Retailers Opening On Thanksgiving Day Yet Again, But Don’t Blame Businessmen

Once again, some people are upset because retailers are opening on Thanksgiving Day, but that's only because people are coming out to shop.

Retailers Thanksgiving

As occurred one year ago, when it first seemed to become a phenomenon, there’s a debate opening up about the decision of some of America’s major retailers to open on Thanksgiving Day as part of an early kick off to the Christmas shopping season, which judging by my recent trip to Target began the day after Halloween at the very least, while other stories are promoting the fact that they will remain closed on that day, and once again its becoming a point of argument:

This Thanksgiving, the open-versus-shut debate has grown even louder.

Walmart, Kmart, Macy’s, Target, RadioShack and many other major retailers are proclaiming that they will be open on Thanksgiving Day to make shoppers happy. But Costco, Marshalls, GameStop and T. J. Maxx are riding the backlash against holiday commerce by boasting that they will not relent: They will remain closed that day to show that they are family-friendly and honoring the holiday.

But even as retailers vie for every dollar during a very competitive season, Tony Bartel, the president of GameStop, views this debate as open-and-shut. “For us, it’s a matter of principle,” said Mr. Bartel, whose company has 4,600 stores nationwide. “We have a phrase around here that we use a lot — it’s called ‘protecting the family.’ We want our associates to enjoy their complete holidays.”

In a big difference from last holiday season — when more retailers decided to open their doors on Thanksgiving with enticing deals — this year others are firing back and promoting their decision not to join the rush to push Black Friday into Thanksgiving Day. They are happy to tell the world that they will remain closed on a beloved American holiday.

“It’s an important holiday in the U.S., and our employees work hard during the holiday season, and we believe they deserve the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving Day with their family and friends,” said Richard A. Galanti, executive vice president and chief financial officer at Costco Wholesale, the nation’s second-largest retailer after Walmart. “We’ve never opened on Thanksgiving, and when the trend to do so occurred in the last couple or three years, we chose not to because we thought it was the right thing to do for our employees.”

More than two dozen major retail chains plan to stay dark on Thanksgiving, including Barnes & Noble, Bed Bath & Beyond, the Burlington Coat Factory, Crate and Barrel, Dillard’s, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus and Patagonia.

(…)

Pushed by competitive forces, some malls are opening on Thanksgiving Day for the first time. In Paramus, N.J., Westfield Garden State Plaza and Paramus Park will open from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m., prodded by Macy’s decision to open its stores in those malls.

Walden Galleria, a mall with over 200 stores near Buffalo, threatened to fine retailers about $200 an hour if they don’t open at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day.

Carrie Gleason, director of the Fair Workweek Initiative, a campaign pushing retailers to adopt schedules that are more friendly to workers, said, “What’s different from years past is there are more and more retailers coming out publicly and saying, ‘We’re staying closed on Thanksgiving.’ ” They want to demonstrate to their customer base that Ththey’re family-friendly.”

More than 55,000 people have signed a petition on change.org urging Target to remain closed on Thanksgiving, while the Boycott Black ThursdayFacebook page has more than 87,000 likes.

(…)

Pushed by competitive forces, some malls are opening on Thanksgiving Day for the first time. In Paramus, N.J., Westfield Garden State Plaza and Paramus Park will open from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m., prodded by Macy’s decision to open its stores in those malls.

Walden Galleria, a mall with over 200 stores near Buffalo, threatened to fine retailers about $200 an hour if they don’t open at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day.

Carrie Gleason, director of the Fair Workweek Initiative, a campaign pushing retailers to adopt schedules that are more friendly to workers, said, “What’s different from years past is there are more and more retailers coming out publicly and saying, ‘We’re staying closed on Thanksgiving.’ ” They want to demonstrate to their customer base that they’re family-friendly.”

More than 55,000 people have signed a petition on change.org urging Target to remain closed on Thanksgiving, while the Boycott Black ThursdayFacebook page has more than 87,000 likes.

Slate’s Jordan Weissman is even more vehement in his denunciation of the idea of shopping on Thanksgiving:

This Thanksgiving, millions of Americans will slide back from their dinner tables, get in their cars, and head for a postprandial shopping trip to snap up deals at a holiday sale.

Please, please do not be one of those people—both for your own sake, and out of respect for the retail staff who get dragooned into coming to work on a day they should have off with family.

I know. Complaining about our mania for holiday bargain-hunting, and that Black Friday now begins on Brown Thursday, is already a bit of a cliché. Progressive-minded writers seem to spend every November lamenting the misfortune of employees forced to show up to their job on Thanksgiving. The econ bloggers at ThinkProgress have practically devoted an entire month of coverage to the subject. Meanwhile, stores like Costco, Crate and Barrel, and Marshalls now brag about the fact that they don’t open on our national day of gluttony as a way of painting themselves as family-friendly.

But it bears repeating. Thanksgiving shopping, as it currently stands, is an awful tradition that should be boycotted.

These reactions are similar to much of what we heard last year in advance of Thanksgiving and what marked the first real movement by major retailers to open on that day, which many people, mostly on the left, framed as some kind of attack on worker’s and families by greedy corporations. As I noted at the time, though, in the end the decision to open in the late afternoon or early evening on Thanksgiving Day was really nothing more than the logical extension of what had been happening to the “Black Friday” phenomenon for the better part of a decade. What started out as early morning openings on the day after Thanksgiving slowly but surely evolved into opening starting at midnight, and then late at night around 10pm, complete with big extravaganza’s, special sales, and, of course, the obligatory shots on television of large crowds pushing against the sliding glass doors of the local Best Buy waiting for the place to open up and, if the producer of the local 11pm news was lucky, some guy getting trapped under the crowd or maybe even a fight breaking out. A few years ago, some stores began opening around 9pm or 10pm, when most people would obviously be done with their meals and the rest of the family would be in a tryptophan/alcohol/football coma. Each time the clock for opening time was pushed back, the consumers would respond by showing up, in seemingly larger numbers each time, searching for supposed bargain. Given that, it was only inevitable that some retailer somewhere would think about experimenting with the idea of opening on Thanksgiving Day itself, even though they likely knew that the decision to do so would likely draw some outrage from people who would see the move as trampling on a time meant to be spent with friends, family, fowl, and football.

The ultimate test of whether or not the idea of opening on Thanksgiving, of course, would end up being whether or not their would be sufficient foot traffic and sales to justify the decision. After all, opening a store even for a couple extra hours on a given day is not without its costs; there are labor costs, of course, but also the costs associated with operating the store ranging from electricity and other utilities to security. So, a retailer isn’t going to open on a holiday like Thanksgiving if they weren’t going to at least cover their costs and, more importantly, end the day with some kind of a decent profit. Obviously, the retailers who made the decision to open on Thanksgiving last year did so because they believed the customers would show up and justify their decision. As it turns out, they were largely correct, which is likely why there are many retailers who are deciding to do it again this year. On the other side of the equation, of course, there are other retailers who are deciding to not only stay closed next Thursday but to advertise the fact that they are staying closed. Obviously, they are hoping to appeal in some way to consumers who claim, according to the polls, to think that retailers should stay closed on Thanksgiving. As always who is right is something the market to decide rather than part of some bizarre argument about social justice, and idea that even Matthew Yglesias rejected.

None of this has caused the debate to end, of course. Once again, we’re seeing people complain about how “unfair” it is that some retail workers will be required to work on Thanksgiving, and the debate has even led some overzealous politicians turn it into a political issue. In New Jersey, Democratic State Senator Richard Codey, who served as Governor on two separate occasions when the office was vacant and the state still lacked at Lt. Governor to fill the position, has introduced a bill that would prevent retailers from opening before 9pm on Thanksgiving Day, for example, and a State Representative in Ohio has proposed a bill that would mandate triple pay for any worker required to work on Thanksgiving.  Left unstated in their arguments, though, as well as those made by others who complains about the “open on Thanksgiving” phenomenon, are the countless numbers of people who work on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and other days when many people expect to be off. First responders and health care workers, obviously are at the top of that last, but so are people who work at supermarkets and convenience stores, athletes, people who work at all levels in the television and radio business, the support staff at sports facilities around the country, tech support people at Internet Service Providers and cable companies, and countless others. When I was growing up, my Dad worked at a chemical plant that had to stay operating around the clock, which meant that there was always a shift on duty, even on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Yes, a lot of those people end up getting paid extra for that time but they’re still spending it away from their families. Why it is less of an issue for them than it is for the people who work at Macy’s is a mystery to me. So, if you don’t like the idea that stores are open on Thanksgiving, then the answer is to not go shopping on Thanksgiving. If enough people agree with you, then the stores will get the message.

FILED UNDER: Economics and Business, , , , , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Andre Kenji says:

    There is an easy way of solving that problem, it´s called “labor laws” and “unions”. Unions can negotiate with the employers conditions for opening stores during holidays, and if you have provisions with things like paid holidays that´s easy to solve – anyone that wants extra cash over family reunions can work during Thanksgiving.

    It´s not that difficult.

  2. John Peabody says:

    “time meant to be spent with friends, family, fowl, and football.” Heh. (stewie voice) “Oh, Bravo! Clap, clap, clap!” (/stewie voice).

    (you left out “feasting” …with friends, family, etc.)

  3. grumpy realist says:

    Doug, there’s a real difference between requiring attendance of employees for essential services such as hospitals and power plants, and big box stores being open so they can sell you a piece of unnecessary electronic crap from China.

    I like the idea where stores are open, but a) payment is triple-time, and b) no one can be mandated to work on that day nor penalized for deciding to not work that day. If your company can’t get enough volunteers to man the deck, then bow your head to reality and don’t open that day. And if paying triple-time is going to take away the profit entirely, then again bow your head to reality and don’t open.

    Workers need more protection against being forced to work on holidays.

    P.S. Yes, groceries are often open on Thanksgiving, but in my experience it’s with a skeleton staff and they shut down at noon.

  4. michael reynolds says:

    So, if you don’t like the idea that stores are open on Thanksgiving, then the answer is to not go shopping on Thanksgiving. If enough people agree with you, then the stores will get the message.

    Sure, because corporations are people, my friend. Just apparently not “people” with agency, capable of making decisions. Not in the face of: money!

    I once wrote a book I knew I shouldn’t have written because an editor offered me a bunch of money. Which is why it’s her fault, not mine, because hey: money. Then, I went out and called people’s babies ugly (no, not really) because someone offered to pay me to do that. But it’s all good, because I’m also a corporation (really) and thus can only respond with Pavlovian slobber anytime someone offers me a dime.

  5. Ben says:

    What I don’t understand about this whole phenomenon is this: isn’t this just time-shifting the sales they would have gotten on Black Friday anyways? Is being open on Thanksgiving actually causing people to spend more money overall, or are they just spending it one day earlier? I would find it strange that having the store open for 1 additional day would cause people to spend more money overall. It doesn’t make any logical sense from the consumer’s perspective.

  6. Mr. Prosser says:

    Stay home, eat, groan, stretch out and root for Philly over the Cowboys. Make sure there’s plenty for the kids to do, watch grandma snooze and snore in the recliner and sneak another piece of pie. Oh, and help with the dishes.

  7. stonetools says:

    @Andre Kenji:

    You do understand that Republicans hate labor laws and have been doing their best to wipe out the US union movement, right?
    No? Well, let me tell you, this ain’t Brazil.

  8. anjin-san says:

    Large corporate retailers have highly sophisticated & costly marketing pushes driving Thanksgiving shopping. It’s not a case of some store manager saying “Let’s open the doors for a few hours and see what happens.” This happen by design, a lot of resources were put into driving traffic into the stores on Thanksgiving.

  9. Brett says:

    If you really wanted to stop Black Friday from bleeding over into Thanksgiving, the best remedy would be to ban discounting within seven days of Thanksgiving. That would at least force them to move Black Friday back or forward, farther away from the holiday.

  10. James says:

    Didn’t the market used to mandate 16 hours a day seven days a week, no overtime, children working in mines and crawling around dangerous machinery. The market is a cruel bitch and so doesn’t always need to be listened to.

  11. James Pearce says:

    I can’t really blame the consumer. These Thanksgiving shopping events are artificial marketing strategies, not demand-driven events.

    Best Buy could sell me a cheap TV today. But no….I gotta wait.

  12. grumpy realist says:

    @Ben: Yes, the data show that sales on Thanksgiving simply have moved over from Black Friday.

    Another point I saw made is that it’s the stores that are floundering that are most eager in doing this: Radio Shack. Sears, and the Sears-linked stores.

  13. Gustopher says:

    Also, crack dealers can’t really be blamed. It’s the customers after all who drive the market.

  14. Guarneri says:

    “This happen by design, a lot of resources were put into driving traffic into the stores on Thanksgiving.”

    The key being the gun held to the heads of consumers with orders to shop or die, I’m sure.

  15. JKB says:

    A lot of this is to compete with online retailers that people started shopping after dinner thus leaving the bricks and mortar out of the game.

    So, ban brick and mortar from opening on T-day and also shutdown the internet to keep things fair.

    Also, ban all those pretentious a-holes in NYC from dumping their crap that actually stinks down the toilet so that those who work to keep the streets from running with raw sewage can get a day off as well.

  16. anjin-san says:

    @Guarneri:

    The key being the gun held to the heads of consumers with orders to shop or die, I’m sure.

    I’m not sure what the point of the sarcasm is. Good marketing can be highly effective at manipulating people. No one holds a gun to people’s heads and forces them to eat toxic garbage at McDonalds that will damage their health either. But they have been manipulated both by sophisticated marketing and by the unhealthy, but very satisfying ingredients in the food – such as super high salt/sugar/fat contents.

    You know, probably better than anyone here, how corporations play this game

  17. Tyrell says:

    Some of the retailers have an online Black Friday, that actually starts on Thursday. So, I can sit, shop, eat, nap, watch Romo getting flattened, and read a book.
    I have done the early am Freaky Friday thing. I got up in 20 degree weather, find a parking place, stood in line until opening, got in the store. Then they don’t have what I went for to start with. I showed the store manager the newspaper ad and he said they never had the items. The only good thing that happened was a nice cup of coffee and some hot doughnuts at the doughnut store.
    There are many good deals right now online at the outlet sites, such as Overstock, Retail Me Not, and even retail store sites. Many offer free shipping . Last year I called an electronics outlet site and even talked them down about $50.
    Save your time and sanity.

  18. PogueMahone says:

    @Ben: It’s the rule of capture.
    The Christmas dollar is a loose fish, who get’s it first wins

    I. A Fast-Fish belongs to the party fast to it
    II. A Loose-Fish is fair game for anybody can soonest catch it.

    Moby Dick (ch. 89)

    Me, I don’t swim in those waters.

  19. OzarkHillbilly says:

    Which came first Doug? The chicken or the egg?

  20. Tyrell says:

    While we are on this subject, maybe other people can relate their Black Friday stories. Also, some pointers on how to get or find the best price. If anyone has any favorite on line discount sites that they would like to share, that would be nice.
    And, have a happy, safe Thanksgiving. Enjoy the food, and happy shopping ! Drive safely !

  21. bill says:

    @Andre Kenji: there are labor laws and unions, forcing companies to use unions is un-American. if people don’t want to work on holidays then they shouldn’t go to work for companies that are open on holidays- it’s pretty simple.
    i don’t hearmuch whining about other places that are always open on holidays;
    hotels, restaurants, sporting arenas, bars, hospitals, gas stations,etc – not mention cops, firemen, utilities and the military.
    last i checked the lines outside these stores aren’t a bunch of republicans looking for deals- more like an episode of “democrats behaving badly”!
    happy tg all!

  22. Boyd says:

    They can stay closed on Thursday and Friday as far as I’m concerned. I won’t darken their doorstep on either day.

    Then again, I likely won’t darken the doorstep of any store other than the dry cleaners and the grocery store until January.

  23. Tyrell says:

    @Boyd: Dry cleaners? Those are getting harder and harder to find.Going the way of ironing boards, starch, collar stays, and cuff links. Few kids today would have any idea what we are talking about.
    I remember a years back trying to find a Nintendo wii video game system for a Christmas gift. I spent many a cold weekend morning waiting for the stores to open in a mad search for one. Finally got one two days before Christmas ! I could have turned a huge profit on that $199 !

  24. Moderate Mom says:

    You couldn’t pay me enough money to go anywhere near a store on Black Friday. I’m almost 57 years old and have managed to avoid the temptation (not) to get up at the crack of dawn and stand in a line in the cold, waiting with the masses for a store to open, and then RUN! for whatever special item the store is selling at some bargain basement price, that price only valid from 5 AM until 5:45 AM.

    Thanks, but no thanks. I’m not that desperate for a so-called bargain.

  25. Guarneri says:

    @anjin-san:

    Actually I don’t. But what I do know is we don’t want a country with a bunch of self righteous wannabe Grubers dictating purchasing habits to people. Leave the people free to choose. I know that’s a foreign concept to the left.

  26. ernieyeball says:

    @anjin-san:.. Good marketing can be highly effective at manipulating people…they have been manipulated both by sophisticated marketing…

    Do you think some people are just too dumb to make these decisions for themselves or maybe they are just too stupid to know they are being conned?

  27. rodney dill says:

    Once they(retailers) move the start of the holiday shopping season prior to Thanksgiving (…and they nearly have at this point). Shopping on Thanksgiving will be a moot point.

  28. @Gustopher: You beat me to it, as I was going to say something similar.

    Plus, I am with Ben Wolf (this is just shifting sales) and James Pearce (these are marketing gimmicks). These aren’t some moral outcomes that the miracle of the market has produced.

  29. @bill:

    if people don’t want to work on holidays then they shouldn’t go to work for companies that are open on holidays- it’s pretty simple.

    Regardless of one’s overall position on this issue, this is a ridiculous statement. It assumes that employees have their pick of jobs and can freely find an employer at will. This is simply not the case and let’s not pretend otherwise. Indeed, most of us, not just retail workers, can’t simply go find new jobs with great ease. The choice is not between two jobs, the choice is often between paying the mortgage/rent and feeding the kids or not.

    Employers have a great deal of power of employees. This fact is a major component of this conversation (and many others about the economy) and should not be dismissed or minimized.

  30. @Guarneri:

    Leave the people free to choose.

    Except for the low wage retail employees.

    (Look, I am not hugely outraged by all of this, and am not even sure what I think that the solution is, save that it would be nice if employers would simply give their workers the day off. What is galling, in my opinion, about this conversation is that the defenders of T-Day shopping only focus on the choice and free will of the shoppers and basically ignore those who have to serve them).

  31. Tyrell says:

    The popularity of on line shopping will only increase. I have seen some good deals and most sites offer free shipping. I will still go out early tomorrow – for doughnuts and coffee. That you can’t order on line.

  32. Rafer Janders says:

    When I was growing up, my Dad worked at a chemical plant that had to stay operating around the clock, which meant that there was always a shift on duty, even on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Yes, a lot of those people end up getting paid extra for that time but they’re still spending it away from their families. Why it is less of an issue for them than it is for the people who work at Macy’s is a mystery to me.

    Because the chemical plant had to stay open around the clock and Macy’s doesn’t?

    Really, if you couldn’t solve that mystery it’s no wonder that you didn’t go into detective work.

  33. ernieyeball says:

    @Rafer Janders: Because the chemical plant had to stay open around the clock and Macy’s doesn’t?

    Robots!
    http://www.ufunk.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/BENDER-robot-anatomy.jpg

  34. wr says:

    @Rafer Janders: Macy’s, by the way, has a strictly volunteer policty on working on Thanksgiving, and they’ve got plenty of people who want to. And that seems like a fair solution to me. (They also pay overtime for working on the holiday.) It’s the Walmarts of the world that force their employees to work on the day that are engaging in crappy business practices…

  35. @wr: Agreed.

  36. Moosebreath says:

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    ” It assumes that employees have their pick of jobs and can freely find an employer at will.”

    It also assumes that employers do not change their policies with little notice to their employees, which has been shown here and the earlier thread is not the case.

  37. An Interested Party says:

    …forcing companies to use unions is un-American.

    Indeed! Slavery is much more American than unions…

  38. anjin-san says:

    @ernieyeball:

    Do you think corporations spend hundreds of billions on marketing because it fails at manipulating people?

  39. ernieyeball says:

    @Steven L. Taylor:..Employers have a great deal of power of (over?) employees.

    I have been both employer and employee. The only time I had a great deal of power over an employee was when I was self employed.
    I have worked on Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. Sometimes I had to work or lose the job. Other times I volunteered as I was traveling and could not get home and back in one day. The pay was almost always extra and many times there was little to do.
    Today before I traveled a few hours west on I-70 to visit sister Sue I was conflicted about stopping at McDonald’s to get coffee for the ride. The do gooders in town are always dissing Mickey D’s because they take advantage of the help and manipulate people to buy hamburgers. Not supposed to patronize such places or you might be a climate change denier or hate baby seals or something.
    Screw ’em I thought. Good cheap brew and there is not much open today. Besides I like McMud and Denny’s does not have a drive thru window.
    I paid my 60 cents and pulled to the next window only to look in and see the gal starting a fresh pot of coffee.
    “Please pull ahead sir. We are getting you a fresh pot of coffee, sorry.”
    From what I could see and hear through the window there was a skeleton crew and it was in McChaos. Not in a hurry. I moved up, waited 5 min and went inside. The crew was Ebony and Ivory. But hardly perfect harmony.
    “Can I help you sir?” “Is the coffee ready? I’ve been waiting outside for a medium coffee.”
    “Uh oh!” I heard.
    “Give him a large.” One of the workers said. “We’ve had a bad day.” as he motioned to a plie of french fries on the floor behind the counter. “We should all be at home with our families.”
    “Happy Thanksgiving. Thanks for working today.” It was all I could say.
    As I drove out of town I noticed the cars in the parking lot of the Illinois Liquor Mart that did not have to be open. I wondered how many of the wine swillers that cranked about WalMart and MacDonalds being open (or even existing) objected to liquor sales today and if they comisserated with the employees of that establishment.
    As I drove west I made it a point to thank the employees of the gas stations and Zippy Marts I stopped at for working today.
    When I got to my destination I was duped along with all the other rubes into having a meal at The Cracker Barrel. Needless to say our waitress had been exploited into working a double shift.
    “I’ve been here since 10:00 this morning.” she said at 7pm.
    “Big tippers today?” I asked. She just gave me a big smile as she nodded to reply.
    After dinner my sister and I went to the local mall. Not to shop. I told her. I just wanted to observe and document the mass exploitation and manipulation of the suckers first hand.
    Sure enough there were hoards of drones so vacant minded that they could not resist the seductive wares. Lines of them clutching their credit cards with sweaty hands.
    I wanted to warn them how foolish they were but that would have violated my mission as a dispassionate observer.
    I did see some deals though and I need a new pair of shoes.
    Tomorrow is Black Friday. Tomorrow I will shop.

  40. ernieyeball says:

    @anjin-san:..Do you think corporations spend hundreds of billions on marketing because it fails at manipulating people?

    Your shoelace is undone.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Question_dodging

  41. anjin-san says:

    @ernieyeball:

    Keep typing dude. The law of averages says something clever or meaningful will eventually come of it…

  42. ernieyeball says:

    @anjin-san:.. The law of averages says something clever or meaningful will eventually come of it…

    I’m an anarchist. Got no use for laws!

  43. ernieyeball says:

    @anjin-san:..Happy Thanksgiving! Hope the earthquake doesn’t get ya’!

    Do you think some people are just too dumb to make these decisions for themselves or maybe they are just too stupid to know they are being conned?

    Still dodging the question eh?

  44. @ernieyeball: Yes, it should have been “over” and not “of.”

    I must confess, I am not sure what the point of your anecdote is supposed to be.

    I will say this: I find your assertion about the power of employers over employees to be an odd one. The power dynamics involved are not that difficult to figure out.

  45. anjin-san says:

    @ernieyeball:

    If you are going to start demanding that other commentators answer lame gotcha questions, you will need to get in line behind Jenos.

  46. ernieyeball says:

    @anjin-san:..gotcha questions,..

    You and Sarah Palin…I’d vote for you though.

  47. ernieyeball says:

    @Steven L. Taylor:..I find your assertion about the power of employers over employees to be an odd one.

    I was relating my experience. I would not try to speak for others.
    Some posters seem to think that if I am employed I am being exploited. And If I am a consumer I am being manipulated.
    Maybe I am just to blind to see it.

  48. ernieyeball says:

    @anjin-san:..Still dodging the question eh?

    That qualifies as an ultimatum? Get a grip man.
    How is that a “gotcha” question?
    One could reply. “No I do not think some people are just too dumb to make these decisions for themselves or that they are just too stupid to know they are being conned.”
    I don’t see how you were boxed in like “When did you stop beating your wife?”

  49. ernieyeball says:

    @ernieyeball:..too blind to…

    Didn’t c that…

  50. bill says:

    @Steven L. Taylor: stop looking down at people who work for a living steven- you have a good job and you should be happy, trying to rub others faces in it by pretending you give a damn about them is petty at best.
    the country runs on an hourly basis, while you’re holed up in your comfy house there’s millions of people who are working to to make sure you’re all comfy and such- if you really feel that bad for them then go work a blue collar job and stop the pity party.
    i’m sure that your hero’s at the tech firms are staffed during the holiday’s too- yes, white collar people do work holiday’s too- we all can’t be professors just like we all can’t be astronauts.

  51. ernieyeball says:

    @bitter bill:..???

    There must have been lumps in your mashed potatoes or maybe a cobb up your ass.

  52. @bill:

    trying to rub others faces in it by pretending you give a damn about them is petty at best.

    I am trying to understand the logic here, so help me out.

    1. I think it would be nice if retailers allowed their workers a day off (and if they are going to open that they should take volunteers and pay them extra).

    2. I think we should acknowledge that employers have a great deal of power over their employees.

    So, ergo, I am pretending to care.

    You want to flesh that out better for me?

  53. @bill: Another logic problems I would like you to work out: How a claim that retailers that have traditionally been closed might should keep it that way equals a call for all things at all places to be closed.

  54. John425 says:

    @Steven L. Taylor: Oftentimes the store owner may not have a say in the setting of business hours. I once had two stores, each in a different mall. One suburban mall owner required tenant stores to be open Sundays and set the store (mall) hours. The other, a downtown mall developer had us close Sundays and holidays but set longer Christmas hours. All terms were set out in the lease.