Stores open on Thanksgiving...a rant

Beemerguy53

Beemerguy53

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My elder son is a mall retail store manager, in a very popular store that sells video games. (Well, actually he's a musician, so of course he has a day job, LOL!) His wife works part-time in a mall store that caters to women, and sells soaps, lotions, potions, etc. (It's not in the same mall as my son's store.)

My son's store will open at midnight on Thanksgiving, and he has to be there. My daughter-in-law has been ordered to report to work at her store at 8 PM on Thanksgiving night!

This really ticks me off. Of all our holidays, Thanksgiving is supposed to be the one we spend with our families. We all know that Black Friday is very important to the business community, and I am sympathetic to that. But making people come into work on Thanksgiving night? That's just plain wrong...is making a buck, or saving a buck, that all-fired important? :(
 
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Preaching to the choir, Beemerguy. All we can do as consumers is stay home. If paying the help is more than the cash register receipts that day, maybe the powers-that-be will rethink all this. Sadly, I fear we're the minority here. I fully expect the stores and malls will be jammed.
 
Donn said:
Preaching to the choir, Beemerguy. All we can do as consumers is stay home. If paying the help is more than the cash register receipts that day, maybe the powers-that-be will rethink all this. Sadly, I fear we're the minority here. I fully expect the stores and malls will be jammed.
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They most certainly will....Each year we sacrifice a bit more tradition and time with family seeking bargains frequently on stuff we don't need and can't afford.....and call it progress.
 
If people didn't want to shop at these times, there wouldn't be any stores open. Sadly, this is not the case. On Friday after Thanksgiving we will see the same ol' videos of people getting trampled just so someone can be the first to buy the latest fad from China.
 
Yeah bad deal with all the greed. Personally I stay home on black Friday and have for years. Best deals have been shown to be had after black Friday anyway. Most of what is on sale is junk for the stampeding herd anyway.

I'll agree that stores should be closed those days just as long as Chinese restaurants be allowed to remain open on Thanksgiving and Christmas :cool:
 
It's sad and pathetic that certain holidays have lost their true meaning to greed and selfishness.
I know as an American Native I'm 'supposed' to like certain holidays and I'm 'supposed' to dislike certain holidays but I don't always do what I'm 'supposed' to do.
Whatever a persons beliefs or heritage, the Holidays should represent a time of family and of setting aside pettyness and greed.
It's not too much to ask, just for a little while once a year.
 
Lotsa likes for this thread. One chain (Target?) is opeing at 6am on turkey day and will stay open all day. No family dinner for those folks. The Denver Post even published an editorial yesterday condemning this.

For all the people against it a lot of scavengers will be out there. They are the ones to blame.
 
We will no doubt pass many a line of cold,unfortunate and slightly delusional shoppers lined up with a couple hundred of their newest friends on our early drive to Montreal. We prefer to spend Black Friday in a far more civilized fashion, having a good dinner and drinks with some of our neighbors to the North warmed in the company and the wine.
 
I worked in a retail pharmacy for 15 years and we were open all holidays with restricted hours. Can't recall how many times a customer would say it was terrible I had to work a holiday without recognizing that if they had not come to shop then maybe I would have to be there.
I don't recall many times where someone had an emergency that required a pharmacy on a holiday and no running out of your meds a day or two before the holiday and then showing up on the holiday is not an emergency and there are very few drugs that cannot skip a dose without serious problems.
On the other hand working 9-3 on a holiday when I got paid 2.5x my regular wage and had the family and dinner ready and waiting for me to arrive was kinda nice.
Not sure we can blame the shoppers at lease not entirely since no one it's forcing the details to have mega sales on that day and many in the past few years have extended their sales to all weekend and of course cyber Monday.
Or consider two facts. 1 many people with full time jobs have the day after thanksgiving off work and may not have done any shopping for Christmas yet so it makes sense for the retailers to take advantage of it.
 
We've been on this slippery slope for quite a while. In 1976 I was working at JC Penney, and the decision was made for the store be open on New Years' Day 1977. The wives dragged the husbands along, and we had the bowl games on in the TV department (this was back when Penney's still sold hard goods). The place was packed with men whose wives were looking at clothes, and they sold TV's like it was the Oklahoma Land Office in 1889. I can't tell you how many I lugged out to the loading dock.

At that point the die was cast, with no going back. There was way too much money to be made to go back to being closed on a Holiday. It's been trending this way ever since, and we all know it isn't going to change no matter how much we gripe about how wrong we think it is.

Edit: There are always professions who do not have the luxury of asking whether or not they should be on duty on a Holiday. I was in one for some years, and when single I volunteered to work the family holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter) so others could take the day off, in exchange for them working New Year's Eve and Day for me to have them off. When I was married, I did the reverse.

I give a tip of the hat and a vote of thanks for those in the Armed Services, Police, Firefighters, 911 dispatchers, trauma personnel and other essential, life-saving occupations who DO have to work 24/7/365 in order that the general public (me) can go about whatever they do more safely, regardless of what day it may be.
 
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The "Winners"???

Lots of people buy thing they don't need, with money they don't have, to impress people they don't like.

Many of them will be at these 'sales' buying things they didn't even didn't know they needed until they fought their way through the crowds and 'scored'.


Art
 
This is just one more sign of the disintegration of our culture. More and more it is money and laws replacing our cultural moral values, and our social norms and morays, and even our religious beliefs.
 
Sheesh...

I refuse to allow the choice of other people's shopping days to affect how I choose to relate to my family. Nor do I allow those choices to make me feel like it's "replacing our cultural moral values".

Some of you are trying extra hard to be grumpy old men. Get off your own lawn, you grumps...:mad:


Sgt Lumpy
 
Don't worry, before long Black Friday and Thanksgiving shopping will be passe. The big thing will be Black Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, before Thanksgiving.
 
just go on ebay/amazon. I get the same deals all year. Don't get the whole..."lets go stand in line all day to save $30"
 
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