I’m not a big shopper, so I’m not the target of such things as Black Friday, but for some people the shopping part is an element of the Thanksgiving holiday. Saying they are assholes for feeling that way is like looking at someone’s Christmas celebration and saying “You’re doing it wrong.”
One of my sisters-in-law always got together with her mom and sisters and went out and stood in line at 2 am on Friday morning. This was something they planned for and enjoyed as much as a turkey. And she saw it as the one part of Thanksgiving that was for her. She was spending the rest of the day making sure other people had their delicious treats and their day off and their football and their leisure. The shopping was her fun and her leisure.
In lots of families, Thanksgiving is a holiday for men and children and a workday for women.
Speak for yourself – traditionally in my family, my dad’s the one who does a lot of the cooking. Pretty much everyone makes something. Yeah, I know what you’re saying, but isn’t that the case with most traditional holidays?
Most people aren’t talking about Black Friday, though. You’re not an asshole for shopping Black Friday – crazy, I think, since it’s a freaking madhouse, most of the time. But not an ass. (I’ll stay home and shop online in my pjs, thanks)
My current employer has remained open on Christmas for the past several decades. It’s not really a new concept
(My retailer is technically a big box store, but it started as a grocery store chain which might well have something to do with a long-standing tradition of being open holidays.)
Anyhow - looks like at least some of the crowds heeded the “boycott” calls, as we had lighter than usual (but still busy) days on Thursday and Friday. Then today everyone shows up. Bravo, all that did was shit the shopping over a couple days.
Unfortunately, the schedule was made based on past practices, so we had more personnel than needed on Thursday and not quite enouh today. Nice going, thanks people.
Oh, and the lady who bought 60 cases of the butter that was on super-special today, thereby causing us to run out by 9:15 and make MANY subsequent customers very unhappy - thanks, you selfish twit.
Yes, they are assholes, but that is their right. I have more of a problem with the assholes deciding the stores need to be open or OH NO the other assholes at the other stores will do it and steal all the Christmas business.
Restaurants, essential services, drug stores, grocery stores for a few hours, I don’t see assholes in that. It’s the BLACK “FRIDAY” STARTS THURSDAY AT [whatever] that I have issues with. Fuck that shit.
Customers are selfish twits for accepting your sales offers? That’s a new one.
Isn’t the problem of other unhappy customers entirely your store’s fault? Either have the stock to meet the demand, or limit quantity per customer. (This is actually not a new concept.)
This whole thread is hilarious. There’s about 47 different beliefs people are railing at each other over, totally at cross purposes. It’s a hoot.
Anyway, I think a lot is being missed. The issue truly seems to be (1) the people in retail who actually have to face the madness on Thanksgiving and (2) the encroaching of buying at a time when it’s totally unnecessary. So, addressing point (1), I’m sure people can be assholes for putting workers through that sort of inanity for crap at, say, Walmart. This isn’t comparable to other things at all (like a theatre, restaurant, or a convenience store) because no one is risking life and limb to show The Hunger Games, serve a plate of linguine or for providing gum / migraine pills / oil. But as has been mentioned, the real assholes are the retailers who believe going earlier and earlier is more important than anything else, to be the first ones to offer a 84" TV for $29. No matter what though, things could be better for all involved if people didn’t lose their minds chasing after their cheap widgets. However, they usually do, so it isn’t pretty all around in the blame game. No one should come home from work at the mall needing to go to the ER.
Point (2), again, is really the issue. Selling shit like this at 6:00 AM on Friday wasn’t good enough? Then 4:00? Well crap, Joe Blow’s Mega Gadget Emporium opens at midnight, so now we gotta follow suit to beat him to getting all that extra dough for fuzzy socks with suspenders. It’s just crazy squared. And Guin is completely right about something we discussed just yesterday… Christmas will soon disappear in the capacity we’ve all been used to enjoying it. Nothing will be sacred anymore and it’ll all be in the pursuit of the all mighty dollar, making it or saving it. On behalf of the employers, sometimes on behalf of the employees and always on the consumer. Just wait. I’d be surprised if we make it another five years without this change being a foregone conclusion.
Back when I worked in the convenience store we closed at midnight and reopened Christmas morning at 8am (24/7 the rest of the year baring emergencies). Every customer we had that day was nice as pie except for one asshole who was waiting outside the door when we opened and flipped out at me because I couldn’t give him change for a hundred dollar bill, thus ruining Christmas morning for his grandchildren. :dubious: Some of the regulars from the neighbour hood actually brought in food in for us.
I didn’t curse him out, but did flat out tell him to leave and it’s not my fault he didn’t plan better. If he’d been nicer or sad instead of angry I would’ve tried setting some bills aside instead putting them in the drop safe and told him to come back later.
Um… when was the last time you bought 60 CASES of butter? Not 60 one pound packages, but 60 CASES. That is, my friend, 2,160 pounds of butter (the packaging would add a few pounds more to the total). One woman bought over a ton of butter in one purchase. Holy crap, do you realize how big a pile of butter that is?
Tell me, should our store, which is NOT a warehouse club or warehouse but rather caters to individual citizens, have anticipated that some woman was going to come into the store today to purchase over a ton of butter? This is, I should say, unprecedented. One or two cases, yes, but 60?
The butter was ordered based on past experience with such sales. There should have been plenty for today, with probably stock leftover for the rest of the week. Instead, we’re completely out until the next shipment.
At least she bought a truck with her to haul it all away.
We did manage to get some additional butter in around noon, but that sold out as well. There is much talk about next time putting an upper limit per customer on butter, probably a case or two.
I generally agree with this except for Walgreen’s who have always kept a couple of stores open around town staffed with pharmacists in case of emergency. I had to make use of it once many years ago at Christmas and will go on being grateful forever.
Other than that, I simply choose not to do holiday shopping at any store that was open on T-day.
I happened to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade the other day, and it reminded me that the commercialization of Thanksgiving is not a new thing. What, you think companies create those magnificent balloons just to entertain people? No, they are giant floating advertisements. And people love watching it on TV while they talk about how Thanksgiving is getting way too commercialized and how everyone should be able to spend the day with their families.
It strikes me as crazy and hypocritical.
Preach it! I’m not going to begrudge Momma from shopping on Thanksgiving after she spent all day throwing down in the hot-ass kitchen. Not when Daddy gets to spend the entire day parked in front of his football games. If he isn’t an asshole for forcing the football players to work on a major holiday (including college students…who aren’t even getting paid!), then Momma isn’t an asshole either.
Perhaps she’s doing a lot of baking for the holidays? (You can freeze butter, you know) Or she’s shopping for relatives, or whatever. And anyways, stores run out. You didn’t have a limit on quantities. Lack of planning on your part and all that.
She owns a convenience store. She bought a ton of butter to re-sell in her own store at a mark-up.
Ironically, some number of the people who couldn’t get butter at our store will probably wind up buying that exact butter at her store… just for more money.
Yes, you are correct that is was up to the store to set limits, but like I said, one customer purchasing that quantity was entirely unprecedented. The store has been there almost 20 years, until now no one has ever made a purchase like that. Even so, it struck me as a bit of an jerk thing to do as our store is not set up for that sort of mass purchase. I don’t work at Costco or Sam’s Club which has the space to store multiple tons of butter, nor are we set up to get our forklifts easily from the back stocking area to where our customers park. It became a bit of logistical nightmare, and apparently she got pissy about it on top of everything else. There might have been more to it, that’s just what I got second hand.
Just as happy I missed all that, really, I just had to deal with multiple customers whining “what do you mean you won’t substitute or give a raincheck?” Hon, it says right there in the ad “while supplies last” and “no substitutions or rainchecks”.
As it was, the store DID get some more butter in, as I said, around noon, which strictly speaking they didn’t have to do.
Don’t see why Thanksgiving has to be this designated family get-together day. Even leaving aside the fact that it’s pretty much just another day off at this point (seriously: the office, the malls, the banks, the streets, television…NOTHING), I really dislike completely meaningless and pointless timeframes. “The funeral has to be X numbers of days after death!” or “The President has to get this passed within 100 days!”…uh, no. As far as I’m concerned, if you want to bring the family back together, bring the family back together. Hell, my family does that all the time, and almost never on some random Thursday in late autumn. And above all else, for crying out loud, do it only if you want to and if you’re going enjoy it. Screw “obligation”. If I’m going to do this as an obligation, there’d damn well better be something in it for me.
I never shop on Thanksgiving, but I don’t see anything especially disgusting about it. If anything, it’s a lot better to spread out the mad-dash early Christmas shopping frenzy to two days so it’s less stressful for everyone involved and we don’t get little mishaps like shoppers being trampled to death. Yeah, it sucks if you’re a retail worker who has to work when nearly everyone else doesn’t, but retail is a pretty sucky line of work no matter what (I was in it once, so I should know). As long as the employer is paying at least time and a half, I’m not seeing any gross ethical violation.
So yeah…that’s my humble opinion. And it actually is kinda humble this time, come to think of it.
That’s the thing. The way the employer handles it. Years ago when I was in college working retail and food services my managers were ass***s who didnt give a crap and paid the same - minimum wage.
One time I worked for this place and the last straw was them making me work late on Christmas morning because they sent some other people home early and I didnt get a penny of overtime. I soon quit.
My next employer paid overtime for holidays and we got to choose whether we worked it or not.
Lol. No, I couldn’t care less whether people agree with me or not on this, as it’s not an issue for me. Shop on whatever day you want to your heart’s content. It just cracks me up on the Dope that people always compare apples to airplanes. The OP was talking specifically about Thanksgiving shopping in retail and, as I stated, what ensued was everyone fighting for views that had nothing to do with that. It’s truly magnificent to behold each time, as one strawman after another appears.
In NJ it is totally voluntarily. Since the store I work in is closed on Saturday and certain Jewish holidays, the blue laws don’t apply to us. We can sell anything on Sunday, making us very busy that day.
I worked on Thanksgiving. Several customers thanked me for working on Thanksgiving, and three let me keep their change coins. Whenever anyone said anything negative, I replied “The thing I’m most thankful for is having a job.” How many people eating in soup kitchens or homeless shelters would have been thankful to be in my shoes that day?
Really? You mean your store, your employer, cannot require anyone to work on holidays? That if you and everyone else opted to spend Thanksgiving at home, the store would be closed–and all your jobs still secure the next day?