Oct 30, 2011

Black Friday and the srewing of retail employees

Black Friday is the a horrible day, the day after Thanksgiving when Americans go crazy and shop like the Apocalypse is coming. Shoppers on this day are traditionally cheap and rude, I know, I worked a number of them and I've watched people shop on this day. Shoppers in large stores seem to be getting ruder as it is already, on this day they lose their minds. Just look at these assholes in the picture.


I love the holidays, and I love getting gifts. I also really love giving gifts and shopping for them. As a result I am one of those taking part in the annual shopping frenzy. But I do so during normal hours.


Over the last few years the stores are opening earlier and staying open later. The latest is now Thanksgiving night at midnight stores will open their doors to people rushing out to get bargains.
And to the people making these decisions I say shame on you. You are effectively destroying a family holiday for your employees. To be at work at midnight is outrageous. The people working these hours have to go to bed early and forgo the holiday normally spent with their family. And with times the way they are, who is going to make a stink about it and risk losing their job?


Among the stores opening at midnight are, Kohls Department store, Macy’s and Target among others. Employees will be getting out of bed at 10 or 11 pm Thanksgiving night to go to work and wait on people who line up at these stores. The corporations behind this justify it by saying that they open early because people show up to shop. You know what? If you wait until 7:00 am, they will wait until then to shop, greedy bastards.


And if you are one of the weirdos getting up early to shop at these places and perpetuating this problem, shame on you as well. People who work retail work hard and have to put up with a lot of crap. They deserve to have family holidays too. By being one of the people showing up when the doors open you are part of the problem.


My answer to this for 2011 is that I will not be partaking in this mistreatment of employees and I will be boycotting stores that open at ridiculous hours. I’ll shop local at locally owned stores that keep more human hours where the people deciding the hours are actually working the hours along side employees.

4 comments:

JD Rhoades said...

We did the "day after Thanksgiving" Xmas shopping once, about twelve years ago.

Never again.

Never. Again.

Jen Jordan said...

I will be taking massive vitamin B that day.

Jill said...

When they announced this at Macy's, they exclaimed, "And for any of the time you are scheduled on Thursday the 24th, you will receive TIME AND A HALF!" Most people are are scheduled fifteen minutes before store opening. Therefore, fifteen minutes of overtime. You know what? I think I'll pass on that generous offer and sleep off the wine instead. :)

Steven said...

There's never been a sale so big that I felt the need to go out and shop on Black Friday. In fact, even if they were giving out stuff for free, I'd think thrice.