Working on Thanksgiving
Here is a partial list of people I personally saw, or at least saw evidence of, working on Thanksgiving:
- Convenience and grocery store clerks
- State police officers
- Tollbooth attendants
- Truckers
- Certified nursing assistants
- Food service workers
- The anchors and camera operators covering the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
- Professional football players
- Bus drivers
- Retail sales clerks
Strangely, it was only the last of these who got to enjoy the righteous indignation expended on their behalf by people who were outraged that they had to work on Thanksgiving. Never mind that unlike the other people listed above, most of them didn't have to report to work until after 6:00 p.m., having had most of the daylight hours to enjoy the holiday, whereas the others had to delay their Thanksgiving activities to late in the day. Never mind that most people who eat their Thanksgiving meals in the afternoon are bored out of their skull by 8:00 p.m., when the malls and big box retailers opened their doors to shoppers. Never mind that anyone who choses to go shopping on Thanksgiving does so voluntarily, and that the sales clerks are paid (albeit meagerly) to be there. And most especially never mind that Thanksgiving evening shopping does precisely no harm whatsoever to the people complaining most vociferously about it.
As for me, I didn't have to work on Thanksgiving; the calendar store opened at 8:00 last night, but the managers chose to take the Thirsday night and very early Friday morning shifts themselves. I would've worked if they'd ask me to, though; I can always use the extra money, and I'm one of those people who finds Thanksgiving evening boring. (Every year I try to convince the choir director not to cancel rehearsal on Thanksgiving, and every year she laughs at me.) So I stayed home and watched The Incredible Burt Wonderstone instead. Which was a fine way to pass the evening, but it wouldn't have done me any harm to be at the mall working.