The End of Thanksgiving?
Yeah, I am looking at you Target, Walmart, Sears, Kmart and Toys ‘R’ Us. Walmart, K-Mart and Sears open at 8PM on Thanksgiving night. Target and Toys ‘R’ Us will open at 9PM.
(In the interest of full disclosure, I feel I should point out that I am a part time employee of Target. I am not speaking for Target-which should be kind of obvious)
Seriously…eventually we will have Black Thanksgiving. For all the conservatives who whine about the war on Christmas, little has been said about the decline of Thanksgiving. You hardly get greeted with a “Happy Thanksgiving”…stores do not decorate or promote it anymore. I went into a Target on Halloween and they had their Christmas decor prominantly greeting you as you walked through the door.
This not so gradual push into the actual holiday is pretty ridiculous and not really fair to employees. Demanding that some of your employees cut their celebrations short (and face it, it will not end at 8-9 PM openings) so people can get their door busters a little earlier than last year is simply pretty appalling. These are all companies who try and promote themselves as employee friendly, yet they treat their employees and their families as if they have no lives. Families cannot celebrate holidays when they have to worry about working shortly after the celebration ends-or even worse, before it does. All so some people don’t have to wait until 5AM to get their $200 widescreen HD TV.
If you wait until midnight or 5AM, Retail, you will still get their money. The buyers will wait, they really will!
Listen, the customer chooses to leave their family behind for their cheap products…the employee is not given a choice (at least, if they want to keep their jobs)*. Put your money where your mouth is corporate superstores…respect your employees. Give them a chance to enjoy a day of rest and celebration with their families, I realize this year it is simply to late… but next year, prove 2012 to be an aberration.
*Target states they ran it by their employees, but I saw no such request.
Posted in: Holidays
In One Ear... 
What you said. And I HATE the word/phrase “door busters.” It’s consumerist of the worst sort.f
This entire concept of destroying one holiday so that people can go out and buy stuff for another holiday…is obscene. Frankly, Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday, one of the reasons being that you DON’T have to go out and spend a ton of money on presents! You just get to sit and have a lovely dinner with your family, and talk and eat and talk and drink, and then talk some more…at least at my house. It’s wonderful.
Christmas s nice too, but this is getting ridiculous. And anyone who would go and leave their family to go out and purchase a cheap DVD player is just nuts.