I work for macys, when I clicked the link it went to a not found page but I googled for the title and found the gist of it. Made me feel thats my life is a bit ironic reading that the miracle on fourth st movie and macys parade took over as a family tradition when maycs wont let its employees enjoy that family time anymore as of last year. This year employees are to start work at 5:30 pm. on thanksgiving.
I mean, really, Im all for sales, but do people NEED that sweater or perfume while digesting their meals? I realize we have a diverse culture in America and not everyone celebrates Thanksgiving. Also, some services NEED to be open and some dont really NEED to be but its good to have for those who are working those NEED to jobs on a major holiday, like police, hospitals, etc. Alot of restaurants are still open most of the time and some grocery stores. Those people have to eat, also those who dont like to cook can go out to eat a Thanksgiving meal or anything else if its just another day for them.
Sure, Im peeved as heck that my employer does everything it can to provide charity for so many different organizations, yet the employees get shafted with family time. We even have programs to deduct from our min wage paychecks they pressure us to sign up for because of reasons good for the bosses but unknown to us lowly employees. But it sure feels like corporate could care less about us just the almighty dollar.
Last year when they opened early, around 7 or 8pm I cant recall, I managed to be on a black friday shift and was there at 5am, an 11 hr shift ahead of me. There were tumbleweeds and crickets when I walked in. We have to maintain a certain sales per hour or we get our paychecks penalized, so if they open the doors for those rabid sales fiends then they are now wasting employees time and theirs because customers all showed up for a few hours then left a little after midnight, and no one else showed up until around 7am-8am.
Not to mention alot of those early purchases had actually come back and were already returning these items for their reasons while the new shoppers (at the traditional time) are now trying to shop for their stuff and these returnees are taking up alot of our time and the new customers'. So many customers are angry and there were some shouting over this last year between strangers. Just terrible.
It didnt get any better for those who had to or volunteered for that thanksgiving shift because people were returning much more stuff and hurting their sales goals. I thought it was very telling and funny in a not funny way that corporate bragged that employees and customers asked to be open on Thanksgiving and even earlier than in the history of Macys. They heavily mentioned it was what the customers were asking for and Macys is happy to deliver. So corporate puts a poll on the website about how stoked are you to work Thanksgiving, if you could work it would you (like if you didnt get a shift already), do you want to repeat it, etc. The answers were heavily majority in the NO column, no one was stoked or pleased to be working on this day. I think only 20% said yes.
I was not scheduled to work for this thanksgiving and after my accident I am still trying to get my shifts situated, havent been back yet. Just saw my black friday shift is gone, so hopefully I can get some hours but am not sure what the deal will be for me, just that Im happy I dont have to work on Thanksgiving and feel sorry for those who do. If I get a shift for Friday hopefully its when we are busy and not in the very early am like last year. I did have 8am but now its gone so it will be whatever they want now, so Im a bit worried.