Should stores be closed on Thanksgiving?

[dave1949]

For my entire life, I have been hearing this issue every major Holiday.

The evil retailer of the year (it wasn't always WalMart) is making people work on Thanksgiving, Christmas, or whatever day is "sacred".

Think about this for a little bit. WalMart can not force anyone to work on any given day. Every single day that an employee works there it is voluntary. Every single one of those employees can quit whenever she wants to.

Now they might not like working on a Holiday, but they think about the overall benefit of the job they have and and decide that it is worth it to have a job rather than have this day off.

In our neck of the woods, unemployment is at least 15% by the government measure, more like 40% if you add in the people who don't bother to look any more since they haven't found anything in the past three years. Those jobs at WalMart that are so underpaid and have such horrible working conditions, start to look pretty good when your neighbors haven't had steady work for years.

Everything you said is true, that is the overall insidiousness of the situation. How is that different than textile mill workers of the past working 12 hour days, 6 days per week, plus their children would be working too? In principle, it is no different, just less brutal.

Your argument is based on necessity. Necessity can be as artificial and manipulated as a Black Friday sale price though--and it is. You are assuming there is no alternative, when in fact there are better alternatives that are easily achievable in a society where their value is recognized.

Going shopping and consumerism is not a useful value to strive toward, it's not even a value of any sort. Doing it on a holiday undercuts the values that we traditionally think of as "good."

Maybe I'm turning into an "old guy" but it seems the less attention we pay to the common good, the less good we commonly find.

 

[daugen]

I wonder how Amazon.com handles this.
If we shop online on a holiday, seems we create the same issues.

 

[dave1949]

I wonder how Amazon.com handles this.
If we shop online on a holiday, seems we create the same issues.

Actually, Amazon or similar businesses exist on distribution warehouses staffed by poorly paid people. According to the article I read, the warehouse workers are hired by a temp agency contracted to Amazon. It didn't sound like a fun place to work, even after deducting something considering the slant of the article source--Mother Jones.

I haven't run across any articles that would rebut that impression.

 

[Midniteoyl]

Actually, Amazon or similar businesses exist on distribution warehouses staffed by poorly paid people. According to the article I read, the warehouse workers are hired by a temp agency contracted to Amazon. It didn't sound like a fun place to work, even after deducting something considering the slant of the article source--Mother Jones.

I haven't run across any articles that would rebut that impression.

Lotta retired people work Amazon during the Holidays. They even actively recruit the 'RV crowd' to come down and 'camp and work', known as 'Workamping' Amazon

 

[dave1949]

Lotta retired people work Amazon during the Holidays. They even actively recruit the 'RV crowd' to come down and 'camp and work', known as 'Workamping' Amazon

My Mom and Dad used to swing through the Wenatchee, WA area to pick apples when they were full-time RV'ers. It was nice to pick up some extra money, the retirees weren't as likely to be in a hurry and bruise the fruit. They still needed younger folks to get the harvest done and kill-off the rattlesnakes. :laughing: Mom still corresponds with a few of the retiree apple picking regulars they got to know back then.

That's all well and good, but those retirees have other sources of income and have Medicare coverage too if they 65 or older.

 

[joshuabardwell]

Think about this for a little bit. WalMart can not force anyone to work on any given day. Every single day that an employee works there it is voluntary. Every single one of those employees can quit whenever she wants to.

This is just garbage given the state of the job market. I know so many people who are unemployed and are ready to take any job that will let them pay the rent and feed their family. It's not like the old days when you'd quit on Wednesday, take a long weekend, and get a job down the street the next Monday. And it's the low end jobs that feel the squeeze the most, because an out of work engineer or programmer or graphic designer can always work below their pay grade at retail or whatever, but not the other way around.

 

[RobertBrown]

I was watching the local news last weekend, probably Sunday morning. There was a reporter interviewing a woman who had been camping out at a Best Buy since Friday. She was going to camp out for a week, on the sidewalk, right next to the front door. There were several tents, about 6-8 different groups of people that were all there for the same thing and many more were expected, which is why she was there so early.
This women knew what she wanted, she was there for a tablet and some other stuff. It seemed to me that she said she could save about 200$. That was not including what she spent to facilitate this "adventure". She was there with her Daughter, looked to be about 10 yrs old.

She was camping out on a concrete sidewalk, through the Thanksgiving holiday, in the cold, to save 200$ on something she probably didn't need anyway, because she did the same thing every year.


It can't be about the money. I think shopping is to her, is what hunting is to a hunter. Is it OK to go hunting on Thanksgiving? I think she looked at her purchases and saw a trophy, worth much more than the money she gave to leave the store with it.

On the other hand, I don't like to shop. The only time I shop is for food and I do that because there really is no other way to get all that I need.
I use the internet for all of my other purchases, I suppose that is shopping. Going to Walmart, a Mall, or any large store is something I will avoid for the next 30 days or so, at all costs. I won't go to any store, anytime of the year, unless I know exactly what I need and they have it there, while I'm there, I will go to the clearance isle and see if there is something else I can't live without.

One other thing I avoid, is telling someone else how to live their lives, what to do with their money, how to run their business, or spend their spare time.
I guess you could say " I don't care what you do on black Friday or the day before". As long as you don't break any laws, hurt or otherwise disturb someone who is trying to spend it quietly with their family.

We have so many people in this country now that did not celebrate Thanksgiving in their country of origin. These people don't care one way or the other. Are they not more valuable to a retailer as an employee because of it? The few times I have visited the closest Walmart, most of the people I see in there are Hispanic, probably from Mexico. If they have a Thanksgiving in Mexico, I don't know when it is. I work on the 5th of May, unless it's on a weekend.

 

[dave1949]

I was watching the local news last weekend, probably Sunday morning. There was a reporter interviewing a woman who had been camping out at a Best Buy since Friday. She was going to camp out for a week, on the sidewalk, right next to the front door. There were several tents, about 6-8 different groups of people that were all there for the same thing and many more were expected, which is why she was there so early.
This women knew what she wanted, she was there for a tablet and some other stuff. It seemed to me that she said she could save about 200$. That was not including what she spent to facilitate this "adventure". She was there with her Daughter, looked to be about 10 yrs old.

She was camping out on a concrete sidewalk, through the Thanksgiving holiday, in the cold, to save 200$ on something she probably didn't need anyway, because she did the same thing every year.


It can't be about the money. I think shopping is to her, is what hunting is to a hunter. Is it OK to go hunting on Thanksgiving? I think she looked at her purchases and saw a trophy, worth much more than the money she gave to leave the store with it.

On the other hand, I don't like to shop. The only time I shop is for food and I do that because there really is no other way to get all that I need.
I use the internet for all of my other purchases, I suppose that is shopping. Going to Walmart, a Mall, or any large store is something I will avoid for the next 30 days or so, at all costs. I won't go to any store, anytime of the year, unless I know exactly what I need and they have it there, while I'm there, I will go to the clearance isle and see if there is something else I can't live without.

One other thing I avoid, is telling someone else how to live their lives, what to do with their money, how to run their business, or spend their spare time.
I guess you could say " I don't care what you do on black Friday or the day before". As long as you don't break any laws, hurt or otherwise disturb someone who is trying to spend it quietly with their family.

We have so many people in this country now that did not celebrate Thanksgiving in their country of origin. These people don't care one way or the other. Are they not more valuable to a retailer as an employee because of it? The few times I have visited the closest Walmart, most of the people I see in there are Hispanic, probably from Mexico. If they have a Thanksgiving in Mexico, I don't know when it is. I work on the 5th of May, unless it's on a weekend.

Shopping versus hunting on T-Day is apples and oranges. Shopping requires that someone is working, hunting does not. Even on-line shopping requires an IT and sales support staff, and warehouse pickers working, though we don't see them in person it wouldn't be possible without them.

That said, I think the "trophy" sentiment makes sense.

I don't know about not telling others how to live their lives. It's good in theory but given human nature I don't think it always produces a good result. Over-simplifying certainly, but if people always acted in their own best interests, there would be no reason to have a law saying you will be punished for ignoring a red light or stop sign.

Should immigrants willingly adopt the existing culture, is a good question. For secular occasions I tend to think it's better in the long run if they do. I understand it can be a multi-generation process. Hopefully, no one adopts our country for the sake of holiday shopping. :laughing:

 

[Midniteoyl]

Shopping versus hunting on T-Day is apples and oranges. Shopping requires that someone is working, hunting does not. Even on-line shopping requires an IT and sales support staff, and warehouse pickers working, though we don't see them in person it wouldn't be possible without them.

That said, I think the "trophy" sentiment makes sense.

I don't know about not telling others how to live their lives. It's good in theory but given human nature I don't think it always produces a good result. Over-simplifying certainly, but if people always acted in their own best interests, there would be no reason to have a law saying you will be punished for ignoring a red light or stop sign.

Should immigrants willingly adopt the existing culture, is a good question. For secular occasions I tend to think it's better in the long run if they do. I understand it can be a multi-generation process. Hopefully, no one adopts our country for the sake of holiday shopping. :laughing:

DNR/Rangers/(your states hunting regulatory agency) has to work..

 

[dave1949]

DNR/Rangers/(your states hunting regulatory agency) has to work..

What? They need to open, unlock the woods? :laughing:

Some no doubt do work, but how routinely necessary that is is debatable. Our game wardens are similar to public safety personnel. If there is a hunting accident, a person reported lost or overdue, they work those things. I'm sure there are a few on duty 24/7/365, or on call.

Here, a hunter can keep in their possession a properly tagged deer or moose for up to 18 hours before presenting it at an official registration station--which could well be a small convenience store that is closed on a holiday.