I have no plans to shop on Thanksgiving Day, or Friday, nor do I want anybody to work on Thanksgiving Day. However, I find that the outrage over some retailers’ decisions to be open on Thanksgiving Day more than a little contrived. People have always worked ”non-essential” jobs on Thanksgiving. They will again this year and next year.
It’s amusing that media and some consumers are taking umbrage with the fact that Target, Best Buy and others will be open next Thursday. Yet people have had no qualms about going to a grocery store, gas station, theater, McDonalds….or purchasing from Amazon, or iTunes on previous Thanksgivings.
Has anybody ever protested the fact that the Detroit Lions or Dallas Cowboys are forced to play football on Thanksgiving Day? Probably not, because their freakin’ rich. Though there are hundreds of concession workers, security officers, parking lot attendants, who are compensated far less handsomely than the players. They are compelled to be away from their families on Thanksgiving Day. Has anybody ever championed their cause?
I don’t suspect that there much outcry when I had to wash dishes, or stock the salad bar, at Skeeter’s Breakfast House. Management always predicted a rush of Thankgiving diners. There never was. There was usually about 20 customers each Thanksgiving that I worked, most of them were visiting professors from other countries and their families. The wait staff didn’t see much in the way in tips when they worked Thanksgiving, so they made just a shade over what we called “waitress minimum” which was $2/hour at the time. Where there protests?
I do feel sorry for the employees at these retail chains that have work on Thanksgiving. But not any sorrier for the wait staff, toll-takers, or flight attendants that will be working and have always worked on Thanksgiving.
I don’t fault the retailers who starting are Black Friday on Thursday for doing so. If these stores have good numbers they’ll repeat it next year, if the numbers are weak, they may or may not. I like to think if I were a decision maker in a retail chain that all stores would be closed.
Nothing is forcing the customers to visit these stores, during the holiday weekend, or in some cases to camp out in frigid conditions to be “first.” While shopping in general is unappealing, shopping amongst a ravenous crowd of deal-seekers suits neither my habit or my health.
If you shop on Thanksgiving, or the following day, that’s your choice, but you should pause for a moment to remember Walter Vance and Jdimytai Damour.
Perhaps the fourth Thursday in November that currently know as Thankgiving will one day be known as Black Friday Eve or perhaps Navy Blue Thursday.