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Last Thanksgiving the conversation was going pretty well on Thanksgiving but mid afternoon the younger people started to get restless. They kept looking at the time and started to talk about leaving the house around 5PM so they could be first in line when the stores opened at 6PM at the local shopping mall.
Our original plan was to have our formal Thanksgiving dinner at 5 PM but many family members were angry about this because all the stores would be opening then. They wanted to move dinner to 4 PM instead. After many tears, and lots of shouting, finally Grandma approved the changed time. By 4:30 we were just getting into the conversation and a group of people announced they wanted to leave immediately so they could get in line at Best Buy.
There went our glorious Turkey Thanksgiving Dinner. Can you relate? (The stores are opening up even an hour earlier this year!)
Nobody in my family shops on Thanksgiving. It's like...a RULE. I might break it to run to 7-Eleven for emergency toilet paper or band-aids or something, but that's it. I refuse to shop on national holidays on general principle.
I also do not participate in Black Friday at stores. I've made online purchases before, but I have not gone out on BF in years. I don't plan to do it this year. It's madness.
Who goes to brick and mortar stores anymore? I can shop whenever I want and get the best deal I can find over the whole internet from my armchair....
I like to go to the store for certain things, because I want to see them or try them. A lot of times I find a better price online later. In the case of the office chair, I need to go there so I can test it out, see if it's comfortable, etc. I'm going to go on Thursday if it will save me almost 50% like the ad says. Hopefully it will won't take too long. I'm going to run right to that section and avoid all the other aisles. LOL
It doesn't affect us as none of my family shops on Thanksgiving, at least none of us that are at dinner. It's an hour drive to get to dinner, but the car is already gassed up the day before. Last year we did stop at a grocery store on the way back to get some cranberry sauce for the leftover dressing we were sent home with. That was the extent of our Thanksgiving shopping.
My aunt does mention Black Friday however and looks at the advertisements, as she and a friend always get up early the next morning to go. I am not planning to go this year, I never feel like getting up that early and there never seems to be anything worth the effort and crowds.
I could be wrong but, as far as the stores, I think it would be good if stores could come up with a way to allow employees to choose if they want to work that day. Some will want to have the day off to be with family, but many might not want to be home alone.
As far as football, what about the Macy's parade? That's another thing that causes people to work on Thanksgiving.
I know that people who work in retail are adversely affected by this and I will not go and patronize stores on Thursday or Friday.
I used to work in retail and remember Black Friday. It isn't worth it.
I would hate to be at work on Thurs. or Fri. and have an empty store if people all decided not to shop those days. It would be a very looooong and boring day for a store full of employees who have to be there whether customers are or not.
I have never had a negative Black Friday experience as an employee. Our store doesn't get all the crazies that other stores seem to get, although I'd be more than willing to bet that negative stuff happens in very few stores but they are the ones who make the news. I have never in my life shopped a Black Friday so my job was the first experience I ever had with that particular event.
I thought Millennials were broke. Or so overwhelmed by student loan debt and depressed by having jobs not in their major that they had no money to shop.
Maybe this is why they're broke They also went to college at the height of the credit cards for college students craze (which just started back when I was in college in the late 1980s and pretty much disappeared with the 2008 financial meltdown)
It's interesting that people get so outraged about shopping on Thanksgiving and rail against the injustice of making retail workers work on the Holiday. Yet I've never heard outrage for other people who have to work on Thanksgiving. And I'm not even talking about essential workers like fire, police, paramedics and hospital employees. I'm talking about other services that are technically not necessary. Eating out, going to the movies, or even traveling on Thanksgiving. Where's the outrage on behalf of ticket takers, waitstaff, kitchen staff, airport/airline employees, hotel employees, convenience store employees, roadside assistance? (And yes, I recognize that some people would consider travel to be essential, but I would disagree. It's NICE to be able to travel to join family for the holiday, but traveling on the actual day is usually at the expense of someone else who has to work to make that happen). Even if *you* do not partake of any of these services, you are well aware that plenty of people do. So where's your outrage over that?
A lot of it is the idea of stores being open on Thanksgiving is very recent, so its kind of something that was "taken away" from them. Also in the trave/airline/hotel industry on a very limited staff work on Thanksgiving Day, its usually done on a volunteer basis as best as possible, and with perks like double pay to encouarge volunteers. When this nonsense with retailers began a few years ago, they did this too but not most of them force their employees to work at regular pay.
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99% of our Christmas shopping is done online and we would never set foot in any store on Thanksgiving or Black Friday. Same goes for the 14 or so family that come for Thanksgiving dinner at our house.
The bulk of those jobs aren't about commercialization like retail is.
Airports are practically dead on Thanksgiving. Very few are actually working on that day. Many convenience stores are closed around here. I've never had roadside assistance show up on a holiday!
Practically every job I've ever worked, worked holidays. It isn't just retail workers, although every convenience store I've worked in certainly was open on Thanksgiving. It's also service jobs such as hotel workers, who actually have more work on holidays due to the influx of travelers, and my husband's job as a correction officer -or prison guard, if you prefer. Police, hospital staffs, firefighters, etc. all work holidays. People need to realize that, before whining about the poor box-store retail workers.
I've wondered that, myself. Maybe we're just at the point where retail is one of the kind of jobs that works holidays. It's certainly not the only one.
When I was younger I needed that time-and-a-half more than I needed a big dinner with family.
Now, I don't shop on Thanksgiving because I don't like shopping, not because it's Thanksgiving. If some people shop, if some stores are open, . . . I don't understand why that upsets the people who don't want to participate anyway. And as for restaurants - my family will be together for the first time in many years this year, and we are going to a restaurant, as it is not possible for our parents to host anymore. (It is their town we are gathering in.)
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They also went to college at the height of the credit cards for college students craze (which just started back when I was in college in the late 1980s and pretty much disappeared with the 2008 financial meltdown)
