Hi. Welcome to the blog for my IB English B class at Jur Hronec High School in Bratislava, Slovakia. Below you will find links to other websites and discussion questions. My students are required to comment on one of these postings every month and also respond to each other's comments. Feel free to add your two bits, but be aware that all comments are monitored before being posted.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Black Friday creeping into Thanksgiving Thursday
Shouldn’t a holiday be a holiday for everyone? Is convenience for shoppers going too far in terms of infringing upon the rights of store employees? Have you ever gone shopping on a holiday and felt sorry for the shop assistant? How much would you be willing to sacrifice to get good deals and get your Christmas shopping done early? Do you notice that shops in Slovakia are making the Christmas season start too early? Is Christmas becoming too commercial, or was it always like this?
Holidays like Thanksgiving or Christmas are there to connect the family and celebrate, but how can the store employees enjoy being with their families if they have to start working at 11p.m. as Anthony Hardwick from the article had to? He said he had to leave the dinner so he could sleep out to be fit for work. He couldn’t say no to his employer because as Nyberg, a saleswoman in Villa Rica, Ga., for a molecular biology company said “With the economy the way it is, no one’s going to say, ‘I’m not going to do that, I’m going to quit or get fired over it.’ ”. The humanity in this period of time is under the constant pressure of losing their jobs.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, the stores should be closed during this kind of holidays even though the stores owners want convenience for the shoppers. We, as the shoppers, have to realize that it is wrong to make the employees work on a holiday just because the products and cloth are on sale. It is simply unfair. I don’t think either of you would like to work on a holiday while the family is at home celebrating. That is why my family never goes shopping on a holiday, since we feel sorry for the employee’s. We try to buy all the things we need before the celebration, and buy all the cloth which is on sale afterwards.
At the end, the majority of the businesses all over the world are profiting from holidays similar to Christmas. Christmas is the most commercial holiday in the year. People buy presents for the whole family, food and decoration for the Christmas evening. However, in the last few years Christmas got more commercial as it ever has been in the human history. The preponderance of stores already has Christmas decorations at the start of October. Many people think it’s absurd to decorate the stores 3 months before Christmas Eve, but my point of view is that the stores profit more if they start to sell Christmas products and presents at such early time. According to this fact, I can state that the commercialization of Christmas is a benefit and does not have significant consequences.
Holidays like Thanksgiving or Christmas are the one time in a year that family gathers together and shares memorable moments. On holidays, people should be exempted from any work, requirement or duty, but some of the mayor shopping chains try to ignore this. An employee or worker, like every other citizen, is in right to have a holiday. This right is took from them when the shopping chain decides to prolong their opening hours which requires employees to work longer, even though they are the holidays. The employee’s opportunity to spend time with his/her family is taken from him/her, to serve the customers of the shopping chain.
ReplyDeleteOn holidays like Christmas or Thanksgiving, the shopping chains earn a huge amount of money. Holidays are the biggest shopping days of the year, and most shopping chains are willing to benefit from this fact to make more money. The shops are open, and employees are needed. Most employees are rewarded for the service they provide to their customers during the holidays. From the article, the Target spokesman said “the employees will get holiday pay for Thanksgiving work and we’ve heard from our guests that they are excited”. For some people, with finances being there main priority, working on the holiday is an opportunity to earn more money. Giving the employees a financial reward is definitely the best motivation to make them provide services for customers through the holidays.
In my opinion it is not fair that employees of mayor shopping chains have to work when most other people are at home, enjoying the holidays. For me, moments like this are more important than money, and the finical reward could not make up for the time I could spend with the people I love the most over a thanksgiving dinner. As a solution to this problem, the government should have a policy on the opening and closing hours of all shops during the holidays. This way, employees could enjoy holidays without working.
In these days, shopping chains try really hard to benefit from holidays. Commercials used for propagating Christmas products usually start in the middle of November. In my opinion this has gone to a too extreme level. People should realize that Christmas holidays are not necessarily about the goods people buy, but about the atmosphere and family being together. We should be less influenced by commercials of the shopping chains.
It is rather a shame really that the retailers have begun committing such disgusting atrocities, but, in my opinion, they are not the ones to blame. Saying that one cannot spend some quality time with the family on a holiday, because store executives are “pushing into Thanksgiving”, seems to me like nothing more than a poorly fabricated excuse. I do not want to leave you under the impression that I am defending the retailers for there is no such thing. However, I do not think they should be held responsible either. If the people genuinely wish to restrain a retailer’s private time invasion, it is up to them to stand up for themselves. Some of the ways they could express their opinion is by signing petitions against it or ultimately they could even organize protests. However, as long as individuals, willing to forgo the Thanksgiving dinner and go shopping instead, exist, the retailers are only going to take advantage of this.
ReplyDeleteAs far as employees are concerned, to some extent I agree that it isn’t fair to them, but then again life isn’t fair. It is a job they’ve signed up for, well aware of the fact that they would have to work on some holidays. They are, thus, bound to submit to their superiors’ decisions and I doubt they as employees are in any position to influence these decisions without risking being sacked. Furthermore, seeing how retailers only tend to add fuel to the fire in the form of holiday bonuses and encourage employees to work during the holiday, resolving this issue becomes nigh impossible.
Last but not least, I would like to address a point made in the comments above, namely the proposal that the government should interfere and introduce a policy regarding the opening hours. Frankly, I very much doubt such attempt would be successful. In fact, I’m not certain whether the government has any jurisdiction over the said supermarkets whatsoever. Retailers have the right to decide for themselves, hence the government won’t be able to influence them to an extent if at all. To sum up, if people want a change they will have to sweat over it. If they show an increasing lack of interest in shopping on Thanksgiving, the retailers would be forced to abolish their plans of being opened on holidays, in order to cut the losses.
First of all, I would like to say that I have never experienced pure, uncommercial Christmas. By the state of market development nowadays, I assume it is not even possible to go without commerciality altogether. I am able to tolerate certain level, but I think that retailers had definitely crossed the line long time ago. Even though they might profit from the commercials and advertisements they usually put up months before the actual holiday, the customers are slowly starting to hate it. Personally, I am disgusted when I see Christmas commercial in the middle of October. It totally spoils the atmosphere and I don’t even look forward in the end.
ReplyDeleteI got quite surprised when the writer spoke about the inconvenience and the disadvantages in particular - having to leave earlier, having to pick and choose the stores and missing out on Thanksgiving dinner. But let’s face it. It is everybody’s own choice, and no one forces the customers to stand in the line hours before the stores open. I have to admit that I am not a big fan of shopping or mass sales, but I certainly like to buy and give presents, and even to get good deals on them. However, I would be never willing to sacrifice a good present for a present at great price. In the end, I think that these sales are beneficial for retailers only. People tend to buy useless things, just because they can get good deals on them. They end up spending more money than they would without sales.
Finally, I would like to stand up for the employees. I agree with Ms. Nyberg that it is not good attitude to make the employees come and cut their family time short during one of the biggest holidays of the year. In my opinion, they have the right to spent holiday time with their relatives. They were certainly aware of the fact that they would have to work during some holidays, when they signed up for the job, but again, only to some extent. At this point, the retailers are changing the rules and they make the employees come even during the biggest holidays. They have taken an advantage of the employees’ position, since they are not willing to give up the job easily. Lastly, I do think the government has certain power to regulate the opening hours during these major holidays.
Comment on Simon Stastny’s post:
ReplyDeleteI believe this is a controversial topic as holidays are different depending on your location, but I think I could relate to the part where Simon mentions employees, because I have a friend who is going to work during Christmas. When I asked him if it bothers him to work during holidays he told me that it does indeed, but his employer told him that he will get a substantial bonus to his salary. He discussed it with his parents and they decided that they are willing to celebrate their Christmas a bit later. He did have the choice to decline; no one was forcing him to work. If this is how it works in other regions as well, it would lead me to think that it is completely dependent on the employees whether they want to work for the extra wager or spend the holidays with their families.
From my limited experience, I would share an opinion with Simon regarding people having to choose stores, leaving earlier from homes and sometimes even leaving during Thanksgiving dinners. It is indeed everyone’s choice when and where to go shop. Nobody is forcing them to buy the products with the better deals.