When you love someone who works in the retail industry, you know their job is stressful, though most people don’t believe it to be so. You start to realize that not everyone is as thankful as you are for assistance in a store. You really begin to notice how poorly human beings treat one another on a daily basis over such frivolous things. In fact, most customers don’t even think about the life of a retail employee period. They definitely don’t consider them to be people during the holiday season.
When you love someone who works in retail, watching and acknowledging the way people treat them eventually makes you begin to dislike other shoppers. As if you didn’t dislike other shoppers enough to begin with, now you get to hear some extremely cringe-worthy horror stories. The things that some people do and say to retail employees are downright awful, and nine times out of ten, it’s honestly just because the employee was unable to give the customer the answer that they were looking for.
A good portion of these employees are just working their way through college. Many of them are working these jobs because they’ve graduated and haven’t been able to find a position in their field due to the current job market. Some of the people you meet working retail already have a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree or even higher levels of degrees. Yet they are too often treated like scum by shoppers.
For some of us in college, holiday breaks may be the only time we really get to see our significant others and families. This is especially true if you work full-time while going to school. As many of us are or know retail employees, we lose this precious time together. When you go into a store on Thanksgiving, you are perpetuating a materialistic view that things are more important than the time these employees, along with yourself, will get to spend with family.
What is it all for? Why is Black Friday not enough for holiday shoppers anymore? Why are we even opening stores on Thanksgiving and Black Friday when we have this gift from God called Cyber Monday? Why are we all giving up our family time on Thanksgiving to go buy a waffle iron for $10? Why does my fiancé have to be at work at 3 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day?
So people can go buy a television or some other item.
Most people don’t even have their Thanksgiving celebration until lunch or supper time. Why are we forcing people who are not in pertinent positions to work on what is supposed to be a day of thanks? These people are not in the military. They are not nurses, doctors or paramedics. They are not in a field that the world cannot live without for a single day.
I have never shopped on Thanksgiving or Black Friday, and I can honestly say that I never will. I do not believe in valuing items over time. I commend the stores that have said they will be keeping their doors shut on Thanksgiving. They are trying to lead by example, reminding us all that there are more important things in the world than whatever item is sitting on a shelf waiting for you to purchase it.
Those items are there any other day of the year — your family may not be.
I understand the sales are quite the steal, but they’re just as good, and sometimes better, throughout the year if you actually pay attention. Do you even remember a Thanksgiving where you didn’t hear about Black Friday? No, I thought not. That is because we have been conditioned to think that the sales on these particular days are something of a sport.
This is why people get so worked up about them. They camp outside stores or are lined up throughout your local Walmart in front of their preferred items. They frequently wind up trampling one another just to get in the store and will physically assault each other, along with store employees, over items. There are people who have died for something as trivial as going out to purchase something they could buy any other day of the year.
Honestly, why are we doing this?!
When you love someone who works in retail, you wonder if they will be assaulted, either physically or verbally, on Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Christmas Eve or at after Christmas sales, all because someone may not get the item they wanted. You sit at a table without them and fix them a plate that you hope they won’t be too tired to eat when they come home. You pray that people aren’t treating them like the dirt on the bottom of their shoe on what should be a day of thanks.
If you choose to go shopping on Thanksgiving or Black Friday, I urge you to remember that the people you are cussing out, because for whatever reason your television isn’t ringing up right, are, in fact, people. They are someone’s family member or significant other, and they’ve missed a day with their family for this. They didn’t have a choice in the matter like you do.
They probably had to sleep and then leave for work before the celebrations even began at their home. They might be missing their first holiday with their significant other since getting married or engaged, which is the case for me. They could be missing out on their child’s first Thanksgiving. They could be missing out on the last holiday with a family member that is ill.
They could be missing any number of these things or even be assaulted while at work, all because someone needs a television or a waffle iron.
Just let that sink in for a minute.
What are your thoughts on stores having employees work on Thanksgiving?
