Thanksgiving Gets Trampled This Year

11/25/2013

Black Friday Can Be Dangerous

My father worked on Thanksgiving and Christmas and other holidays. I felt sad at seeing him head to the subway in mid-afternoon, but we knew the call of the newspaper business.

He had to leave home and head for the office – breaking news, banter, coffee and snacks from somewhere, familiar faces, stories to edit.

Over the years I covered a lot of Sunday ball games and Christmas afternoon basketball games at the Garden, although I don’t remember working on Thanksgiving since a few 10 AM high-school football games many years ago.

At least twice, I checked into hotels close to midnight on New Year’s Eve, in order to cover a bowl game in Pasadena or Phoenix the next day. But New Year’s Eve is a good holiday to duck. In the immortal words of Marv Albert, I’d like to, but I have a game.

Police work on holidays. So do doctors and nurses and orderlies. In New York, the subways run on Christmas, although not in London.

Life goes on. Chinese restaurants flourish on Dec. 25, for the annual ritual of Jewish customers. What do Muslim people do on Dec. 25 in the city sometimes referred to as Londonstan?

In recent days, I’ve been watching the lists of Good Companies and Evil Companies that differ about working on Thanksgiving. Wal-Mart, which corrupted people to take over a historic valley in Mexico, is making its workers show up. If Wal-Mart is doing it, it must be bad.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no good reason for forcing – forcing – workers to show up Thanksgiving evening to herd shoppers, who presumably are there on their own volition.

I suggest there is something healthy in a day of rest, even on somebody else’s Sabbath. And Thanksgiving in the United States should be a day of indulging and shouting at the tube and appreciating the people who cook and the people who scrub turkey grease off the pots. Then, at least there could be fitful sleep, working off the calories, before joining the lines on Black Friday.

Why do they call it Black Friday? I did it once. Bought a huge television set. It was still bleak and nasty when I emerged from the Best Buy. The experience felt like a frolic, but once was enough. A few miles away, a worker got trampled.

This year I read that Best Buy is opening on Thanksgiving Evening to fulfill the stockholders’ dream of a third vacation home. They need it, bless their hearts. I’m proposing some kind of law -- state national, unofficial -- to insure just a few hours of shutdown here and there. Otherwise, we’re all just hamsters on the wheel.

I would make this exception – some occupations are essential; others contain a mystique. I’ve come to think my father liked going to work in the late afternoon.

Here’s one list of Good Companies and Evil Companies:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/22/1255378/-Which-stores-are-open-and-which-are-closed-on-Thanksgiving

The grand tradition of Chinese food on Dec. 25:

http://www.thejewishweek.com/special-sections/literary-guides/we-eat-chinese-christmas

Apparently, some pubs open in London, but not the Underground:

http://www.londontown.com/London/Christmas-Day-and-Boxing-Day

Here’s a list of Black Friday stampedes:

http://www.ranker.com/pics/L304743/13-most-brutal-black-friday-injuries-and-deaths

Brian Savin

11/25/2013 11:09:10 am

Doing without is a good thing, and even better when it's collective. It's unifying. This week the local news was that Barkhamsted, CT -- the last dry town in CT -- may give it up and salut! I remember when Catholics didn't eat meat on Fridays and Jews didn't eat bacon. I remember (as a kid) when Altman's and Best & Co. weren't open on weekends and you would always have what you bought delivered, not taken with you in a bag. My wife's Grandfather ran and lost the election in NY State for convention delegate to meet on the question about whether to ratify the Twenty-first Amendment. He was agin' it! Times change, but it's always a toss up whether for the better. This year we can all join together, for both "Republican Thanksgiving" and that damn Roosevelt's abomination both fall on the same day! Happy Thanksgiving, George (and friends)!

Brian Savin

11/25/2013 11:17:24 am

I'm wrong. I missed "my" Thanksgiving last week! Tough to grow old.

Alan Rubin link

12/2/2013 03:14:40 pm

George

I never understood the obsession of many, if not all, major retailers to be open as many hours as possible. They are all fighting for a piece of the same consumer pie.

Forty years’ experience as an owner of a retail appliance store on Manhattan’s Upper Westside has led me to believe that all this holiday hype rarely generates new customers; it only takes sales away from another days.

Also, as again evidenced by this year’s weekend results, increased volume usually comes at a lower profit. I wonder how all these high volume; low profit promotions impact their bottom lines. Is it worth the extra advertising and staffing costs?

Although I reluctantly began staying open on Sundays because of the competition, we remained closed on Christmas, New Years, Easter and Thanksgiving.

Eventually, I noticed that many of the Sunday sales were to customers who had previously been in the store and that Sunday shoppers would come back during the week to buy. Most of the Sunday sales barely covered the day’s expense. Not being open on Sunday we would have given us full coverage each day during the week.

I tried to convince my partner and salesmen that would be more cost effective if we closed Sundays except for the approximately four month air conditioning season. Herasey!

My delivery crews had Memorial Day and Labor Day Saturdays off because they worked a six day week day. The salesman, some of who worked Sundays, had a day off during the week. However, they would offer to install air conditioners on Sundays during a heat wave.

Employees, when given a choice and treated fairly, often pitch in when needed.

Wal-Mart is harmful in many ways. The arrogance you described in building a store in Elda Pineda’s alfalfa field carries through in everything they do. (We had visited San Juan Teotihuacan in January 1962 on our honeymoon).

They force vendors to give rock-bottom costs to get their business. In addition, they paid well past the terms of invoices and forced vendors to accept unauthorized returns, including seasonal goods.

Wal-Mart’s treatment of employees, both with salaries and working conditions, is well documented.

Although Wal-Mart’s practices are extreme, they are not unusual in the retail industry. The department stores and chain stores also take advantage of their suppliers. I knew several manufacturers’ representatives who gave up major accounts because they were too costly to service.

I won’t even touch the practices of the banking and financial industries.

Manufactures are always touting the importance of small businesses, but they are doing ever greater volume with the big box stores and chains at substantially lower wholesale costs.

Small retail businesses and neighborhood stores are an endangered species. Very few of the larger stores or chains will provide the product knowledge and personal touch that will be lost.

On a positive note, there is a trend among some of the major players to emphasize customer satisfaction and service. Amazon can be criticized for their effect on various markets, but they have been almost fanatical about customer satisfaction.

Brian Savin

12/11/2013 12:53:39 pm

From your lips to God's ears, Alan. The local retailer is not doomed...I hope. I still buy local. The other day we visited friends who have an apartment on Fifth Avenue. We were wearing very similar corduroy pants. My friend looked at my pants and said, "L.L. Bean" and I replied, "Saperstein's Army Navy, 19 bucks." I was proud.

George Vecsey

12/12/2013 01:25:49 pm

my wife buys my corduroys at Marshall's....and proud of it. GV

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