Sanctimonious assholes unite!

The BBQ Pit
41

Yes, and since they have off, they probably want to shop, so the retailers stay open to accomodate him. I work for a retailer, so I work Labor Day, and I make double time and a half (just like I did for working today).

Really, this discussion is so trite. I’m sorry you are stuck working at K-Mart, but bitching on this MB isn’t changing a damn thing. Have you tried talking to your manager? Have you started a petition to have the day off? Have you requested off? Have you explained to your manager that you want Christmas off because it is an important family holiday?

My work played really shitty music for the longest time. We’re talking Britney Spears-Jon Secada-Neil Sedaka shitty music. So about twenty of us in Marketplace wrote up a petition last summer asking for more upbeat, fun music that reflects the spirit of IKEA - challenging the norm. The music was changed very much for the better - sometimes it’s 70’s rock, sometimes it’s 80’s pop, sometimes it’s grunge day. But it’s must better than what we heard before.

They starting playing Christmas music November 24th. We were told that they would be playing it until January 5th. So everyone in Marketplace called the LP office and complained that is was hurting employee morale. We started listening to decent music again two days after Christmas (TEN days before we were supposed to).

So you can either bitch about it, or change it. Your call. But I guess you’ll never know unless you try.

The difference is, it just wasn’t ONE person that Thea’s casino stayed open for. She plainly stated in the OP that there were MANY customers there.

I wonder what you would like to discuss here, Yosemitebabe, since you keep reiterating how there is another thread about this already. What would you like to see with this thread? Thea was pissed that people actually had the nerve to challenge her OP, so she started this thread, hoping everyone would come to her defense (like they hadn’t already read the OTHER thread). So you expect us to just ignore this little bitchfest when it directly relates to the other thread, to the argument that has yet to be finished? No way. This isn’t Sanctimonious Assholes Anonymous here.

FOUR people said they agree with Thea. FOUR people said they were sanctimonius assholes. I guess she thought all 11,000 posters would back her up. Whatever. :rolleyes:

42

I freely admit, I am being sucked back into this damned thing. It’s my own damned fault.

I have responded to posts that specifically discuss holidays and employee morale. At lot of what people have commented on here has already been discussed, on the other thread. Points are being made, questions being asked that have already been asked, answered, and discussed on the other thread. So I make a note of that. Why shouldn’t I?

I have not been one of the ones talking about who “should” do what, and getting into the religious aspect of it all. Leave that to the rest of you. Leave that the Thea.

43

It would depend on the business. If I worked in a museum, or something like that, it might not bother me. But if it’s a holiday, the last thing I wanna do is go shopping. I want to do soemthing special and different.
So sue me!

44

OK, look, woodstockbirdybird. I don’t mind being accused of being a sanctimonious moralizer because I’m unhappy with the decline in values in this country, of which the fact that a lot of people are ditching their families at Christmas in favor of amusing themselves is just one symptom.

But to accuse me of being racist because I noticed that there were a lot of people in the casino who are from countries where one of the other of the Big Three Middle Eastern Religions is the vast majority faith, and which also has a major religious observance going on around this time of year were also not honoring the values they were raised with is a pretty low blow.

In a post in the other thread, I was also accused me of equating Islam with terrorism, (I won’t quote the post, a link to the thread has been provided). I did no such thing. I did not in any way state that all, or even a majority, of Arabs are terrorists (or Muslims, for that matter, and since you obviously don’t read posts any more than is necessary to find something to quote out of context, I will point out that I stated that there are several Arabs in my church, and that your average Arab Christian is a much better Christian than your average American Christian.)
Now, Nacho4Sara

I can sympathize with not wanting to be at a family gathering that includes an uncle who is known to have sexually molested several family members, or a sibling who insults you. But have you considered possibly getting together with your saner relatives and planning a get together to which your uncle is not invited? And if he acts hurt, you could point out to him that it didn’t bother him that you and your aunts were hurt by his unwanted sexual attentions. But though many if not most families are dysfunctional in one way or another, I think very few families are that wildly dysfunctional.
evilbeth (though I disagree with you on a lot of things, I don’t think you’re evil, btw)

I never suggested that all businesses should shut down for Christmas, and certainly not hospitals and providers of emergency medical services, and I don’t think anyone else on this board has either. But I don’t think any business is going to suffer great financial loss if they operate with a reduced staff so that everybody can have either Christmas Eve or Christmas day off. I’m getting a little tired of being accused of wanting the world to stop just because it’s my personal holiday. It isn’t just my personal holiday, it’s a day that traditionally in this country has been a day for family gatherings, and I don’t see why employers can’t bend a little to allow for that.

45

Thea,

you are assuming that there is an option on who can come to a family party and who can’t. If you don’t invite someone, you run the risk of starting a family war. So everyone gets invited.

Christmas is a time for families. It dosent mean that you have to spend the day with them. I had dinner with my family, before meeting up with my friends (some of whom are closer to me than some of my family) and we had a great night together. Did we do that because it was christmas? no, we did it because it was a day that most of us had off work. (we do this most Sundays anyway) not all of us, but a majority. Was it a problem for the people who couldn’t make it? no. They were miffed that they missed a great night, but they were paid to do a job, and they did it.

46

I am glad that certain services are still available on Christmas. I have, in the past, been one of the people performing said services, loading busses and working in a pharmacy. I was happy to be away from my family (parents and brothers) and making time-and-a-half. Since then I have worked on Christmas Eve in exchange for a day off of my choosing. And this year was the first in many when I had a day off for that most important family holiday, New Year’s Eve. :rolleyes:

HOWEVER, I refuse to accept that ANY of this makes me any less of a sanctimonious asshole, so count me in.

47

You going to respond in the other thread to the post where I pretty much dismantled your arguments concerning the birth rate, divorce rate, etc? Probably not.

And just how, pray tell, do you know what values they were raised with? How do you know that they were not raised as atheists? How do you know that they were not raised in the Santeria religion, or Aum, or some other fringe religion? You don’t. You’re making an assumption based on skin color and presumed nation of origin.

48

Which is it? The bolded portion of the first paragraph (bolding mine) implies that you concluded that the Arabs in your casino on Christmas were Muslim simply because they live in countries where Islam is the the predominant religion. The bolded portion of the second paragraph states that you do not necessarily assume that all Arabs you see are Muslim.

“Racist” may be a tad harsh to describe you. “Believer in stereotypes” is probably more accurate. Islam may be the majority religion in the Middle East, just as Christianity is the majority religion in the U.S. But it doesn’t mean that most Arabs are observant Muslims, any more than most Americans are observant Christians.

49

You used my line but did not credit me with calling you a sanctimonious asshole? For shame.

50

Thea,

As I said in the other thread, I’m sorry you couldn’t get Christmas Eve off in time to attend your preferred choice of services. But you did get to Christmas Eve services (and Christmas Day, for that matter) IIRC from the other thread, so I’m afraid that part of your arguement isn’t holding water.

Also - as I tried to point out in the other thread (horse, meet club. Club, meet horse), many people choose to spend their holidays in resorts. That’s right. Their family celebration includes Casinos, or one of the Walt Disney parks, or a particular restaurant. So it would most likely be very disappointing to those people if they could not go to those places their family prefers to gather for the holidays. Not every family has small children who can’t participate in the activities in Vegas.

Again, I am sorry you couldn’t see the children all dressed up parade down the aisles of your church on Christmas Eve. I am sorry that tips sucked (and, like phil, I’m a hefty tipper when I have to go to a service-oriented location on any holiday - I worked at Disneyland FCOL, I know how much it sucks to work a holiday) on Christmas Eve, and I hope they were better for you on Christmas Day.

However, I’m afraid that I don’t limit family gatherings to the home. I don’t expect everyone to stay away from places that bring them pleasure. And where I understand that you like the industry you’re in for the most part, I have to stand by those who encourage you to change jobs if you want to be assured of having your Holy Days off.

Oh, and BTW - I also know that it’s not always possible to change shifts (there were no shift-changes allowed around the holidays at Disneyland unless you had an exceptional reason), and calling in sick on a holiday that no one wants to work is a reason for termination in some jobs that require you to be in on those days. Life sucks sometimes. But somehow I just don’t believe we’re going to hell in a handbasket because of it.

51

I look in the old dictionary to make sure, and see the obsolete definition of sanctimony is holiness, whereas the term is otherwise used to describe “affected or hypocritical holiness.” Which are you assigning to yourself, thea?

I feel sorry for someone whose family structure is so weak that it is terribly harmed by failing to get together on on particular day, instead of the remaining 364. (Hey, howzabout that! A good God-fearing Christian being pitied by the godless heathen!) Just too much damned trouble to go through the effort of getting your schedules together. Your employers should do the work for you. And, you know, family and friends just can’t be enjoyed the same way a week before Dec. 25th, or in the middle of June for that matter, as on that specific day. Or are you one of those assholes (sanctimonious or otherwise) who has little to do with your family except for on holidays where it is “traditional” to pretend you give a damn about each other? (“Well, I would, except see I have this job… And my family friends insisted on having dinner on X-mas Eve, when they knew perfectly well I go to vespers that night! Don’t those inconsiderate slobs know the world ought to revolve around my personally selected mindfuck?”)

And sorry your chosen God is so damn petty that he/she/it requires you go through certain rituals on certain days, instead of understanding that you are making difficult choices in a society of men attempting to live what you consider a “good” life. Hope you didn’t have a hamburger on Friday before they changed the rules on that either.

From the word go, there are many many jobs that give weekends and national holidays off. If you choose to seek employment in a job other than those, make that choice with your eyes open. So you can’t earn as much, be a pharmacist, or whatever. Quitcher bitchin. Grow up, open your eyes, look around you, make the best choices you can, and live with them.

Yours truly,
Dinson

52

Thea, I never said you were a racist. I said that, in my opinion, your generalizations were ignorant bordering on racist, which is perhaps a slight distinction, but I meant to emphasize the “ignorant” over the “racist”. Still, as Nurlman points out, racist was too harsh a word. “believer in stereotypes” is more what I was going for, but it didn’t sound right. So I apologize for my usage. Also, I never accused you of saying that all Arabs were terrorists; I was merely trying to point out the dangers of making rash generalizations, and I used this as an example. I even stated that I knew it wasn’t the same thing in the other thread and admitted you hadn’t said any such thing. If there was any miscommunication on this issue, again I apologize. But I stand by everything I’ve said in this and the previous post.

53

Yeah well, welcome to my hell.

There are no saner relatives. My brother is a drug-addict. My mom insists on having the family party at our house. No one will talk about my aunts being molested, unless they talk amongst themselves of course, and no one wants to attack him. To not invite him would cause a family nuclear meltdown that you could not possibly imagine.

What saner part of the family do you recommend? My step-family, basically consisting of my aunt, uncle and cousin? My aunt continually compares me to her precious daughter, and even though we both graduated with honors, both had 4.0 GPAs in college, well hell her classes were harder. The night starts out fun, then deteriorates into a brutal game of Trivial Pursuit or Balderdash that ruins the loser’s pride and usually causes rude side comments insulting each other’s intelligence and tears.

Or maybe you met my father’s side of the family? I haven’t seen dear old dad since I was 11, when he went to prison for child abuse and spousal abuse. Maybe I could buy some heroin off of him, but that’s about all he’s good for - that’s where my brother got HIS drug habit! I could stay at my alcoholic grandmother’s in inner city Baltimore, the grandmother who told me as a child that my dolls would come alive to eat me, so that I threw them all away when I was 7. The one who told me, in her alcoholic haze, that my father was the new Jesus because one time his crib miraculously filled with water, but that I was Satan because I didn’t eat all my lima beans.

Is my point clear, Thea? I’m really, honestly NOT exaggerating here. This is my family. I would much rather spend Christmas alone or with friends, but my mother forbids me from not attending parties. I’ve managed to get out of Thanksgiving, but Christmas is sacred. :rolleyes:

BTW, every last one of my family members were raised strictly Catholic. I had church shoved down my throat until I was 13. My father “found” God, or Jesus, I forget, three years ago when he was in prison for selling drugs.

If you cannot see, from all of Phil’s facts and from the personal experiance of others, that Christianity does NOT reflect society’s ills, then you are blind. I don’t know what more I can say to illustrate the point that spending the holiday with family not always, without question, the best choice for everyone.

54

OK, Sarah, you can come to the casino and hang out with me on Thanksgiving/Christmas. I’ll load the dice for you :wink:

Woodstockbirdybird, apology accepted. I’m glad the miscommunication was cleared up. I’ll see if I can get Leila’s babaganoush recipie so I can make a cyberbatch to share with you. (Leila makes great babaganoush. I just hope I’m spelling it right. BTW, Arabs can cook circles around Italians, and I don’t care if you think I’m racist for saying so.)