Thursday, November 26, 2009

Dear.......

............retailers and corporations in general,

Holidays have been set aside as a time to spend with family and friends. They were NOT set aside to enable you to acquire more of the almighty dollar. I would like to be having Thanksgiving dinner with my family today but since two of them are required to work today I will be staying home. What I will NOT be doing is visiting any of your establishments. I will do NO shopping of any kind today.

You may not realize it, but the public's spending money is finite. Our pocketbooks are not bottomless. We may shop every other day of the week but please leave our holidays alone. We want to spend them with our families.

And to those of you who do utilize retail stores on a national holiday, (and shame on you), please keep in mind a simple fact. If you assume that all the people you see working on that particular holiday are happy to do so and are receiving special extra holiday pay for doing so - please THINK AGAIN. There are many, many, establishments (including my place of work) who are open on most major holidays and compensate their employees for working those holidays NOT AT ALL. So, no, we're not happy to be at work. In fact we're saddened that our holidays with our families are regarded as unimportant by our employer.

You can support your fellow workers by NOT supporting their open businesses today. Take away the reason for retailers to stay open on the holidays. Buy your gas, your groceries, your last minute items the day before.

Or - gasp - DO WITHOUT!




OK, enough said.


Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!!!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Amen to that!

Unknown said...

GOOD FOR YOU! I'm so against big business anyway that this just did my heart good! I think they are out to rip us any little way they can and so of course they think nothing of making people work on special days that they should be able to spend with their families. You're right - the almighty $ is so important to them even though they probably have more than they will ever need in their lifetime they always want more.

Rosemary said...

Even tho your celebration of Thanksgiving will be delayed til your family is available. I wish you the best.. so many people forget that firemen, hospital workers , restaurant workers , police work every holiday..stores do not need to be open.....

Kathleen said...

Well said Victoria! I don't shop on holidays either but I thought I was the only one. I really don't know why any place needs to be open so I whole-heartedly agree with you. I hope you have an okay day even if you can't be with all your family. :-(

Randy Emmitt said...

Victoria and Kim,
Glad to see you back! I agree 100% with you... I'm slightly guilty as the ladies had me drive to our local county park to see if it was open so we could take a walk yesterday, gladly relieved it was closed for holiday! So we walked up the road and checked out our 12 million dollar neighbor and explored the abandoned house/farm across the street. Enjoyed seeing the old gardens and shanty building covered in weeds much more than the pricey landscaping and enormous estate trough the big fence. Maybe we'll visit the park today.

Katie said...

I agree with you 100%. It used to just be Black Friday (gag) and now this "shopping" holiday never ends. There is no reason for non-critical establishments to be open on Thanksgiving. I have never and WILL NEVER patronize a business that is open on Thanksgiving. And I might just think twice about spending my money with one that does.

Pat said...

I work almost ALL holidays because of the industry I'm in...
I'm a Casino Floorperson(you name the table game,I supervisor it). Family is used to not having me around on weekends etc.
Have to pay the bills !

D said...

Hooray! someone after my own heart. We refuse! In fact I cannot understand the mentality of it all... that we must rush to a mall or a store to stand in line on any given day... for what? more stuff! Give me a load of manure for Christmas and I'm a happy camper.