black friday

If you shop on Thanksgiving, I’m judging you.

| cheriarmour

This will be my only post/rant on the issue, and then I will drop it and we’ll move along and all be friends.

On Thanksgiving, i will be doing two things.

  1. Going for a run so I can enjoy indulging without much guilt.
  2. Cooking.
  3. Enjoying dinner with my family.

So that was three things, but you get what I’m saying.  Nowhere above did I say I was going to go to Best Buy, Target, or Macy’s to stock up on some crappy deal, when I really need to be saving my coins (my car just decided it needed about $600 worth of help, so I really can’t be spending money all willy-nilly anyhow).  And the reason for this is that, after working in retail, Whole Foods and Fleet Feet, there is no way on God’s green earth that I’d get up from my dinner table, run out, and make someone else’s life really mis on that day.

Let me explain something to you about working retail during the holidays.  I truly didn’t experience this as much with the customers from Fleet Feet, however, the Whole Foods schedule, and the customers made me resent them and resent the holidays, a feeling I hated having.  I felt myself starting to hate holiday themed food, answering people’s dumbass questions regarding some weird food we have never carried, and hating people themselves, especially those who took out their holiday-induced stress on us.

Here’s an example.  One Thanksgiving-Eve, a woman called the bakery and screamed at me because she hadn’t realized that the Yule Logs were like chocolate inside when she bought them.  First off, I don’t care.  If that is your worst worry at the holidays, consider yourself lucky.  There is poverty, hunger, genocide, and racism in the world to scratch the surface – none of which take a break on the holidays.  And furthermore, it is not my fault that you didn’t realize that the yule logs were chocolate inside.  Now, if she were actually nice to be, I might actually feel inclined to fix her problem or offer her something of her choosing in the vanilla family, however, she was unkind, and therefore, I didn’t feel too pressed to correct her issue.  Especially, ESPECIALLY given that she seemed to have no concern that while I listened to her yule log lamentations, my family was wondering where I was, and getting started on all the cooking without me.

But I digress.

You can try and slice and dice it any way you want to…

-Those people volunteer to work. (And really, the way it works is that the folks that want to work volunteer first, and then your manager fills the rest of the holes with other folks who may not particularly care to work.)

-These folks make a TON of money in this season. (No on is getting rich on a retail salary.  If they’re making time-and-a-half, that is absolutely wonderful, but a really temporary fix for the anger and resentment that builds up towards folks around the holidays.)

-If they don’t like it, why are they working retail.  (Now, I know jobs are extremely easy to come by ::cough::, however, sometimes folks don’t have a whole lot of choice.  Or sometimes, they actually LIKE their retail situation during months that aren’t November and December.  However, that doesn’t mean they want to get screamed at about your yule logs on Thanksgiving Day.)

…But the fact stands.  You don’t need to shop on Thanksgiving.  And I’m judging you if you choose to do so.

Shopping on Thanksgiving Day. Don’t do it.

| cheriarmour

Christmas Eve 2011, I was working at Whole Foods Market, in the bakery.  It was nearing 6 pm, and the store was doing what was called a “soft closing,” where you sorta close, but you let anyone who comes screeching up in the parking lot come in, for fear that they will write you a bad review on Yelp.

I peered over the counter, wearing my antlers as a pretend signal of good tidings, when really, I wanted to murder everyone who was shopping, including a woman on the cell phone, who was leisurely strolling through the aisles.  Like it wasn’t 6pm on Christmas Eve, like simply because I was being paid an hourly wage, that I didn’t deserve to get to go to Midnight Mass with my family, sleep in, and wake up leisurely to open presents with my family.

Instead, around 6pm on Christmas 2011, I was hauling a clear bag full of old bread and bagels to the dumpster in the ran, and shivering in a chefs coat while last-minute Christmas shoppers milled about.  Close to 7, I finally filled up on gas, and I’d made it to my parents’ house by 10:30 pm. On Christmas Eve.  My parents were already asleep, and I only had a few hours the following day with my siblings before I had to head back for my shift in the coffee bar.

If you shop on Thanksgiving Day, you are a jerk.  Plain and simple, I’m not sorry to say.  I have had the unfortunate opportunity to have to work on holidays, on holiday eves, and on the day after holidays and it always sucks.  Each time I had to show up at my parents’ home at an ungodly hour, or each time I left while my siblings were still sleeping or spending time with relatives, I began to resent my work, and swore that I would quit my job the next day.  I never did, I needed the money while I looked for full-time work in my field, but it made me resent my job and truly hate people more than I care to admit, temporarily.  The “hate” feeling returned with each holiday I had to celebrate by doling out lattes to stressed party hosts.  And I really do dislike it when I feel so angry towards others – it’s not at all healthy.

“Well if you don’t like it, just make sure you ask for that day off! Target said on TV it’s only the employees who really want to work that day/night.”

First off all, no one, even the person who lives only with his or her cats,  wants to bundle up so they can stand on their feet all night and serve you.  It’s barely fun on a regular day, and super unfun on a chilly holiday.  And that’s not exactly how it works.  When I worked bakery retail, and in the coffee bar at Whole Foods, and the same went for when I worked in a restaurant for my stint in graduate school, you’d get your choice of which holiday you want off.  If you get the days around Thanksgiving off, you won’t get days around Christmas off.  Maybe you’ll get the days at New Years.  It’s all a trade.  But the choice is only which holiday you’ll work.

Please, please, please, before you leave your plates on the counter and run out on Thanksgiving night, think about the folks who are having to leave their families to ring you out.  Not only did they have to leave their families, they hate you, and they’re hoping that you slip and break that flat screened television you dragged them out to purchase.  The employee break room is intermittently filled with folks snacking on lame, stale holiday treats that management put out for them as an attempt to boost morale, but guess what?  It isn’t working, and they’re seeing red with every e-reader you buy.

So regardless of what some of these retailers choose to do, don’t make it worth their while – avoid shopping on Thanksgiving and let them know that our families are a little more important to us than cheap electronics.  That’s what shopping online is for, anyways.