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December 25, 2002
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas!
Now, can anyone tell me when Christmas Eve became a holiday? I worked yesterday because I have a crappy job where I get paid by the hour, and I didn't want to take the hit to my paycheck. Plus BLuR had to work. But I really didn't think much of it except that we were going to Ray and Carol's after work and I had gifts to wrap, etc. It certainly seemed like there wasn't anyone else working anywhere, though.
We leave the house at 5:00 to go down to the Neumanns, and decide to stop at BK on the way since we were both starving and didn't think there would be food there. Well the BK was closed and so was McDonald's. It was only 5:00PM! We came home at around 9:00PM and were unable to find an open grocery store to buy juice, and none of the pizza delivery places were open.
And when I complain, what do people say? "Well no one wants to work on Christmas Eve." Um...so? This is RETAIL we're talking about. You don't work retail with the expectation that you get off on holidays. In fact, in most retail you should expect that you will work on the weekends, and at night, and all of those times when no one else wants to work. Stores used to be open on Christms Eve...malls didn't USED to close at 4PM like they did this year. And yes, I do have experience in this area, my parents used to own a store. Granted, it was a convenience store so it was supposed to be open when other stores weren't, but it was also in a small town and you could argue that we could have closed for holidays, but we didn't.
I had a conference call last week with a colleague in England and at the end he asked about our holidays. He was surprised that we got off on Christmas Eve. Apparently they don't in Great Britain, but they do get two days' bank holiday on the 26th and 27th. I think they have it right.
Posted by Laura at December 25, 2002 08:14 AM