Anybody worked on Thanksgiving/Christmas?

Yup the holiday season is coming up, and although most workers will get Thanksgiving and Christmas off some will not. Have you had to work either of these two days? How willingly? Did you get extra pay or other benefits? How was it and would you willingly do it again?

Worked most of them the past decade. Willingly, though it wasn’t optional. No extra pay. No extra benefits. Would do it again.

I worked Thanksgiving last year and will do so again this year. It’s a night shift and all I have to do is be there in case something happens, which it won’t because almost everyone is gone.

I get time and a half overtime pay plus a full day of regular pay for doing nothing but staying awake. Read a book, watch a few movies, and collect 2 1/2 days pay. Then I get to take a paid alternate holiday for the day after Thanksgiving.

Easy money.

I’ve worked Thanksgiving, Christmas, Christmas Eve, and New Years when working crisis assessment and when doing residential work. At my last job (the residential one) I was salaried, so I didn’t get any extra benefits (other than being able to wander around the campus and get fed decently at each of the units), but with crisis assessment I was hourly and got time and a half. Since I was getting $24/hour already, that was a nice little bonus. I had no problem working Christmas/Christmas Eve/New Years, as I don’t really make a huge deal out of those holidays, but Thanksgiving was kind of a bummer. It was sadly busy working crisis on the holidays- people either depressed and wanting to end it all, or people wanting attention and thinking a nice little threat of suicide would do it. Or, worst, people just wanting to get in out of the cold. :frowning:

I wouldn’t do it at my current job, as that would mean not only having to drive myself in, but also not really having a lot to do… plus being salaried, I wouldn’t get paid extra. Plus plus, I have someone I really enjoy spending holidays with. :slight_smile: Not worth it.

I worked in a prison so obviously somebody had to be there every day of the year. I personally always arranged to have Christmas off so I could spend it with my family. But I often worked on Thanksgiving or New Years Day.

Per our contract, you had a choice if you worked on a holiday of receiving overtime pay or extra time off on some other day.

I worked in a hospital for a while, in the kitchen, we had to work holidays. I didn’t mind it, as I would have if I’d worked in a retail store. One can’t turn the patients off the way one does the lights. We got time and a half in pay. Since my family eats the holiday dinners in the afternoon, and I worked mornings, I got the best of both, extra pay, and didn’t have to miss the family gathering.

I used to work on Thansksgiving when I worked at a wine store. They were open until about 2pm, and it was well worth working that day. Not for the cash - I don’t think we got any bonuses or overtime - but for the wine. This was a very high-end wine shop, and the owner would have many, many hundreds of dollars worth of wine open in the back for the staff to try. It was not uncommon to have 30-year-old bottles of Premier Cru Burgundy, for example. We were encouraged to ‘taste’ while working, and as long as nobody got so drunk that customers could tell, all was good.

I worked on both holidays (and all the others, due to lack of seniority) when I worked for the phone company. Thanksgiving was the worst holiday to work out of all of them. And I’m generally not a fan of Thanksgiving. It’s always struck me as a holiday of forced togetherness. But the calls from customers on Thanksgiving were not happy ones. That makes for a miserable day.

Christmas was much easier. Customers are happier, and my family makes a bigger deal out of Xmas Eve, so it’s easier to trade around schedules so that you don’t miss much.

That’s how our contract was, too.

For about five years when I was first married I was a security guard at several downtown office buildings. I was the site supervisor, but that carried no weight as far as holiday scheduling went. My schedule was M-F, days but if one of those holidays fell on a weekday, I worked.

One Christmas I remember the kid who was supposed to take over for me at 3:30 showed up totally high. I could have (1) sent his ass home and been stuck working his shift, or (B) go home to be with the wife and three year old. I went home and called in to our company’s office (pre caller ID) saying I was a tenant in the building and that the guy there looked wasted and reeked of pot. The road supervisor called me at home and tried to tell me I had to go check it out and if necessary relieve the guy and finish his shift for him.

I said, and I quote “fuck off, you do it, that’s your job”. Afterwards when the security company I worked for tried to hammer on me, the building management, who loved me, stood up for me. The security company tried to fire me, then the building management company hired me right out from under them. They made me director of security/ life safety and put me in charge of managing the security company.

Within a few months I was basically an assistant operations manager, and spent the next 12 years in the industry eventually becoming property manager in charge of operations at a 53 story hi rise. In fact I was part of the initial management team working on site from when the first steel went up, until five years after we opened to tenants.

Best Christmas I ever worked!

I’ve worked both from time to time - that’s life in IT. I could have pawned it off on one of my team members but I figure I can take my turn in the barrel like everyone else.

When I worked in a 7-11, one year my boss rearranged the schedule to make even the employees who would normally have had Thursday off anyway come in for a few hours on Thanksgiving (even with one employee being a Jehovah’s Witness and quite willing to take a full shift to let those who wanted to actually have Thanksgiving with their families have their scheduled day off). Jerk.

I didn’t mind working those days when I was actually normally scheduled to, but since I was a student AND working full-time, I needed my regular days off for trivia like sleep and homework.

I’ve done it in the past in various jobs and either recieved extra pay or 1.5x the time in lieu. Although my current job doesn’t require holiday coverage I have for years volunteered to be the one who works the time between Christmas and New Years. I don’t travel at this time of the year, my kids are old enough to not require babysitting and it’s a very quiet time at work with a very low staffing level.

I use the time to clean out and file emails, clean up paperwork and in the days after that 2 hours of work is completed I read, chat with others who are working and go home early most days. It’s going to be even easier this year with my office 10 feet from the kitchen I’ll be able to turn leftovers into soup and do all the cleanup required post holiday.

I’ve worked both, as a nurse in home healthcare. A couple of years ago, I had to work for Thanksgiving Day, so my family just kindly moved the Thanksgiving feast to Saturday.

I’ve worked Christmas Day and it is usually slow except that doctors will release patients from the hospital on Christmas Eve so they can be home, and we have to see them the next day on a out-of-hospital visit. the nurses don’t want to be there and the family doesn’t want us there, either.

This year, I am working New Year’s Day, which is not even a holiday to me so I am fine with it.

Working at a daily newspaper, I was on every holiday for almost 20 years. Then I had enough seniority that somebody else got stuck, and by that time I was married and wanted the day off, whereas before I didn’t really care because I had no family. I kind of liked it usually.

I worked in IT for a 24x7x360ish operation. Those were often the only times to do large scale changes. I even slept on the floor of the data center on Christmas Eve night. I actually enjoyed the experience in a strange sort of way. No extra pay/benefits except comp time as I was salaried. However this sort of work was noticed up the food chain and was very good for one’s career and yearly salary review.

At the time I was young and unattached so it wasn’t that big of a deal at the time. My siblings often went to the in-laws on the holiday and our family would get together later. After getting married and having kids, I avoid it like the plague. I even took a paycut to work for a place that is closed major holidays. No one on their deathbed says they wished they spent more time at the office…

I work weekends at a hospital, so if the holiday falls on the weekend, I’m working it. It’s nice though because we get paid time and a half and also get free meals from the cafeteria. I have to say, our cafeteria food isn’t that bad.

I worked who knows how many Thanksgivings and New Years Eves when I was in the restaurant business. People would clamor to work either or both because of the tips. I didn’t mind it for the longest time until it finally dawned on me that hey, I deserve to celebrate holidays too!

Well you can but euthanasia is frowned upon :smiley:

When working in telephone customer service I frequently worked holidays, mrAru frequently pulled holiday duty. We don’t have kids and it let others have the holidays off with their kids.

When I worked at Dollar General I worked every Thanksgiving. Only reason I didn’t work Christmas or Easter was because we were closed.

Didn’t get paid extra for it either. Company considered it just a regular day.

I work at a 9-1-1 center. We get no holiday benefits whatsoever. If my shift is on duty that day/night then we work.