Nov. 17, 2014
Samantha Morley
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Black Friday isn’t all evil.
The day used to be a highly anticipated event after people stuffed their bellies full of turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans and pie.
Black Friday has since encroached more and more on Thanksgiving Day. Wal-Mart and Macy’s, for instance, will begin their Black Friday deals at 6 p.m. this year.
This has frustrated many who feel companies are taking away family time from employees.
But not everyone is forced to work on Thanksgiving and Black Friday.
Old Navy, Wal- Mart, Macy’s, Best Buy, Sears, Toys R Us, Target and several others opened positions to their employees to volunteer for. They didn’t force them to sign up.
For those that choose to work, they are offered time-and-a-half pay and food. For some workers, this is a blessing. A lot of people don’t have family close by. They may not have anyone to spend the holiday with. Therefore, they can work on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, earn extra money and not have to stay at home all alone.
I agree that we should still maintain the holiday spirit. We should allow those who want to spend time with their families to do so, but don’t go around blaming corporations without knowing more of the facts.
If consumers truly didn’t want the sales on Thursday, then they wouldn’t participate and companies would have no choice but to stay away from Thanksgiving Day.
Companies alter their deals to fit the desires of the consumer because without the consumer corporations wouldn’t survive.
If you want to change how stores operate on Thanksgiving, change your own actions first. Don’t go shopping. Stay at home. Stand up for your moral principles no matter how tempting deals might be.
Don’t blame companies for the urge you get to go out in the cold and stand in line for hours. It’s your choice to be there and encourage stores to be open on Thanksgiving.
Instead, be kind and courteous when you go out. Remember: they’re just items. The sweet deal on the phone, tablet, computer or video game system isn’t always worth the stress.
Take the time to thank the people that chose to work on Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Appreciate that they volunteered to put themselves in the center of consumer madness.
Even if they are getting paid time-anda- half, they still have to put up with the long hours and increased stress that comes with frantic customers trying to snag the very first box of the latest and greatest.