Please don't shop on Thanksgiving

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Yeah, I’ve shopped on Thanksgiving. Good deals at JCPennies last year. It sure beats sitting at home and wasting away in front of the TV 📺 or IPhone :iphone:

Thanksgiving isn’t a Holy Day of Obligation. People are free to celebrate and enjoy the day as they see fit 🦃 Not everyone is hosting a feast or entertaining family.
 
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Exactly, @Cruciferi

Thanksgiving is a secular celebration, it is not an HDO.

Our family Tradition is meal then go out to a movie on Thanksgiving. When I was young, on Thanksgiving evening we would go to a local club to hear bands play live.
 
While I know that Thanksgiving is not an HDO, it’s certainly a day of obligation for the people who will lose their jobs if they don’t work that day … these being the people who made other people’s day of big fun time possible.

(*waits for possible responses of, not my problem if other people have low-paying jobs; why, they’re probably glad to have them on any terms … *)

:shrugs:
:sad:

EDIT: to be fair, I hadn’t considered concerts, where the players chose the day precisely to make someone else’s holiday better. Well played!
 
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There were a few Thanksgivings where I worked right up to Thanksgiving Day and then we ended up going out to Wal Mart at 11 pm to get steaks to cook for dinner so we could have a quiet holiday evening at home.

There have been other Thanksgivings where I was not participating in a holiday meal and went to whatever fast food restaurant was open in order to get something to eat. And still other Thanksgivings where I was cooking and needed to go to the store to get some supplies that I didn’t have time to get before that because I was working or in school right up to the holiday.

The last few years, I usually spend Thanksgiving with a senior citizen and we get our meal from Boston Market along with dozens of other people. Boston Market brings on extra staff for this annual crush of customers. So do other restaurants where people go for Thanksgiving food.

For years there was also a local punk club that always had a good show on Thanksgiving evening so people could unwind after their family turkey dinners - and those who did not have families or were estranged from them had a place to go and be with a welcoming community of friends. I remember another punk bar that was open all afternoon and had free turkey dinner (bought from Boston Market) for anybody who needed a place to go.

I agree that people should be permitted to spend Thanksgiving holiday as they wish. I’m not a fan of running out to WalMart for a deal on a toy or an electronics item, but that might be what makes someone else’s holiday. I don’t think it’s right to impose one’s values on others. An impoverished person I know pointed out a couple years back that a lot of the looking-down-the-nose at shopping is coming from people who are more well-off or more “cultured” and either don’t need the discount on that big screen TV or don’t understand what it actually means to the people who are out trying to get a deal on one, because they can’t afford one without the deal.

If the concern is workers not getting to spend “family time”, I’m thinking of all the first responders, medical personnel, caregivers, and others who likely need to work on holidays whether people shop or not. If you work in a sales business or a restaurant business, you have to accept that you may have to work on days that your customers have off so they can come patronize your business on those days. If this is a huge problem then perhaps find another line of work.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
If the concern is workers not getting to spend “family time”, I’m thinking of all the first responders, medical personnel, caregivers, and others who likely need to work on holidays whether people shop or not.
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I may have to work Thanksgiving Evening. Doesn’t bother me, I get Overtime 😊
 
Just to add on: There are also people who are glad to work on Thanksgiving. Perhaps they need the money. Perhaps they don’t have any family, or their family is far away, so going to work and being with people and being useful is better than sitting home alone and isolated. It’s a bit wrong to assume that everybody wants a day off. I would hope that those who want to work or don’t mind working would do their share of stepping up to take the shifts so the person who really wants or needs that day off can have it. I know that’s not always possible, but I think it’s a bit oversimplistic to assume every person in a job wants Thanksgiving off.
 
Cruciferi said:
I may have to work Thanksgiving Evening. Doesn’t bother me, I get Overtime 😊
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I’ve done my share of working on holidays. Thanksgiving and Christmas too. I remember doing unpaid shifts as a radio DJ. I didn’t mind because I felt like via the airwaves, I was keeping people company over the holiday who needed that.
Which reminds me that all the newscasters, broadcasters, people who run our media will be working too, so when folks turn on that big-screen TV there will be something to watch.
 
In my experience, people are happy to work a shift on the Holiday because of the bonus pay.
 
I’m not against shopping on Thanksgiving…It’s just, I don’t want to make people work on a day that, if I had a job, I’d rather have off.
 
Bonus pay? Not where I work. We are the only supermarket open on Thanksgiving Day (Walmart) in our town and it irks me to no end when people come up to me when I’m working and say “I think it’s terrible that they make you work on Thanksgiving!” I haven’t given my two-weeks notice yet or I’d respond with, “I guarantee, if shoppers wouldn’t show up, they’d close on Thanksgiving!”

It’s just sad to see how many employees are actually scheduled for the main task of providing crowd control for when the “black Friday” sales start at 6 p.m. When the store transitioned from Halloween directly to Christmas, my manager remarked, “Of course, we have the ‘gimme candy’ holiday and go right into the ‘gimme presents’ holiday and forget all about the holiday to be thankful.”

What’s ironic is that the McDonald’s that’s in the front of our store is closed on Thanksgiving Day.

Edited to add: And we no longer get holiday pay for Christmas, New Year, Thanksgiving, etc. unless we request it in the form of PTO. We get paid straight time for all Federal holidays.
 
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Completely apart from the question of whether people should have time off and whether stores should push commercial sales on a holiday, it’s kind of weird having secular society emphasizing giving thanks when so many don’t even believe in God or think even if he does exist, he doesn’t do anything worth thanking Him for.

The idea of just being grateful on some level, even on a secular level, to live in a “free country” doesn’t seem to fly with a lot of people who think the USA is a mess or aren’t doing well economically/ socially. The idea of the Native Americans helping the Pilgrims survive and all of them making peace and eating a meal together is politically incorrect or poitically challenged by many. And there are endless jokes and snarky commercials about what a pain it is for young people to eat a Thanksgiving meal with parents and other members of the older generation.

It seems like Thanksgiving is getting rebranded as a commercial holiday called “Friendsgiving” (I am seeing this term used a lot) where people hang out with their friends and eat tacos together before you all head off to a big movie premiere or a Black Friday event, thereby boosting the economy. Like I said, I don’t want to impose my values or my way of celebrating a holiday on other people, and for many whose family situation is not the greatest including myself, we just have to make do and get through these holidays the best we can; if that means people eat with their friends and go to a movie or a show or an event, then fine. But I’m not inclined to think society should put “Friendsgiving” in its current commercialized form up on some big pedestal of holidays either.
 
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On the rare occasion that I shop on Thanksgiving, it’s for last minute items after Mass. I really prefer not to have to get out except for Mass.
 
bluerose said:
Edited to add: And we no longer get holiday pay for Christmas, New Year, Thanksgiving, etc. unless we request it in the form of PTO. We get paid straight time for all Federal holidays.
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WalMart gives you the bonus in the form of paid time off. That is still extra pay, you will get another day off yet get paid for it.
 
True, but since PTO is based on the number of hours worked and they have been consistently cutting our hours in the last year, it pretty much cancels out holiday pay as we once knew it. One of the guys in my department took the time to figure it out and that’s what it amounts to. Hardly anyone requests PTO for holidays because it cuts down on the number of hours they have for sick leave/vacation, although some associates have had their hours cut so much that they cash in PTO to get a full 40 hr week paycheck.
 
bluerose said:
I haven’t given my two-weeks notice yet or I’d respond with, “I guarantee, if shoppers wouldn’t show up, they’d close on Thanksgiving!”
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I used to work at a Dollar Tree and when people would say things like that on a holiday, I had the same thoughts.
 
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