As someone who actually waited for a store to open in the wee hours of the morning on a Black Friday, I think this is a great idea. I know a lot of clutchfaners like the deals, but I couldn't imagine having to work in the these stores in the early morning right after a holiday. this country needs to tone down the consumerism. link
They should open the stores at like 4 am, and the employers should pay a high bonus for those that come in that early.
These folks act like they are the only ones who have to work holidays and odd hours. It's been 25+ years since I have not been "on-call" 24/7, 365 days a year (except when on vacation, and even then, I have spent a fair amount of time working). I know there are countless others who have similar hours as I do, including a number of folks on this BBS. At least these employees can plan their holiday. I could be called at any time on any day and have to drop what I am doing to help the customer. My option is to get another job. I have no sympathy for them.
I've done black Friday for 5 years now and these early store openings are foolish. I expect a lot of drunken people out at store causing trouble. I also expect a lot more robberies.
I'm assuming you're referring to cops, nurses, etc. otherwords, necessary individuals my mom always worked christmas, she was an rn, at least i could take solace in the fact she wasn't pushing the next tablet and actually helping people
Nope. I am referring to computer technicians, machine repairmen, building management and a number of other professions.
At my job, we're scheduled to work Thanksgiving, Christmas, NYE, Easter, etc. People shouldn't be b!tching about 'having' to work. Tell them to quit so someone else can have their job. They have every right to be annoyed, but they should be thankful they have a job, no matter how meaningless it might be.
Oh, and I'm an energy trader managing some power plants. So, you can be thankful you have the lights on and the oven working on holidays.
How necessary is the waiter at some 24 hour coffee shop or airport kiosk? Also, it depends on your definition of 'necessary'. It may be necessary for me to be available to a customer, but no one will be in peril if I am not around to help them.
I would assume a computer system, like at a hospital or power plant would need someone on call twenty four hours. now I don't know your customers so I'm not going to go back and forth on this but I imagine the job is more important than being on the register at target at 8pm thanksgiving night. restaurants, I wouldn't complain if they were closed, or their employees complained.
One job essentially represents greed, the other jobs are far more critical. The compensation difference is also vast.
"I don't want to work!" Then don't. Jesus. How many people benefit from these sales? Tens of millions. How many people are hurt? A few hundred thousand? The answer is obvious here. Damned Republicans are trying to ruin that too?
My point is that employees need to expect to be asked to do things (at least within their job functions) that they may not want to do. It is like that in most every profession regardless of how necessary it may or may not be. Also, these retail outlets have generally opened at odd hours (granted not midnight) in the past so a retail employee knows they may be asked to work Black Friday, perhaps as early as 4:00 AM, when they took the job. It just doesn't seem that unreasonable to expect them to get to work at 10:00 PM or midnight one day a year.
Unfortunately, there's a Black Friday arms race that puts pressure on the operating hours. For Target to not push their hours, they surrender a competitive advantage to someone else. Besides a backlash from shoppers (not likely), I think they're only hope would be in collective bargaining or government regulation. So, they're pretty much screwed. Which is too bad, because we really don't need to be shopping in the middle of the night right after Thanksgiving. A European country wouldn't balk at forbidding the store from opening then to preserve people's quality of life. Here we have to oppress people to give corporations freedom.
People b**** about their lives all the time, for the longest time it was whatever. But now when poor people b**** there are more and more reacting in a "how dare they complain about having jobs" kind of attitude. Can any of you truly say you don't complain about some aspect of your life that ultimately you can change? "Uh, traffic sucks..." Why don't you leave earlier or get a job closer to home or a home closer to your job? "Uh, I'm getting a divorce..." Why don't you work on your marriage? "Uh, I'm on call 24/7..." Well get a job where you aren't on call 24/7. It's pretty easy to tell other people not to b****, but it's even easier to not pay attention to it and worry about your own freaking life.
