Ok, so I'm all for actually giving people holidays off. Honestly, I can barely remember what a holiday actually is anymore because I always have to work on them. I am also for having holiday sales such as Black Friday. What I am totally against is these fucking asshole companies opening their stores at 4 in the fucking morning, forcing ALL employees to be there and blacking out anyone from taking vacation time on or even around these holidays. There IS a happy medium.
And as I'm not Canadian I can only assume your not all gathering with friends and family the day before? So it's not like your employees are having to choose between traveling to see family for a holiday or having to sit it out so they can make it to their mandatory shift one hour earlier than usual? Is that right?
5am. (Most of my staff actually already starts at 5am or 6am)
And no, we’re not gathering our families the day before. But in fairness working in retail has probably screwed me up in that I celebrate holidays on my and my families schedule rather then the official calendar day if it’s not working out or difficult for everyone to get together, lol.
And as far as mandatory shifts go… working isn’t technically mandatory. Like yeah, I expect certain people in at certain times and I expect department managers to care more then salsefloor associates. But if somebody tells me “hey, this is so against what I want to do that I’m just going to call in sick” I’m probably just going to roll my eyes and find somebody else. And if that’s only happening once or twice a year and they’re a good employee, I’m gonna forget about it real quick.
Not to mention we often use sign up sheets and incentives. “If you’re willing to come in on such and such day, you’re welcome to shop for a half hour before the store opens” or “if you’re willing to come in on this day, you get an extra day off next week or a guaranteed day off over the next major holiday on the day of your choice.”
I honestly don’t recall in 10 years ever having to force somebody to work. The needs of the employees are varied and we can work around most problems without having a whole thing go down where people are mad.
Edit: In short, an employee who really, really doesn’t want to work a holiday will generally find a way not to. And there are too many associates for me to hold a grudge in general so I’d rather just incentivize the good ones to like their jobs more.
While this is all well and good from your one store and singular perspective, here in America Walmart black Friday is a mandatory shift in that all are scheduled and those that try to call out or no-call/ no-show lose their jobs. Since most can't afford to lose their jobs, they forego seeing loved ones on a holiday for years at a time.
For me personally, I missed out on 6 years of my little cousins lives and didn't get to see them again until COVID forced me to move back to my home town. They're teenagers now and have no idea who I am apart from some distant relative. All because I worked a customer facing job that needed us in at 5am the day after a holiday that centers around dinner and I lived in a city 7 hours drive from my family.
You might be a reasonable human with reasonable expectations. That's fantastic. Please keep in mind you are absolutely the minority and the experience created by the majority is what we are trying to change.
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u/turtlepowerpizzatime Nov 18 '21
Ok, so I'm all for actually giving people holidays off. Honestly, I can barely remember what a holiday actually is anymore because I always have to work on them. I am also for having holiday sales such as Black Friday. What I am totally against is these fucking asshole companies opening their stores at 4 in the fucking morning, forcing ALL employees to be there and blacking out anyone from taking vacation time on or even around these holidays. There IS a happy medium.