At Work for the Holidays

I know a lot of people who were OUTRAGED because some local retail establishments (like Walmart) decided to stay open on Thanksgiving Day last month.  There were protests and boycotts, and people saying that they weren't going shopping on Thanksgiving and telling me that I shouldn't either.  It was a civil rights matter, they said, proclaiming that it wasn't right - that those people (who work in those stores) should be home with their families on the holiday.  Mind you none of the protesters I knew personally were actually the employees scheduled to work that day, just other folks who were taking this cause up on their behalf.

These are not the first people who ever had to work on Thanksgiving or some other holiday.  For 7 straight years from the time I was 17 until I was 23 I worked every single Fourth of July in the evening at Winky's Drive-In Restaurant in Swissvale.  The managers scheduled me because they knew if I was scheduled I would work, instead of calling off like many of their other teenage employees did to join in all the teenage Fourth of July games.  I understand my friends had a lot of fun out there but I would never know because I had to work.

For the same reason, they also liked to schedule me to work on Christmas Eve, when my family celebrated, making me miss Christmas dinner more than one year.  As unhappy as this made me, not one person protested on my behalf, or particularly cared that I got home after dinner was finished.  Furthermore it never occurred to any of us that I, a teenager who made minimum wage working part-time, in the summer and when I was home on breaks from college, should request that day off or call off if scheduled.

So why aren't we rallying around those other folks who have always worked on Thanksgiving?  No one seems to be  protesting all the people working to assure us a pleasant holiday experience and safe travels. 

We traveled on the Turnpike on Thanksgiving this year, and there were people working at every stop along the way.  Many cheerfully proclaimed "Happy Thanksgiving!" after ringing up our orders. There are the pilots, the train conductors, the bus drivers and all the personnel supporting them working to make sure you reach your destination.

Hotel clerks and cleaning people make sure you have a place to stay and their food service staff hold big Thanksgiving buffets that day for people who choose not to cook. 

You can't send the sick people home on holidays, so hospitals are open and staffed on the holidays, as are all institutional establishments, like nursing homes or prisons (the one place almost no one wants to be any day of the year).

Movie theaters (at least as unnecessary as the retail stores) and many restaurants stay  open every day of the year, even on Christmas.  Thank goodness, because our Christmas Day is all about going out for Chinese food and a movie.

Oh, and I think all of the Pennsylvania State Police work on Thanksgiving, because they were certainly out in force when we were traveling the Turnpike, lurking around every corner.

So, to all those who sanctimoniously state that you cannot bring yourselves to go to Walmart on Thanksgiving because of your solidarity with and compassion for the people who work there, you better stay off the roads and out of the hotels, the movies and the restaurants because those employees have families, too.

Personally, though, I am going to protest on behalf of those hard-working State Police.  Seriously
those guys need a break, don't you think?  I think we can make it across the Turnpike without them just one or two days of the year.