To feel for retail workers tomorrow and think most shops should just close until January

[MindYours]

Tomorrow a load of retail workers will have to drag their arses out of bed away from their families at stupid o clock, just so people can trample all over each other trying to get a tenner off a handbag in the sales or to do a food shop they probably don't really need?

If it was up to me I would close the majority of large supermarkets and high street clothing stores until 2 January, as some offices do. People have all year to organise themselves and make sure enough food is in. There are many convenience stores open all year round because they are privately owned and choose to, or because they don't celebrate Christmas etc.

Would it really be so bad for large chain stores to give their staff a proper break (I don't work in retail myself) and just let January sales start in... January?

How about Diwali? Both Eids? Ramadan? Hanukkah? Or is it just the period between Christmas and new year?

@Iamthewombat

Good points!!!

What I do object to is that some staff never work christmas or new year and I don't know how to change that without falling out with colleagues

Gonna take a wild guess. The staff never working it are the ones with kids right?

In my opinion shops should only open between 10am and midday on Tuesdays. There's simply no need for people to have access to them all week round. It's really bad for the workers and their families. And also there's a fucking obesity crisis anyway.

I have worked in nursing, now child protection. People still have to work. I am old enough to remember when shops were shut on Sunday and miss the enforced quietness and boredom, yet life has moved on.
What I really struggle to understand is that the boxing day sales is still a thing. To be honest I just shop on line now anyway, but shops seem to have a sale from mid November. As for the weird, get in the line for the Next sale at 4am thing, you have to praise their marketing. As a shop it has been crap for years, it is not particularly expensive anyway and the stuff they put on sale is dragged out from many seasons past.

@HelenaDove

On the contrary, I used to know a man who worked at the same place as my friend, (a place that's open 365 days a year.) His mother died on Christmas Eve 1998, and he said he can't work Christmas the following year, as it's just too painful for him. Fair enough. Maybe even a good/valid enough reason to not work the following year too.

Except he was still coming up with this reason to not work Christmas FIFTEEN YEARS LATER. Seriously, the woman died in 1998, and in 2013 (not long before my friend left,) he was STILL trying to wangle the whole Christmas break off, because 'my MOTHER died on Christmas eve.' Ummm yeah, and we are sorry, but that was virtually a generation ago.

She has had no contact since she left in early 2014, but I am willing to bet he still has it off. He's a man who is in his mid 50s, and has been there for more than two and a half decades, and everyone is afraid of him for some reason...

He used the excuse that he had 2 kids for the first decade, then when they got to mid teens and he couldn't use the excuse any longer, he started using the 'my mother died Christmas Eve' excuse...... Very frustrating for everyone else who ALSO have kids, and have lost someone they love (some near to Christmas too!)

I feel more sorry for nhs workers personally

Why NHS workers? What about the other services that provide 24/7 cover. I keep seeing things on social media all geared towards the poor nurses/nhs employees that are working as opposed to the rest of us.

@willstarttomorrow

I often wonder if the queues outside NEXT at 6am, are in fact people paid to wait there (like out of work/jobbing actors or students desperate for money.)

Because no other shop seems to have the same batshit super early queues, and as you say NEXT is pretty shit anyway, and never has anything special or unusual or super cheap. So the huge queues make no sense. I don't believe they are all normal people. I think they're being paid to queue and make it look busy/garner publicity.

Would be the death of traditional retail. I just finished my shift about an hour ago for an online retailer. Loads of orders this afternoon, evening and loads expected tomorrow too.

@Redglitter

I also don't get that.

I know that NHS staff work hard and have demanding jobs, but so do many other people, and the sympathetic treatment they get, and how people act like no-one works as hard as them, does grate on me a bit to be honest.

It is part of the job, I say that as someone on a 12 hour skelton staff shift tomorrow as a busy call centre employee.
It is a bank holiday I get double pay plus I have extra days holiday time off in the summer, not to bad.
I won't be shopping but will go out for lunch before work.

Bollocks. As already mentioned, Christmas is a non-event for many people. Let's also remember that some people actively choose to work all the Christmas shifts as a distraction from real life. I did this the year I got clean, to avoid temptation and I did it again after DDad and DB died in the same year. Work really was a godsend during those times.

I don't feel bad for them .. A jobs a job. However, I agree that a " forced" shut down break is good for all. I also think shops should be closed every Sunday (im not religious, just think people need a real break, also a break from feeling like they have to go out and run errands all the time )

Seems someone really wants retail staff to have Christmas day and Boxing Day off this year!

Seems like a great idea, then they can all go out on Boxing Day for lovely lunches and days out for lovely family time while invisible hospitality staff work longer hours and harder to compensate for the additional trade......

tottles back to do some work in preparation for Boxing Day from break doing 2nd of 5 hospitality nightshifts after dragging arse out of bed to get here in the first place

Yes let’s deprive people of much needed wages by banning them from working, @MindYours. These shop workers must be rolling in it anyway with the wages they’re on, they won’t miss a weeks’ pay! While we’re at it let’s keep all pubs, restaurants, cinemas, soft-play areas, parks etc... and why not give footballers and people who work at the stadiums time off too, and newsreaders, radio presenters, people who work in tv, for the utility companies etc... everyone can have time off but we’ll all have to sit at home in the cold and dark with nothing to do and starve and be skint. Let’s have all NHS staff and carers off work too, that’ll work just fine. And bus and taxi drivers.
And in what way is that an ideal world? Some people are mad in the head.
Let’s all sit at home and have some self reflection time of doing nowt!

Yabu. I am working today because I want to. I'd be annoyed if I couldn't work until January! You make retail workers sound like slaves with no agency. Not the case at all.

And I really need the supermarkets to be open. We don't have a car so can only shop on foot. No way could we do a massive shop and that be that. We need to go every couple of days.

I work in retail and whilst I’d love Boxing Day off, I’ve already lost a days money this week (yesterday) and can’t really afford another. We are not allowed to use annual leave during December and first week of Jan so no way of having time off without losing pay.
I would love the shops to be closed Boxing Day but only if we had the choice to use annual leave

I realise how lucky I am. I get 3 days of Xmas leave from my employer on top of my usual annual leave so I finished on 18 Dec and I'm off till 2 Jan.

I worked in an office that shut from Christmas Eve to the 2nd Jan every year. I miss that!

Where I live the sales don't start until mid January and I much prefer it. It is so depressing to buy stuff for Christmas and then see it discounted after a day! Plus it's better for the staff as although the shops are open, it's a quiet period after the Christmas build up.

But emergency staff, carers etc are needed. That's the difference. Do you really need to go shopping today? Do you really need to go to the pub or café today? You can't compare retail with essential jobs because it's not the same.
Some people may be happy to work Christmas in which case make it optional and if you can't be with your family for 2 days take a walk.
Where I work allowances are made for every single religion except Christinity. So they can take time off but if you celebrate Christmas tough luck. It's shit and why people are leaving in their droves.

Society could cope with the shops being shut today, but not until January. The supermarkets are crazy for a whole month before Christmas even when you only have to get through one day.

I wouldn't hark back to the 50s and 60s, I think you'll find people had less time off work then. Football matches used to be played on Christmas Day, a Sunday service operated on public transport and the pubs were definitely open.

I used to work in retail when I was a student. I needed to earn as much money as possible so I used to work loads of hours at Christmas/Easter/during the summer so that I could work minimal hours and focus on my studies during term time. Also, I didn’t have barely any family to spend Christmas with!

I loved working throughout Christmas in hotels years ago, Especially in my teens it was fun. I know a lot of people who have to take annual leave over this period who would rather work and have more summer off.