Big Box Stores and Gratitude

I remember when I actively realized that not everyone was raised as I was.  It was my freshman year of college. And, to be honest, it came late.  I mean, by the time I was a freshman in college, I had studied three languages and the cultures of those countries and traveled to the Soviet Union. Thanks to my parents, I had traveled extensively around the country on a variety of vacations.  While my high school was not a bastion of diversity, I certainly knew peers from different ethnic and religious backgrounds.  I don’t remember the incident that prompted my delayed epiphany, but I distinctly remember that I was walking down Dubuque Street in Iowa City toward Mayflower within sight of the Iowa River.  Something clicked in my brain and I actively, cognitively thought, “Not everyone grew up with two parents, a dog, siblings, and celebrating holidays.” 

The traditions of Thanksgiving are clear: eat, watch football, eat, be grateful, eat, see a parade, eat, hang out with family, and eat.  Or at least some incarnation of this.  Right?  That is what we all are meant to be doing on Thanksgiving.  The next day, of course, we all go shopping on the frighteningly monikered Black Friday. 

In the past few years, there have been more and more Thanksgiving Day Sales at stores and malls. The idea is to beat the crowds and rush of Black Friday (not to mention fatten the wallets of corporations).  This year, I am seeing a sort of grass roots movement  happening on social media that suggests that shopping on Thanksgiving is heretical. While I am not a big box store fan and I understand there are larger issues with such corporations, I see a problem with this logic. This movement equates shopping the “big box retailers” on Thanksgiving with enslaving the people who work at such stores.  The general thought is that if you shop on Thanksgiving, you are forcing the employees of these stores to work, and you are consequently ruining their holiday.  This line of thought continues: if we all band together and refuse to shop on Thanksgiving Day, then the corporate entities that are open on this holiday will be adversely affected, see the error of their capitalistic ways, and close their doors, allowing their employees the day off to spend with family.  And, that is precisely what all Americans want to do on the fourth Thursday of November, right?

The continuation of this boycott shopping-on-Thanksgiving movement equates shopping on Thanksgiving as being against raising the minimum wage and being against unionization. And, if you do not shop on Thanksgiving, you are somehow supporting those who are working for minimum wage in these retail establishments. I didn’t major in economics, but there’s a flaw in that reasoning somewhere. 

Actually, I see several errors in this whole line of thinking.  The first is that by shopping on Thanksgiving you are ruining an employee’s holiday.  What I know is that the day of the holiday is not nearly as important as how and with whom one celebrates it – if one chooses to celebrate it at all. If a person has to work on a holiday, it is possible to celebrate the holiday one day early or later that evening.  Folks, the holiday doesn’t create the meaningfulness of the day – the people with whom and the way in which you celebrate it is what counts.  We can have Thanksgiving on Wednesday or Saturday – who cares?  A celebration of gratitude and food and football can be on any day.  And, those who work on holidays often do celebrate on another day.  Furthermore, not everyone wants to celebrate Thanksgiving.  Some people are pleased to work on this day for their own reasons.  It might surprise us to realize that there are people in this country who don’t buy into the whole media-driven holiday celebrations.  There are families and individuals who celebrate in their own ways that might be foreign to you, but meaningful for them.  There are also families and individuals who choose not to celebrate for their own reasons, and, brace yourself, they are just as happy and well-adjusted as those who do celebrate.

Second, many establishments are open on the majority of holidays: hospitals, fire departments, the army, convenience stores, and restaurants.  A few years ago, the boys and I had just moved into an apartment from a house on a large tract of land.  I did not want to make a Thanksgiving dinner in a galley kitchen to eat at our tiny round table.  I just wasn’t in the mood.  So, we went to a local hotel that serves a glorious buffet all day long, and we enjoyed a hearty Thanksgiving dinner there.  It was wonderful.  I am grateful to this day for the service that everyone involved with the production of that dinner provided.  Almost 21 years ago, I had a premature baby two days before Christmas under emergency conditions.  I’m sure glad the hospitals were open and the doctors, nurses, orderlies, and food service workers did not express that I was ruining their holiday by being there.

Of the people that are working on Thanksgiving, I’m sure that some of them hate it and want to be home.  I’m equally sure that some of them have rearranged their celebrations to accommodate their work schedules, and that there are those who don’t care to celebrate any way.  If you believe that boycotting such stores will be beneficial to the workers, you are entitled to think this and act on it. If you believe that not shopping on Thanksgiving will make the employees of the stores in question happier and make them feel appreciated, that’s your right as well.

How about, though, the next time you are in one of those huge stores and can’t find what you’re looking for, you talk to an associate politely?  I can think of so many of times I’ve been in such a store, seen shoppers huffing around and looking for assistance, then, when they finally find someone to ask the location of the Q-tips, the shopper treats that worker like a mangy dog in an alley.  Want to let the workers in these big box stores know you appreciate their job?  Be nice. Be patient.  Ask nicely and say thank you after they help you.  Here’s another idea: when you are pushing your cart with one box of microwave popcorn in it and an employee of such a store is pushing a giant dolly weighed down with hundreds of 18-count cartons of eggs that he can’t see over – get out of his way.  Don’t stand there, get offended, and mutter obscenity if you have to go around him to the next aisle. 

Real meaningful ways to show appreciation and gratitude to those who work in large retail establishments exist – and, maybe, just maybe, those ways have nothing to do with how or when they or we celebrate November 28, 2013.  Whether you are going to one of these stores this week to buy a turkey and stuffing; or whether you shop on Thanksgiving Day; or whether you never go the big box retailers, remember: not everyone marks holidays in the same way or at the same time.  If we all can appreciate and understand the lives of others, we all might have a bit more happiness this holiday season.  That’s something we all can be grateful for.