This year, as I have for the past eight years, I will be working on Thanksgiving Day. I work retail, and we have this thing called “Black Friday” or some such named event, depending on the store.
For the last two or three years, people have been complaining about Black Friday starting earlier and earlier and claim to feel badly for poor oppressed retail workers who have to work on Thanksgiving Day rather than spend it with their families.
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So here’s my take, as an actual retail employee who does work on Thanksgiving.
I choose to work retail. No one has a gun to my head. I am not in “forced labor.”
When I first started Black Friday actually started on Friday at 5 a.m. In order to get the store prepared, there was a crew of us at the store at 9 p.m. on Thanksgiving night. Just so that all shoppers are aware, the “magic” of Black Friday does not happen all by itself.
What I don’t understand is why retail workers are the only ones whose work on Thanksgiving causes such ire. I never hear about the poor soldiers all over the world and in America having to work and miss the day with their families, nor do I hear about the police (I worked for Los Angeles county sheriff’s as a civilian for 17 years and was on call), doctor or nurses (trust me, when our son Todd was admitted to the hospital during Thanksgiving week as an infant, we were sure glad it was open on Thanksgiving), or those who work at restaurants and fast food establishments as well as theaters.
Last year I worked Thanksgiving, and we had Thanksgiving on the day after. This year, my wife and son will celebrate Thanksgiving at the assisted living place that my in-laws live, and, by the way, no one is protesting that the staff there is having to work on Thanksgiving.
My personal feeling is that all the fuss about this is orchestrated by unions who are dying on the vine in the private sector and, frankly, need revenue. I recommend you “follow the money” and take Wal-Mart as an example. If unions were able to unionize Wal-Mart, it would create a financial windfall in the lucky union’s bottom line. The same would happen if any other large national retail company or fast food business was unionized.
Photo: Newscom
This outrage about people working Thanksgiving isn’t about the poor down trodden worker. Instead, it’s a ploy by unions hoping to spur unionization—and pocket a great windfall.
Don’t feel bad that I have to work Thursday. I don’t.
If you don’t like businesses that start Black Friday early, don’t shop there. But let everyone else. One of the differences between liberals and conservatives is that when conservatives don’t like something we don’t shop there. Liberals, on the other hand, aren’t content with that. They want to make it so that no one can shop there.
