Whether or not you get paid extra for working Thanksgiving depends on where you’re working. When I waited tables, Cracker Barrel didn’t give me one red cent extra for working the holiday, although some of my customers tipped extra well. (The people eating alone or in couples, mostly–the huge family groups who bitched about it not being the way Grandma makes it generally tipped for shit.) At my last job, we were always closed on the big holidays but had tons of boarders to take care of, and Jack always paid doubletime for doing kennels on those days. At my current job, the ICU and emergency staff who work on holidays get paid doubletime.
I doubt I’ll get paid extra. Desk clerking is a strange job- in exchange for long hours with extremely low pay, you get a job where you literally spend about twenty minutes a day actually working. Most hotels have residential quarters behind the front desk where the managers live, and the clerks are free to watch television, read, nap, use the computer, have friends over, peruse the fridge, talk on the phone…whatever, as long as you don’t leave the hotel.
Usually the managers are a married couple, and they are pretty much confined to the hotels their whole lives, except for when they hire desk clerks. So we are here to allow them to go watch a movie together, get the grocery shopping done, go on trips, visit church, and generally take a break from being on duty twenty-four hours a day. It’s more like babysitting or housesitting than a regular job. The highlights are when the manager goes out on long multi-day trips. You still get paid minimum wage, but you get it for twenty-four hours…which means you can get a thousand bucks for a week of mostly sleeping and watching television. Usually you’re given an expense account to order delivered food for the duration, as well. I’m not sure of the legality of this, but it generally works out pretty well for the clerks, and the job is so easy that even for someone as dedicated to workers’ rights as me, it’s really hard to complain.
I didn’t mind watching the fireworks from the front lobby on the fourth of July, or wearing cat ears and handing out candy to guest on Halloween. But being 200 miles away from family in a cold dark room hoping at least one of your two friends in town stops by to provide some human contact is a pretty depressing way to spend a major holiday. I wouldn’t mind if it was just that I had to work a shift during the holidays. It’s that I won’t get to see my family for more than a few hours on christmas day this entire holiday season- and I guess in this semi-depressed post-college confusion and displacement I’m feeling, I have a strong urge to see my family, to experience some of the comfort I knew at home, feel like I have a place in the world, and people who care about me deeply. I’m glad for the money, but it can still suck at the same time.
Wow that job actually sounds pretty cool, even sven! The closest thing I have to that kind of job is working as a Crossing Guard, where I essentially get paid to stand around for 2 hours. Sometimes lots of kids cross the street, but sometimes not very many do. And sometimes some kids in school have minimum day, but the rest get done normal time. The time between each group of kids (usually around 1 PM) is incredibly quiet- I basically just sit basking in the California sun for an hour before the school bell rings and I have to ‘get back to work’ 
However even that is only about two hours a day, and we’re not allowed to read/eat/be distracted. Ironically, working that job is one of the most relaxing things I do during the day! I have class in the mornings, and then I basically get paid to sit outside for an hour, then I drive to my other job.
Though I’d be willing to take minimum wage (if only I had time to work that kind of job! 
) for the sheer ease of it. Just think about all the other folks who bust their hump for the same amount of money (like me! )
My point was only that many many many people do not enjoy the marks of ‘normalcy’ that the OP mentioned. Not that the rant isn’t valid, but that there are many many many of us who have to work on holidays; it’s not abnormal at all.