I try to avoid political controversy here, but for my annual Thanksgiving post I had planned to write a piece stating that I would not be shopping today or tomorrow and encouraging you to also spend the time with family and friends instead. Many retailers will be opening this evening for the first time ever on Thanksgiving Day and I hate the thought that on one of the only holidays of the year that virtually all Americans celebrate, some would have to leave family and friends to work. Greed, I thought! Then I realized what a hypocrite I am.
Last night I was over late at a friend’s house and my brother picked me up around 3:30a. I was hungry, he had just driven to LA from San Francisco and was also hungry. Even the taco trucks seemed to have gone home, but Carl’s Jr. was open and we drove through and picked up some small hamburgers–about the only thing I can tolerate there. It was Thanksgiving Day, 3:30a, and I was breaking my vow just three hours into the day. We got to my parent’s house and devoured the burgers. They hit the spot.
I slept in this morning and woke up to find my brother at Starbucks and my father at the grocery store. I pulled out my laptop and immediately began working–a client is traveling to France tomorrow and we had to wait for last-minute award space to appear. Now I am trying to get a few tickets booked before the rest of the family arrives for Thanksgiving dinner.
So I still see it as kind of sad that businesses are open today, but I also have to consider why–people like me and my family. And for those who may not have family and friends close by, today presents a golden opportunity to make a little extra money. That’s not greed, that’s smart thinking. And how nice it was to get fresh bread this morning.
There is something appealing about “everything” being closed in Germany on Sundays (let alone holidays) so that workers have a uniform day of rest, but even there I use the gym and go out to eat on Sundays–not everything is closed and being able to shop on Sunday afternoon is certainly convenient for those who work long hours during the week and have other matters to contend with on Saturday.
And I think about airlines–all the FAs and pilots that are in the air today instead of with their family and friends–but then I think about how airlines make it possible for you and me to spend Thanksgiving with our family and friends. Oh what a hypocrite I am!
So I will just shut-up and stick to travel here. Happy Thanksgiving.
What kind of work do you do, exactly?
Here in England the only truly sacred holiday left is Christmas… But sacred it is, as there are no buses, trains, underground, stores, coffee shops, ANYTHING open. I’m sure somewhere in London someone is open for emergency supplies, but when we walked our neighbourhood last Christmas (not to shop, just to go for a walk) it was absolutely empty, like a scene from a dystopian sci-fi thriller.
When my dad was a flight attendant in his encore career, he’d volunteer to work holidays so another FA could spend time with family and my siblings could spend holidays with their in-laws. I was single at the time and I didn’t have much use for the holidays. Then we’d celebrate the holiday a day or two later. It worked out well. If I knew that every retail worker would just as soon be working either to do what my family did or because they were single and had nothing better to do, or even if they had a family and valued the opportunity to get overtime pay, then I’d be much less critical of retailers being open on thanksgiving. Unfortunately, I can’t help imagining that they’re all single parents with kids sitting at home building bad memories of Thanksgiving.
I feel as though you have poor little rich kid syndrome. Many of your posts are decent, but more often than not you rant about something most of us do not care about, and you’re one of the most self entitled bloggers on this site. Not to mention you fall in ranks with other self-entitled bloggers like Lucky from boarding area. It’s clear that you live in a bubble and have poor me syndrome.
For example, you think it’s sad that people at Starbucks are working, but then you realize it could be for the good of the people who are not working (i.e. you and your family). But you never stop and think about the Public servants who work every day, 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. These people are the doctors and nurses in hospitals, policemen & firefighters, 911 operators, the public work departments who manage everything and keep the power grid working and the sewers draining, the public transit operators, and more. Then you have the audacity to complain because you CHOOSE to work from home on thanksgiving. When you of all people can “work” from the air or a café in Paris if you choose too, and you instead decide to blog and complain that you are working from home on thanksgiving. Really? Maybe you should of taken you own advice before you typed and “just shut-up”. After all, shouldn’t you be with your family instead of “working?”
Happy thanksgiving. 🙂
@Aleksandr: upgrd.com/award primarily
@John-Paul: Do you like it like that? I kind of do. The closest I came to that was a blizzard in Philadelphia in 2010 when everything shut down–everything, the entire city. I had never seen anything like it. Here in LA, the grocery stores are now open on Christmas. Thankfully, the retailers are not…yet.
@Paul: I think you are correct regarding your latter point, but am glad you and your father were able to celebrate the holiday a day or two late!
@SickOfYourRants: Poor me? I thought this post was rather self-effacing, no? I was not complaining about me working, I was pointing out that I was doing it and that it was rather hypocritical for me to tell others not to work or shop…
But let me get serious–spare me the crap about public servants, for I have lived that life. I’ve served in the military and spent eight years working for either the federal or local government before I moved on to the private sector. Please spare me your deluded preaching.
@Billy: Same to you!
Happy Thanksgiving