I had to allow kentucky.com to see the comments so here is the relevant comment:

Black Friday is one thing. But stop and think before you go shopping on Thanksgiving day. That employee, that manager... they don't want to be there. They are there for one reason only.. their job is forfeit if they aren't. As a furniture manager of Big Lots, I am required by my district manager to be there from 2pm until 11pm Thanksgiving day. Not only that, I am also required to be there the day before and to pull a long shift on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I will miss in it's entirety all of Thanksgiving weekend. No dinner. No family or friends. No football, neither touch with the kids or on TV over a beer with the other family members. No way to travel to see your out of town family

Do not think that I am paid extravagantly for this. I make $11.50 an hour and have been employed by the company for over 4 years. I do not make commission on my sales, so it's not like I can use the extra cash from this day to pay for some vacation later in the year. In truth, other than keeping my job in this extremely tough job market, there is no motivation to be there. I know there are plenty of people that have to work over Thanksgiving: police, firemen, paramedics, hospitals and the like. Gas station attendants, too. But, most of these folks get at least some consideration for their sacrafices becaue they are truly needed by society and typically they at least get some of the weekend off to spend with loved ones.

So, before you show up and make loads of purchases on things that you could get 363 other days of the year (at least Big Lots IS closed on Christmas... for now) and for not much more, think how less likely the company would be to open their doors on what is truly a day that should be spent with their families and loved ones. Are you truly that greedy that you want to buy an off brand TV or a refurbished vacuum cleaner and save maybe 15 bucks between them?

Think about the person you want to be and how you want to treat your fellow man. Then weigh that against saving a few bucks on an item that is most likely not even a gift but a personal "want."

The stores are only open because customers show up that day. If they refuse to show up before Friday, then the sales will happen Friday. Customers drive the hours, not the companies.

And, at least if you DO still show up, be kind to the people serving you. Be patient and give them a smile. If you think standing in line or not getting the last gizmo on sale for $14.99 sucks, imagine what their day has been like. Think back to the fond moments you just spend with your family: the jokes around the table. Seeing your aunt from out of state after a couple of years. The food, the laughter and the love. All the things to be thankful for. Then look at your cashier, or the harried manager trying to make everyone happy in the long lines and think about how they would have liked to have at least a portion of your good day.

Bravo, vladster...bravo.

that guy writes really well for a dude that works at a big lots in kentucky.

FTFA:

I caught the Black Friday shopping bug as a child on - wait for it - Thanksgiving. My family would dine on country ham, fried potatoes and the like, then head to the Big Lots in Cynthiana. It wasn't for the door-buster deals or anything; it was just a fun way to spend the afternoon.

These people have serious, serious mental problems.

KrispyKritter: you make your life choices, quit whining. vladster and cheddar pants are simpering wimps. had you put forth any sort of effort in your lives you losers wouldn't be working retail, especially on a major holiday. you and others like you can kiss and lick my great big hairy pimply stinky white arse while i fluff flatulence from my thanksgiving meal. you are losers and your families hate you.

/even a feeble attempt of night school at a community college can improve your lot in life, morans
//working a holiday is sweet compared to homeless & hungry, you homos

Again, they'd love to do that whole "community college" thing, except:

a) Even community college is often out of the range of affordability for persons working in retail (college prices have gone up a lot in the past twenty or so years, even for community colleges).

b) The average operating hours of a retail job (that earn the most money) just HAPPEN to be the same hours that community colleges are open.

c) As I noted gently before, retail establishments generally do not give tuition reimbursement as a perk--anymore, you're lucky to get things like sick time as a perk, much less things like healthcare coverage or reimbursement or a veritable goddamn farking benefit luxury like tuition reimbursement. (Hell, tuition reimbursement is not all that common even with jobs with other benefits.)

d) In many cases--especially concerning those folks who do rely on retail jobs to put food on the table--community colleges can be anywhere from at best a 45-minute commute to being literally hundreds of miles away. (Community colleges tend to only be located near cities, you see. There are areas of my state where the nearest college of any sort that isn't a "Bible college" ordination mill for future televangelist-wannabes is a good 75 to 100 mile trip away. These also tend to be the areas where your employment options are pretty much "Wal-mart", "Big Lots", "McDonald's", and "The Love's truck stop" if you're lucky.)

e) Self-employment isn't an option in a lot of these areas--either the market is saturated (with everything from backyard mechanics to backyard hairdressers to backyard puppy-mill-breeders) or requires licensing and bonding that is generally unaffordable to those working in retail (pretty much any skilled trade).

f) There is also the complication that in a LOT of the Southeast US, either mortgage contracts or HOAs (which can even cover farking trailer parks) pretty much prohibit one from running a business out of the home (as in "they can terminate your mortgage or lease and foreclose from under you because you're using your residence for commercial businesses" sorts of things).

g) This is also not counting the fact that EVERY guide I've ever seen for starting one's own business (even if it's of the "making and selling artisan crafts on Etsy" level--which it is very rare that someone can make an actual LIVING from) says "before you even think of doing this, have $5000 in the bank for your first year of expenses because you will NOT break even"; when you're working at a retail job where wages are so low that they give you paperwork on public food assistance the first day of work, saving $5000 to set up one's own home business paradise is nothing short of LAUGHABLE.

h) And before the subject of "online courses" is brought up--not all community colleges offer online coursework, many explicitly do NOT offer online coursework for study in fields leading to a licensed skilled trade or trade requiring certification (YOU try getting online-only study for a journeyman electrician's license or nuclear medicine tech), and--surprise surprise surprise--the very people living on retail work may not exactly have the best in the world of high-bandwidth broadband Internet connections that are necessary for online coursework. (Here in KY, we still have a surprising number of people on dialup or really shiatty DSL because they can't afford anything else. There's also a non-negligible number who also use public wifi, or don't have Internet at all save for maybe a not-quite-smart Tracfone that can do email and limited web surfing. The person living on retail work, interestingly, is also pretty much the target audience for those "Obamaphone" assistance programs for low-income individuals.)

Yeah, the article was trying to be all cutesy about this ("Businesses are opening on Thanksgiving Day this year, isn't that nuts? Well, go get your cheap shiat a day early, folks!"), and the comment slammed home the truth about this: it's taking away one of the few holidays that retail workers got, and they will see nothing out of it beyond getting to hold on to their awful jobs a little while longer.

Too bad not many will heed his plead.

/it's disgusting to me that companies are doing this on one of the few true holidays this country has.

HoagieBoy: Great Porn Dragon:
Let's just say if Big Lots would shut down due to not being open Thursday...the US economy would be in such shiat shape that the store could be open 24/7/365 and STILL be screwed, and people would be wearing trash bags as clothing and making grass kimchi along with the North Koreans.


If they would lose money then they would not be open on that day. If they make money then that helps him keep his job in the long run (although admittedly only by a minute amount).

Maybe I have no sympathy because I have had servers text me that they are broken on Christmas and I went in to fix them. No extra money (salary employee) whatsoever. You know what? It's my job. That what I signed on to do. That's his job....that's what he signed on to do.

First off, Big Lots is not hurting for money to the point they can't let workers off for Thanksgiving.

Secondly, IT is one of those things generally considered to be "essential infrastructure"--and "folks who maintain essential infrastructure" (like making sure necessary servers and shiat like water and power and heating gas and communications services keep going) are rather a different bird. (I should know, I've worked in that, and in fact almost my entire FAMILY has worked as essential infrastructure employees at one point or another--in IT, in telecom, or in municipal services; it was a rare Christmas as a kid when I didn't have at least one (and sometimes multiple) relatives missing because they were working on stuff like busted water mains or busted electric lines or emergency HVAC repairs and the like.)

People are generally expecting that folks who work in essential infrastructure will miss holidays, because shiat has to keep running for folks to use tools and live indoors. It sucks (trust me, I know), but it does keep people from generally freezing to death/keeps water in the home/keeps the commode from backing up/makes sure the neighbourhood isn't robbed blind/makes sure the neighbourhood doesn't catch on fire/makes sure you can still call/makes sure you can still watch 24 hours of "A Christmas Story"/makes sure your kids can get online to get Teh Apps for their new phones/etc. (Trust me, again, familiar with it. Intimately. Goddamn near everyone I see "face to face" has worked on essential infrastructure at some point in their lives where they either had to work holiday shift or were on 24/7 emergency call.)

That said...

Department stores, and particularly national-level salvage-store chains, are not essential infrastructure which must be manned continuously on holiday. In general, we already have examples of one day a year where literally everything but essential infrastructure services, the occasional Chinese takeout joint, Waffle House, IHOP, and a very few gas stations are open--Christmas--and the world does not fall apart because of this. (And yes, that's the one day even WAL-MART is closed.)

Black Friday (and particularly its time-shifted version to midnight Friday UTC and well into Thursday in North America) is most definitely not an essential infrastructure that must be kept open throughout the holidays at all costs.

(I would also argue this goes doubly so for Big Lots in particular. Short of a Zombie Apocalypse transmissible through tainted Butterball turkeys, there's no farking need for a Big Lots to be open on Thanksgiving at ALL--it's a salvage store that doesn't even sell fixings for Thanksgiving dinner, and if you don't already have implements for roasting a turkey (or ham) most Big Lots stores will not be much help. There is absolutely no essential need for a near-expiration-date can of okra gumbo, knockoff My Little Faux-ny toys that even the Family Dollar couldn't sell, video games from two years ago, Captain Morgan shot glasses, or refurbished near-EOL "Polaroid" branded cheap-cheerful-and-Chinese Android tablets that CANNOT wait till the next day...because that's the sort of shiat that Big Lots sells. I could see the Kroger staying open before Big Lots, if only because the Kroger does sell groceries and cooking supplies potentially useful in the cooking and dismantling of a turkey--and the Kroger only has very limited hours explicitly so that people can be with their families in the one major non-sectarian Family Holiday that's out there.)

HoagieBoy: Soooo....let me see if I have this straight:

- The companies are opening on Thursday in order to try to get sales. (or why else would they open)
- Vladster is unhappy with that

Did Mr. Vladster consider that maybe the company is doing that to try to bolster the company and increase sales? You know what.....he's right. I'll stay at home and buy the items I want off of the internet and let his retail sales position go "Circuit City" on him. Then he can complain about how we all as a country didn't go out to his store no matter what day it was.

\Cry me a river dude.

Let's just say if Big Lots would shut down due to not being open Thursday...the US economy would be in such shiat shape that the store could be open 24/7/365 and STILL be screwed, and people would be wearing trash bags as clothing and making grass kimchi along with the North Koreans.

(For those unaware--Big Lots is basically the country's largest "salvage store" purchaser in that much of their stock (that isn't the same cheap cheerful Chinese stuff you can get at Harbor Freight) is factory seconds, purchases of "over-production" material, "dents and dings" stuff, discontinued "end of life" electronics, stuff no longer for seasonal sale, etc. They do sell some store-brand stuff now a la Save-A-Lot, but their bread and butter still was, is, and will always be as a national-level salvage-store chain. About the only stuff lower on the "retail sale" food chain are local salvage stores (that actually sell dinged and dented cans that literally fell off a truck) and second-hand stores such as Habitat for Humanity Re-Stores, Goodwill, Salvation Army, St. Vincent de Paul stores, and so on; even dollar-store "overstocks and otherwise no longer salable" tends to make its way to Big Lots.)

kombat_unit: Poor retail workers. If stuffing your gaping maw is so important, find a different job.

They'd love to, I'm sure, but unfortunately the same parties that pretty much time-shifted Black Friday to start at midnight GMT (7pm EST) also managed to send the other jobs not requiring six years of experience and a bachelor's degree to Shenzhen and Mumbai (very literally in the case of Wal-Mart). Thanks for asking, though.

(And no, "get yerself edumacated" isn't an option, either; interestingly, the love for money ALSO has functionally priced even community colleges right out of the range of affordability to the average poor schmuck who has to work on Black Friday, and most retailers don't exactly give tuition payment as a benefit. Same goes for even starting one's own business--in general, you're supposed to have at least $5000 in reserves before THINKING of starting one's own business, and in many areas (even in BFE) you're required to have business licenses--and bonding and state licensure, in the case of skilled trades ranging from plumbing to electrical work to even cosmetology in some states. We won't even get into the fact that in a lot of areas (yes, even in BFE) the only housing available are with HOAs or in areas where mortgage contracts expressly prohibit you from using your home as a place of business.)

Skarekrough: Its more than just "creep." It's the absurd notion that we need to be in all-out consumer mode for as long as humanly and financially possible.

I recommend Feed by M.T. Anderson if you haven't read it yet.

I'm determined to make this Christmas electronics/short-lived toy-free this year. Maybe we'll adopt a dog or something, maybe pool the money and go skiing instead.

Shopping on normal days gives me panic attacks, so my very idea of hell is these frenzied shopping days.

I agree with the comments on this.

Black friday shiat is never worth it. Saving $10 is not worth not seeing your family.

My husband works for Amtrak and will be working on Thanksgiving so we enjoy the holiday one day later. No Black Friday craziness for us.

Won't someone think of the poor strippers who have to work on holidays?

I've worked retail most of my life. I'm against the Thursday openings for the obvious reasons Vladster stated, but as a salesperson, I loved Black Friday. Nonstop, people looking to spend money, and a great kickoff to the busiest few weeks of the year. This is the time of year when you control the sale. If someone's being an asshat, you can throw them out and there are a dozen other people waiting to give you their money. In the 80's this was also a month of nonstop parties, drinking, and imbibing. The only thing missing was sleep. Seriously, if you're in retail and you hate Black Friday, you need to find another job.

Welcome back, fellow Black Friday shoppers, to this fifth annual edition of tips and quips. But I'm afraid, heroes, that quips are once again in short supply,

Heroes?

for our holiday is under siege. In fact, it's almost completely lost.

Under siege?

It's Black Friday.

No, fark you!

thomps: that guy writes really well for a dude that works at a big lots in kentucky.

He probably has a BA in liberal arts or theater.

sigdiamond2000: FTFA:

I caught the Black Friday shopping bug as a child on - wait for it - Thanksgiving. My family would dine on country ham, fried potatoes and the like, then head to the Big Lots in Cynthiana. It wasn't for the door-buster deals or anything; it was just a fun way to spend the afternoon.

These people have serious, serious mental problems.

Seriously... ham on Thanksgiving?