Holidays

[anriana]

From a post on cs saying that stores should all be closed 4th of July/Memorial Day.


I live in America but I don't feel that I have an American cultural identity. I'm not going to be stupid and get upset at businesses that do choose to observe these holidays, but I am glad there are many businesses that do not. I am happy for the chance to earn extra holiday pay and the decrease in business as most people are off celebrating. I am sad for the workers who choose to observe these holidays and are forced to work, but I don't understand why they can't celebrate during the part of the day they are not working or an earlier/later day. People have been shooting off fireworks all this week.

And do you take this all the way and also declare Christian federal holidays such as Christmas and Easter as immoral to do business on?

[ThePhoneGoddess]

How did you come to live in America and not consider yourself an American? Just curious. Are you an international student or something?

[Boozy]

Canada Day was on July 1st, and stores were closed here.

I have no problem with stores being closed to give employees a holiday. In fact, I'm pretty vocal with my opinion that stores should be closed more often. There are several "holidays" here that aren't holidays for retail employees, because everyone else wants to shop on their day off.

I don't celebrate Canada Day because I think nationalism is vile. I don't celebrate Christmas either, because I'm not Christian. But I enjoy both Canada Day and Christmas Day as time to spend with my family and friends. The government has to give us some official holidays, or our companies would work us all to death!

[AFPheonix]

I work in a 24 hour pharmacy, so even though I end up being there on holidays like the 4th, I understand people do need us there for emergencies. Granted, it's a little different than, say, an electronics store, but I'm not going to fault a business when we live in a free market society and there's money to be made on those holidays.
Besides, holiday pay! Woo! Good thing too, cuz I just bought a new showmanship jacket for horse shows.

[anriana]

How did you come to live in America and not consider yourself an American? Just curious. Are you an international student or something?

I'm only American by birth, not by choice. So to be pedantic: American citizen? yes. American culturally? no.

[ThePhoneGoddess]

I'm sorry, Anriana, I don't quite understand what you're saying. You're American but you identify with another country's culture?

[anriana]

I'm sorry, Anriana, I don't quite understand what you're saying. You're American but you identify with another country's culture?

I am actively looking for another culture.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I'm sorry, but I don't agree with you. Why can't you shop on another day? You won't curl up and die if you have to wait one more day to go shopping. Where I work, a supermarket, it's only ever closed on Easter Sunday and on Christmas and Boxing Day. That's right; just 3 days off a year. We have to book those days off as holiday or move our hours to get paid, but I'd personally prefer that to being forced to come in just cuz some selfish person can't wait one or two days for the store to reopen. No-one has ever starved to death just cuz a supermarket is closed for one or two days.

To my mind, shops should be closed more, not less, cuz now that places are open every day, people take them for granted and act like they're entitled to go shopping whenever they want. This is not a right, it's a privilege and those are not mindless robots staffing the shop, but people who should be able to go and spend a public holiday with their family and friends. I'm not a christian, but I still like to have Christmas and Easter off... cuz it means I get to spend quality time with my family, especially family who I wouldn't get to see any other time. To me, that trumps a customer's right to go and shop on those days.

For the record, I work bank holidays and I don't mind doing so, due to the premium pay I get for doing so. It just seems so wrong that stores have to cater to the general public's "me me me" attitude and be open seven days a week. When I was a kid, shops were closed on Sundays and also on Wednesday afternoons, sometimes. They were closed for five days over Christmas, and three days over Easter. If you ran out of something Saturday night, you did without til the shops opened again on Monday. Bank holidays were also automatic closure. And no, I don't remember a single death from starvation, or a single person suffering cuz they couldn't go and shop on those days.

[Boozy]

I'm sorry, but I don't agree with you. Why can't you shop on another day? You won't curl up and die if you have to wait one more day to go shopping.

Amen, sister!

Unfortunately, I think many Americans (and more than a few Canadians and Brits as well) actually think they might die if they can't shop one day.

[anriana]

It just seems so wrong that stores have to cater to the general public's "me me me" attitude and be open seven days a week.

But the purpose of a store is to profitably fill a demand. They aren't catering to a right to shop, they are making a profit. There are enough people who want to shop on holidays for it to be profitable for the store to stay open, even with paying time-and-a-half, just like it is now profitable for them to stay open for people who don't go to church on Sunday/Wednesday afternoon - I'm assuming that's why they were closed then, although I have trouble thinking of Canada as a deeply religious country.


I don't know what Canada's requirements are, but I wish all companies in the U.S were required to use my company's holiday policy or a version of it. We have four personal days we can use for our own holidays and six company recognized holidays that we can choose whether or not to work on. Options for everyone, yay.

[Boozy]

But the purpose of a store is to profitably fill a demand. They aren't catering to a right to shop, they are making a profit. There are enough people who want to shop on holidays for it to be profitable for the store to stay open, even with paying time-and-a-half, just like it is now profitable for them to stay open for people who don't go to church on Sunday/Wednesday afternoon - I'm assuming that's why they were closed then, although I have trouble thinking of Canada as a deeply religious country.

Canadians aren't anywhere near as religious as Americans, and we're certainly less confrontational about it. Which is why no one seems to care that Christmas day is a Christian holiday. Christians go to church, the rest of us don't.

Most of us seem to enjoy knowing that everyone will have that ONE day off together. It makes things so easy for planning get-togethers. On December 25th, the roads are empty, the city is quiet, and you can almost here the audible sigh of relief and relaxation. I think it's important to do that together, as a country.

I know this will sound like sacrilege, but it's time that we as a society start measuring quality of life by factors other than just profit and production.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Agreed. I will repeat what I say; no-one really needs to shop every single day. And profit margins are dubious; when the supermarket is open New Year's Day, the place is usually dead. That means there are staff being paid extra and very few extra customers. Yet the place has to be open cuz of corporate.

I won't work NTD on the grounds that it's a national holiday, therefore I don't have to work it. So I don't. If I have to, I'll shift hours or change shifts, but everyone should have that day off to my mind. Just cuz some people have no lives is no reason to ruin someone else's chance to party and see in the new year with their friends.

[AFPheonix]

Agreed. I will repeat what I say; no-one really needs to shop every single day. And profit margins are dubious; when the supermarket is open New Year's Day, the place is usually dead. That means there are staff being paid extra and very few extra customers. Yet the place has to be open cuz of corporate.

I won't work NTD on the grounds that it's a national holiday, therefore I don't have to work it. So I don't. If I have to, I'll shift hours or change shifts, but everyone should have that day off to my mind. Just cuz some people have no lives is no reason to ruin someone else's chance to party and see in the new year with their friends.

Interestingly, Christmas day and other holidays like it are some of our chain's most profitable days.