Working on holidays

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Has anybody else ever had to work on a major family holiday (especially Thanksgiving or Christmas)?

[ul]
[li]How did you feel about being away from your family and being stuck at your job? How did it feel to know that most other people were getting the day off, but you weren’t?[/li][li]Did you try to get the day off or did you volunteer to work?[/li][li]Was there any extra incentive given to work (e.g. extra pay)?[/li][li]Did you work a full shift or a shorter shift so you could still spend time with the family?[/li][li]Knowing you had to be working on this day, did this dampen your enthusiasm for the day long before it came?[/li][li]What was the overall morale among the other workers who also had to work that day?[/li][li]Did everyone who was scheduled still show up? Was your workplace short-staffed that day?[/li][li]If you work(ed) for the public, what are/were your customers like that day? (e.g., do they offer “sympathy” for being stuck working?)[/li][li]How busy was your place of business compared to most other days?[/li][/ul]

For the record, I have never had to work on a major family holiday (Thanksgiving or Christmas) and I’d hate to have to do it. I have had to work on Easter, but I didn’t really mind since I was home early enough to be with my family later in the day. My sister works for a computer memory manufacturer whose operations run 24/7/365. This means working holidays for her when they fall on her scheduled work days. Fortunately she and other workers are paid triple time to compensate for their time away from family. She doesn’t seem to mind it and she’s accepted having to give up spending time with the family on these days. She had Christmas off the past few years, so she still gets her breaks. A few years ago she had to work in a retail pharmacy store that was open on Christmas Day. While she hated the job anyway, she hated working that day and we all had to put off dinner and presents until late in the day in order to accommodate her. Moreover, she didn’t get paid any more than a normal work day for this. To top it all off, the store sprang the news on the employees two weeks before Christmas. According to my sister, a few employees didn’t show up or quit altogether as they already made plans to travel or at least be with their families. The store was poorly managed anyway, so it was no surprise they got bought out by a bigger competitor.

2

I have in the past. I worked at a greenhouse, and the plants need to be watered and fed no matter if it were a holiday or not.

Employees would rotate holidays, but since I don’t have kids and am not a big holiday-celebrator, I would often volunteer to go in. Then the watering would go faster and everyone would get out earlier. I knew when I took the job how their holiday work plan was, so I was never upset.

3

I work as a Security supervisor at a distribution center for a large multinational company. I’m at work Monday through Friday regardless of when the holiday falls - so that means I’ll be in my office on Thanksgiving, and on Christmas this year, too. It’s been this way for more than 20 years now.
[ul]
[li]How did you feel about being away from your family and being stuck at your job? How did it feel to know that most other people were getting the day off, but you weren’t?[/ul][/li]Doesn’t really bother me. I got married and started a family after I had already gotten this job, so everyone is pretty well used to the arrangement. Besides, it’s first shift and only an eight-hour slice of the day; it’s not like I live here.

[ul]
[li]Did you try to get the day off or did you volunteer to work?[/li][/ul]
We have adequate staffing to allow some people from each shift to have the day off if they wish. I’m lucky that I work with a good bunch and they usually make arrangements so that if one takes Thanksgiving off, the other will take Christmas, and so on. As for myself, I usually volunteer to work the holidays.

[ul]
[li]Was there any extra incentive given to work (e.g. extra pay)?[/li][/ul]
The pay for working holidays is very attractive: double time-and-a-half for being here, plus a day’s holiday pay. People taking the day off don’t get the DT.5, but they get the day’s holiday pay anyway. There’s a hidden benefit, too: We have a generous profit sharing plan based on annual income. Working the holidays through the year gives that annual contribution a kick up.

[ul]
[li]Did you work a full shift or a shorter shift so you could still spend time with the family?[/li][/ul]
Like I said, I’m only here eight hours. I still have time for my family after work. On Thanksgiving, that just means we have an evening dinner instead of the more traditional afternoon meal. And my family has always celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve in the evening anyway, so the job is no crimp at all on the Christmas festivities.

[ul]
[li]Knowing you had to be working on this day, did this dampen your enthusiasm for the day long before it came?[/li][/ul]
Not at all.

[ul]
[li]What was the overall morale among the other workers who also had to work that day?[/li][/ul]
Morale is fairly decent. No one is hired for this job without knowing in advance that they are expected to work holidays. I think it would be a much tougher issue if they were taken by surprise come holiday time.

[ul]
[li]Did everyone who was scheduled still show up? Was your workplace short-staffed that day?[/li][/ul]
We’ve never had a problem with scheduled folks skipping out.
[ul]

[li]If you work(ed) for the public, what are/were your customers like that day? (e.g., do they offer “sympathy” for being stuck working?)[/li][/ul]
Well, we don’t really work for the public, but we do take the company switchboard during holidays. On the actual holidays we don’t get many calls, but a lot of other businesses don’t have the “long weekend” shutdown that we do, so the phone can get a little busy on the day after Thanksgiving, or the day after Christmas. I just explain that the plant is closed and invite them to call again Monday. Most of the time the callers do express sympathy that we don’t get to have the time off, too.

[ul]
[li]How busy was your place of business compared to most other days?[/li][/ul]
Oh, it’s dead. The rest of the place has the time off. Just me an’ my officers here, keepin’ an eye on a big empty distribution center.

4

My brother used to work in a number of McJob positions and he would volunteer to work so the other worker bees could be with their families. I don’t believe I’ve ever actually worked on a big holiday.

5

I used to work at a daily newspaper as a copy editor. We were required to work on holidays and it sucked ass. I worked on Christmas, but always always took Thanksgiving off. I would have quit that job before having to work on Thanksgiving!

When I worked on Christmas Day, I felt really crappy about being away from my family. It really sucked knowing that everyone else had the day off. Since I had taken Thanksgiving off, I didn’t even bother to try to get Christmas off. There was NO extra pay or incentives. I worked nights at the time, so I worked from about 4 p.m. to midnight, so I did spend a little bit of time with family. Knowing I had to work definitely dampened my enthusiasm for the holiday! Morale amongst everyone working was very crappy, considering that almost everyone else at the paper had the day off, except for us copy editors. We were working on kind of a skeleton crew, but everyone who was supposed to show up did, or else they would have been in deep shit. Because the paper has to go out, no matter what. I didn’t work for the public so I never saw anyone else that day except for my fellow editors.

In short, working on holidays SUCKS. I am so glad I have a job now where we get holidays off!

6

When I was in the US Navy, and I couldn’t go home on leave especially Christmas, I never went home for Thanksgiving. Anyway, I would take Thanksgiving, or Christmas and even New Years Day’s duty. So others in my shop or division could be at home with their families, especially if they were living in town or if they were able to go home.

I would even take New Years eve for people who wanted to party.

It didn’t matter to me being stationed aboard ship, but when I got on shore duty, I was able to spend time with my family.

So it all worked out in the end, Karma is good.

Being a civilian now, I have been lucky or fortunate that I haven’t worked at companies that work on Thanksgiving or Christmas Day, and even New Years Day.

7

The year I was waiting tables at Cracker Barrel, I worked Thanksgiving. I was living about 3 hours away from my family, so seein them at all wasn’t an option, and I was scheduled from 11-9, so eating dinner with my housemates wasn’t really an option, either. That year really sucked, especially waiting on the huge families that whined and complained because we didn’t have x side dish that Grandma always makes, or how they’d been waiting for over an hour for us to be able to seat their party of 20 at one table. It was really hard not to tell them to STFU and be happy they were at least getting to have dinner with people who care about them. Those groups never offered the least bit of sympathy for us having to work on the holiday, nor did they tip any better than usual. The people who were eating out because they couldn’t be with their families tipped extra, though. The company didn’t give us anything but a warning that if we called in sick that day or over the weekend, we’d lose our jobs. I quit right before Christmas.

When I was working at my old day practice, I would go in and do kennels on Thanksgiving, then go have dinner with Dr.J and his family. That wasn’t really such a big deal, since I was usually there less than 2 hours (kennels normally didn’t take that long, but we always had boarders stuffed into every bit of cage space in the place, and it always takes a lot longer when you have to clean the cage before you can put the animal back in) and would be having dinner with his family anyway. It sucked to miss dinner with Dad’s side of the family, but I always went home for the weekend and usually saw them then. Jack always gave us 8 hours of holiday pay, plus I got paid time and a half for the time I was actually working. He was also always let me have the following Friday off, and someone would swith me Saturdays if I needed it, so I got to go home for a long weekend and have dinner with Mom’s side of the family. How Christmas worked depended on what day it fell on, but I always had Christmas Eve and Christmas off, and usually got to do kennels and go home a day or two before that.

This year, I’m working Thankgiving and Christmas. All the full-time techs have to work three holidays a year, and by the time I was hired, the only holidays with shifts left open were those and the night of July 4. They’re shifts that are easy enough to work around, or would be if we had any family here to work around them. We don’t, though, and while that rather blows the big goat it’s not the end of the world. I’ll be getting paid double time for those shifts, and the clinic provides dinner for those of us who have to work. I don’t expect it to be particularly busy, and we’ll have our usual mix of sweethearts and assholes, but you just never know what will come through the door.

8

As a broadcaster, I’ve had to work all the holidays. We get paid time and a half, and its usually lonely and boring working on a holiday. On Christmas and Thanksgiving, they try to shorten the shifts so that people can spend time with family.

My SO did a radio show on New Years Eve once that was quite fun. We did the count down, popped open some champagne and went off format for a while & played party music.

9

I once had to work on the Fourth of July, which is a company-scheduled holiday. My particular department I worked for at the time went 7 days/week and we had to be open. Because it was an offical company holiday I got my regular pay + time-and-a-half. In other words, 2.5 times my regular pay. I got off at 4 and still had time to make it to a BBQ. I really needed the money so it was the best of all possible worlds.

Since I’m Jewish and my parents don’t make a big deal over winter holidays (we send some presents but its not like a Jewish Christmas) I’ll usually volunteer to be the one working the day before/after Christmas (we’re closed Christmas day). Actually, this ensures that I always receive my request to take time off for Thanksgiving.

Once in college I had to miss Passover which is a big deal for my family but I had a seder at home with friends (none of whom were Jewish but they were game) and a few days later my parents came down to visit so it turned out fine.

10

I work in a large retirement community where security is a big issue. Every resident must be accounted for every day and this is done at the noon meal. I will work Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years this year, without extra compensation. (My son, Darth Nader, has already vented his opinion of my supervisor and this facility on this Board so I won’t go into that) I don’t mind too much because I know all these old folks very well and they are like one big extended family (all 275 of them) to me.

My parents are gone and the rest of my family is far away. My son, Darth and I will have our Thanksgiving together in the evening. I’ll take comp time off Friday to make up. Same for Christmas and New Years.

11

Sorry to bump this, but Palikia’s loving son would like to belatedly say that Thanksgiving was great. Thanks, mom.

The day after was not-- Black Friday is no fun for those of us who do the retail thing.

I have no idea when Palikia and I will get together and celebrate Christmas. Given the last year’s track record for holiday get-togethers, I hope she has plans for a hot date, and later we can do the gift thing whenever.

Back to the OP-- I like to work those days, more money for me and the ones I love. I’ve been to company parties that sucked, and a few that folks still talk about.

Morale on Dec 24th. can not be described-- “Merry Christmas! Get the fuck out of my store and go love your family!” – that’s something I really heard last year.

And everyone smiled.