but you keep around anyway.

The Clearance Sale

Speaking of supplementary materials — welcome to the Clearance section!

Good items, not available in enough sizes or quantities, end their journey here, sold for cheap.

Same for all the extra experiments, late-night controls, expensive assays and clever side analyses of your paper.
Everything ends up buried in the supplement.

With clearance items, you face an eternal dilemma:

• Share as much as possible, even if it gets lost in the digital basement of the PDF;
  or
• Keep it in the back room, where only your colleagues will ever see it?

Usually, we force the first option — because we genuinely want to share.

Conclusion:

Far from being as stressful as waiting for reviewer comments, retail chaos made me realise something:
academia prepared me for much more than science.
Organisation, multitasking, crisis management, emotional damage — it was all already part of the PhD starter pack.

So yes, maybe I did just invent a new PhD subject (?):
“Comparative Study of Black Friday Behaviour and Academia Stress Responses.”
Someone fund me before it goes out of fashion!