End the War -- on Thanksgiving

and if it "killed" the one and only time I did it I could call myself a comedian

 

True story: The restaurant I worked at in the late 1980s never closed for any holiday, so I worked Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter.

With that said, the managers always made sure that the employees didn't have to work more than a four-hour shift on those days, so you would have at least some time to spend with your family.

 

I worked plenty of Thanksgiving nights putting out the Friday newspaper.

 

Me too. Going to do it again this Thanksgiving.

 

There are a few reasons I don't understand how people can get all twisted up about this stuff.

If people didn't go out in mass droves to these sales, and stay out all the night and most of the next morning, the stores wouldn't freaking open at 8 a.m. If you work in retail, you sort of chose to be exposed to this. And thousands of people work holidays doing much more important things than selling cheap DVD players, yet you never hear anything about them.

I actually posed the latter question on FB last year when I got upset at hearing the billionth sympathy statement for the poor retail workers -- name all the different people who work on holidays. It's amazing how many different industries you can come up with. One friend who said he hadn't thought about it went out and bought coffee and some muffins (more people working) and delivered it to people staffing a food bank on Thanksgiving.

 

The difference with your example, though, is that a food bank is seen as more of a necessity than a store being open so somebody can buy the latest gadget.

The same with people working as cops, doctors, firemen, gas station workers, transportation workers, and perhaps, even journalists. Jobs that are seen as a necessity.

 

Yeah, I've worked enough holidays over the years that I'm not overly sympathetic to those who have to work. A lot of people had to work on Thanksgiving before just to get ready for Black Friday. I think it makes more sense just to be open on each day.

Places are trying to compete with the online dollar and this is one way to do it. I think it's brilliant, shop early and then have Thanksgiving, or eat early and then go shopping...

 

But that's sort of my point. I don't think people realize how many people work, especially the ones who we need to work. Yet we get all hung up about retail. No one goes crazy about the people who work the football games we all like to watch. How many hundreds of people lose their holidays for that?

 

I think it's more of an indictment of bloated, shopaholic Murricans than it is greedy stores. They're opening because conditions dictate that we're such a sick culture that we can't take a day off from our fucking consumerism for one Goddam day to actual ineract with humans and - heaven forbid - family. Wait until you start having "after Christmas" sales starting at like 6 p.m. Christmas day. These sickies will be lined up around the corner. Just promise HDTVs for $99 or some such shit.

 

Yeah, God forbid the Daily Bugle wasn't on the doorstep Friday morning.

Where would people go for news?

You think that maybe the reason they "need" to put out the Friday after Thanksgiving paper might be because it's one of the heaviest ad days of the year?

 

Actually, Thanksgiving Day itself (Thursday morning) is THE biggest ad day of the year. Retailers like to get the specials out ahead of time. For our paper, the ad inserts are way bigger than an average Sunday paper. Inserts the next morning are not much heavier than a typical Friday.

 

Funny how some people are for worker's rights and benefits, except when it comes to working on holidays, because journalists have to do it all the time. It's not a badge of honor to work on holidays. It's awful.