About non-essential shops being open on boxing day

[NayrusWisdom7]

Just that I am sick and tired of christmas being ruined every year by having to work Christmas Eve and Boxing Day. The sales may be all well and good but someone has to give up their day to make it happen! I think if stores are to be open at all on boxing day they should be subject to sunday trading hours of 1-6 only. I'm sure fellow retail workers will agree.. Or maybe I'm just bitter?

Businesses are opening now for Boxing day because people can't bear to wait until the 27th to go shopping.

People will want to shop any day and any time if they can.
I have used corner shops on Christmas day for last minute things. If they were closed I'd just have to go without.
It's the choice of the employers. It's not fair to blame the customers.

Yep, that's everyone who goes out on Xmas Day for a meal in nutshell. A dickhead, a slaver, a Norma No Mates, what have you, not a couple with a child with cancer in hospital having their first time together alone in months eating their first real meal in months.

Also, most people, including yourself, probably don't even celebrate Christmas properly. It's about Jesus being born.
Did you go to Mass?

I don't think the economy would end / people wouldn't cope if shops were to shut for 2 days. most of us remember not so long ago all shops being shut Sundays and half day closing. Retail and hospitality staff are often on minimum wage and working unsocial hours and bank holidays is rarely optional. Very naive to think people have lots of other options when they work minimum wage jobs. I disagree and think that Christmas is still very important in this country. It's advertised for nearly 2 months. People in non essential jobs should have the option not to work if they wish.

expat let's face it: mean is only thinking of herself here. The punters are merely faces without names, numbers, an inconvenience.

Is it really a surprise to so many of you that people would want to spend xmas day with their families rather than serving other people?

Wow, self absorbed much? night clearly you are only thinking of yourself, you don't give a damn about the people forced to work to make you happy.

mean - you are getting angry with the wrong people. It is your employers who are the "dickheads" by forcing you to work but in all honesty, hospitality is notoriously family unfriendly so to choose this career does seem a little bit odd if you are going to walk around with a huge chip on your shoulder about it. fo you not get extra for working Christmas day because i for one cant even afford to visit a weatherspoons on xmas day it is sooo expensive. id like to think its because that is passed over to staff.

When you find that magical job mean be a love and pm me about it. First you will have to disown your family and forget your friends because they are not as important as money and serving your public.

Frankly expat if you could make the effort to go out for a meal then why not make the effort to make a packed lunch and eat it outside your daughters room like your parents did. I know that sounds horrifically harsh of me and I have nothing but the deepest sympathy for what you went through. Of course you would understandably have not been considering others feelings at that time but expecting others to be happy about serving you when they may well not have been is unrealistic and should not be held against them.

Lweji you said If shops or restaurants, are open, then fair enough for customers to show up if they want to. And that is fair enough as long as the workers are there by choice. But again, most workers do not have a choice. They can't have cushy jobs like teachers do with all those holidays .

i bet you spit in the gravy, go on, fess up

So many assumptions there mean. Good job I give less than a rats arse about your opinion, innit.

poured that Baileys yet?

People in non essential jobs should have the option not to work if they wish.

I fully agree, but the fact is that lots of people in non essential jobs have more and more worked in non normal hours.
Like I said, I do teaching that includes student workers, so I often work later in the day. Other workers do unsocial hours.

My BIL may have to work Christmas if there is an emergency at work, so that you can phone your parents. Surely we can cope with a mobile phone break down? Or with mobile phones not working at all for two days.

dastardly - that last comment was waaaay below the belt and constitutes personal attack.

think I'll leave the thread.its getting nasty

'I am very sorry about your DD and can't imagine what you must have been feeling. However surely you can see that situations such as those are uncommon (particularly at that time of year) and I am sure you can appreciate the desire to be with loved ones at this time? Surely you can empathise with others who want to spend time with their families but can't because they have to work.'

You're right, Dastardly, you can't imagine. That's why you wrote that post, I guess. How dare you play on my dead child to push your point of insulting people who dine out on Xmas. That is utterly sickening.

'There will always be mitigating circumstances in which people feel they have the right to do whatever they want regardless of anything else. Doesn't make it right for the people who have to suffer the consequences. If pubs/restaurants/shops opened with voluntary staff then you'd still have had somewhere to eat on that sad day, however that choice wouldn't have negatively affected others.'

Yes, how dare the bereaved, the ill, the carers, the people with ill children and their niggly mitigating circumstances.

I was actually happy that day. I thought my child would live.

Still think I was right about the world being full of cunts.

I don't have the holidays you think I have. I'm not a highschool teacher.

I get that andrew. My point is that here it falls on the other side of the line.

It's possible.

mean

I don't think you are being hysterical, I think eating out on Christmas Day has grown in popularity over the last 10 years

I also agree that's it's not the consumers fault, if it wasn't open they wouldn't go...as simple as that. But the greed of shops and food establishments (and it is greed, they are not doing it as a favour it's a money making exercise) means that why wouldn't you go out.

And if the bigger faceless organisations are making money then the smaller places feel they need to open and get some of that money as well

We can cope without a lot of things for TWO days. It's not like we don't know they're coming!

How is it not fair to blame the customers? The businesses would not be open if there were no demand i.e customers. You said it yourself, if shops had been shut then you would have done without. It is possible to do this for two days not just one. As I said earlier, it isn't like Christmas day and Boxing day come as a surprise. And with the advent of online shopping, people can get their bargains without inconveniencing others.

And no Lweji I do not go to mass as I am not a Christian. And before you get all sanctimonious, Christmas has origins that pre date the birth of a mythical child. I celebrate the day with my family as I am able to and think others should be able to do the same.

I expect people serving me on Christmas Day and boxing to look overjoyed about it.

Frankly, if they can't even pretend that then they're in the wrong job.

Don't like the hours? Get another job.

Pay no heed expat - Beggars belief, doesn't it?!

A couple of posters with chips the size of prize winning Maris Pipers.

dastardly Disgusting you stopped so low to use expat's DD to make a point.

'Frankly expat if you could make the effort to go out for a meal then why not make the effort to make a packed lunch and eat it outside your daughters room like your parents did. I know that sounds horrifically harsh of me and I have nothing but the deepest sympathy for what you went through. Of course you would understandably have not been considering others feelings at that time but expecting others to be happy about serving you when they may well not have been is unrealistic and should not be held against them.'

Oh, that would have required visiting one of those non-essential places that sell food on Christmas, Dastardly, which I'd been doing the past couple of months. No fridge, see, so would have had to go on the day and not consider the feelings of the shop workers.

Our server was a lovely Shiekh man, it's a well-known Indian restaurant. He said he didn't celebrate Christmas. Of course, I'm not sure about the other staff, in my understandably selfish and unempathetic state and not wanting to face another rushed excuse for a meal outside her room having dramatically lost 2st, I overlooked quizzing the rest of the staff as to their working conditions.

Report if you'd like, lem, see, I don't because I think leaving such comments to stand shows up the poster for who they are, however ridiculous.

As I said in my post, I recognise that I sounded horrifically harsh in what I wrote. It merely sounded odd to me in that you had chosen to leave your daughter at such a time and I was commenting on that. I was not using your child and your situation to further my point expat and I am sorry to have upset you and anyone else who has been offended by that comment.

I stand by what I said that people who use the services available at these times do not consider the feelings or thoughts of those who facilitate this. Whether justifiably as in expats case or less so for those who want to grab a bargain, it is unreasonable to expect them to be happy about being there.

I can't believe this thread! Everything turns into a bunfight on here now!

I don't think shops need to open on Boxing Day. They never used to, we all coped. DH and I were looking at TVs today, we didn't even get dressed, we did it on line.

DS1 and I were watching the news this evening and there was a stampede going into Asda, he said "there can't be anything in there that anyone needs that badly!" and I agree with him.